Perception of music unbiased

When I was growing up in Russia there were two worlds of music in our view: pop artists who's image was more important than their music and other artists who's music meant to us more than their image. The first ones were all over the place, they were in magazines and on MTV - when it first appeared in Russia in 1998. Only thing we (when I say we - my friends and I) knew about the other ones was their music, which we couldn't really get from a high street music store - we had to buy bootleg CDs from specialized stores and a bootleg superstore called "Gorbushka". When I was 18 and that was a few months before I started performing my music professionally, I worked at one of the hundreds of stores in "Gorbushka" - selling world music and reggae and it was like an information point to many people who were interested in reggae and dub, and where they could actually get it. A few bootleg stores like that were the only places in Moscow where you could buy most of drum&bass, reggae, r&b, hip-hop and they were like these little spots of spreading news about new releases. This is where people would come and ask: "So what new albums have you got?" because there wasn't much known about artists other than Russian pop stars in the Russian media and will buy like ten CDs at once to listen to for the next month. Only in 2005 a section on reggae music was opened for the first time ever in a licensed music store and that seemed like a victory.The only gossip magazines were about Russian and a few foreign pop stars, who we were not interested in anyway, so that passed by me. Foreign press was almost unavailable, and a very few items of US and UK magazines were sold may be in two on three shops in the whole of Moscow and at a price that was equal to a weekly salary of an average person at the time - that was out of reach too. Hip Hop, reggae, drum&bass and jungle in our perception was the music to us that was free from gossip, publicity stunts, we knew about the artists one thing: their music and when it was released. In our minds it was different from Russian pop artists we were sick and tired of hearing about on TV every day. When I was 13 I recall only one music magazine that was available at the time and it was about mainly rock music - "Rovesnik", I used to save pocket money my mom gave me for breakfast to buy it. It was a window to foreign rock stars and the history of music. At the time Internet was not available everywhere and was so slow that it took 10 minutes to load a page, so it wasn't a popular source of information on music, PCs were rare in Moscow homes too. Once though I read an article about Lauryn Hill and this magazine would only cover a hip hop or soul artist only if their impact was so great you couldn't ignore it. I went and bought "Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" and I was the only one in my neighbourhood listening to her. It was so fresh and it is still one of my favorites. So from that time I started buying hip hop and later reggae cassettes (mostly at the time) and CDs along with my rock music. Because it wasn't easy to get this sort of music, once somebody got it, we would discuss a new album for a week. %98 of Russian music fans at that time would not understand lyrics of the non-Russian artist though, especially slang, because of lack of knowlegde in English, it was the beat and performance that was fascinating :) I learned about soul music from a friend I met at class at Russian Music Academy and it happened that her father was a big soul music collector. When I went to the big music store in Arbat, I didn't find any section on soul music, there was only a tiny spot called "jazz" and may be one our two soul compilations stuck in between jazz CDs. My friend's father had to order CDs and DVDs from United States and get them shipped to Moscow. My friend was like a window to r&b, soul and gospel music for me, she was my main information, only die hard music fans and collectors knew about Anita Baker, Faith Evans or CeCe Winans in Russia, it was so exclusive. Then I started listening to drum&bass and electronic music and again I didn't even know how the djs and artists look, nothing about their image. It was all about the music. When I was 16-17 I also used to go to a very closed member bar/club "Shtopor", where the entrance was masked and two metal doors were opened at secret password and fingerprints - that place was one of those little cultural islands where I learned about non-mainstream music, art and literature, also indie movies were shown there. Every piece of information was exclusive at the time and when I moved to London I almost drowned and got lost in this world of music and everything about it here ... In a way lack of information tought me to appreciate the artists for their music and what they are saying rather than anything else, and their story would only mean to us something if it directly linked to and inspired their music.

I'd like to thank everybody who appreciates my music

Special thank you to everybody, who appreciates my music and has supported me through all times. The most important is the message and what we create, we live and we learn, we share our experiences in the form of words, art, music, sculpture and much more. Love is the answer. There is no machine that created or manufactured my image, my music is reflection of what I feel and hear through space and time. Every single person who supports what I do is very important to me. Thank you.

Can there be roses without thorns?

There is nothing better than being able to work on my music 24/7 and spending time with my daughter, who I can't imagine my life without. That is the roses, but the thorns are everyday routine that I have to do like millions of women/mothers out there: the cycle of cleaning/washing/cooking/sorting out the mess around the house the children make and trying to make it, jobs we take on just because "it pays" instead of solidifying a career, and trying to stay positive because children want to see us smile and happy all the time, we can't afford to show them tears even when it's hard to hide. If I don't do the everyday routine - nobody's gonna do it. It probably makes a difference if you have a few family members to help you, but what if you don't? Even though it has never been easy, in the first year of the baby's life it is vital that the mother stays at home and puts career and everything else away. I did that, I was with my daughter 24/7 and I didn't have any babysitters. My mother helped me after I gave birth and then went back to Russia, but the sleepless nights straight out of the hostpital, those endless nights when the baby was waking up every hour to be fed were solely on me because I was breastfeeding. I couldn't sleep during the day either. Even when I came out of the hospital two days after I gave birth, when I came home with my daughter I had to assamble the crib for her ... My mom was back and forth to Russia because of her visa restrictions and at that time I was still dealing with my immigration case, so I had to rely on our finances only, never been on welfare, but then I wasn't entitled to it anyway, paid bills and everything as if I was any working person. Then when my daughter was about 6 months old my mother had to stay in Russia for the next 6 months and that was one of the hardest times in my life. I never had a friend who would babysit for me, so this cycle was all on me and even when I did radio interviews occasionally I had to take my daughter with me and hold her in my arms while standing up next to the microphone. Me and my daughter in the pram in the rain - that's like an endless story. Of course, I gave up on the club life and many other things, in fact for the past few years my life has been so anti-glamorous that I feel the need to wear official clothes in the house, so at least I stay focused on my work, which I mostly do from home. I wish I had someone help me clean the shit that would end up being all over the place within five minutes while I just went to check if the dinner was ready for my daughter and I. I wish I could send off someone to the shop to get milk whenever my daughter and I were both ill instead of me getting her in the pram (and that procedure would sometimes take quite a time) getting dressed and going out in the cold. I wish I could sometimes have a breather like all other young people of my age do and I haven't been on a holiday since I've been in London - for the past four years! In fact, for two years I stayed with my daughter all the time, no day care. With all these things though, I feel that going through these "joys" of motherhood %100 and personal sacrifice (career, private life for a time) is what establishes the bond with the child. It is the essence of unconditional love, because you do this without wanting something back, you just do it because you love your child. I know my mother did the same for me, now I have to look after her the same way. Then everything and your career spins around your child and the focus and the main goal is to achieve things in life for your child. May be if I had everything at my feet, nice and easy from the beginning I wouldn't appreciate simple things in life as much as I do now and won't be able to understand what millions of women are going through every day. So there is a reason for everything, and every cinderella dreams about this cycle being broken and only roses being left and that life would change one day, that all our efforts will bring fruits, and we can do what we love most, roses with no thorns - spending time with our children and doing work that we love 24/7.

P.S. At the same time I wasn't allowed to work and earn money due to my political asylum case being considered until May 2009 and I wanted to do things but was not allowed to say get paid gigs or sell music, get any job at all, I had to keep doing things for free just to stay occupied, because I love to keep moving and getting things going, then seeing fruits of my work. While my case was considered had to keep going through different stages of reconsideration in immigration court and sign in and out with my daughter at immigration point every two weeks. At the same time I was not entitled to get any benifits or discounts and be on welfare, so financially it was not easy at all. I already started new life from beginning when I moved to London in 2006 and then had to be on hold for two years and start again in 2009. When you are an immigrant in many cases you have to work 10 times harder and speed up because it's not the place where you have family, childhood friends and you have to build your network from zero. My daughter definitely keeps me focused and gives me inspiration to continue persuing my goals and helps me make the right choices, so right now I'm trying to combine everything, look after my daugher, work on my music as well as helping other artists, building my record label and do the house work like many other women out there :)

"Fame Money Game" by Jahna Sebastian

Produced by Jahna Sebastian

download FREE :

http://limelinx.com/files/8d66cc907090a74b1080809f7f29da45

Multivizion Music

Me playing domra in children's orchestra back in 96

When I was a kid I used to play in Russian children's orchestra, part of the Russian Ansamble named after Loktev. I played there for 8 years, this is the footage from a concert in May 1996, I was 9 years old at the time.

"No Illusions" music video

"No Illusions" out now on iTunes, Amazonmp3, eMusic etc.
Directed by Jahna Sebastian and Black Jack Productions
http://www.myspace.com/jahnasebastian
Multivizion Music/Insomnia Music Productions