Amena Brown:
Ooh, y'all. Our guests today in our HER living room began her career as one of the most sought-after professional makeup artists in the game. She is now the founder and creator of Beautyblender, and let's talk about Beautyblender for a second, okay, because if any of you all are using makeup and skincare products, you have more than likely already use Beautyblender, okay? It is this wonderful invention that my guest today invented, okay? It's an egg-shaped, edgeless sponge.
Amena Brown:
You can use it for makeup and skincare. It's amazing, but look, she's also the founder of Beautyblender the business, okay? I'm excited to welcome to the HER Podcast Rea Ann Silva.
Rea Ann Silva:
Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much. That's an amazing introduction.
Amena Brown:
I have to clap, Rea Ann, so that we can feel the before times vibes, like if you and I were having like a conversation in front of an audience and we could see them and be close to them without masks, so I just have to clap so we can feel the vibes.
Rea Ann Silva:
Back in the old days?
Amena Brown:
Yeah, in the olden times. I wanted to tell you this story, Rea Ann, and any of you that are listening that have been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I have a segment called Give Her A Crown, and at the end of each episode, I choose a Woman of Color, and I give her a crown. I talk about the amazing things that she's doing in the world, and you are my first guest that was previously mentioned on a Give Her A Crown segment, so I gave you a crown several episodes ago and told the people all the amazing things about you and about your story, so when you said yes to this interview, I was like, I was just touched.
Rea Ann Silva:
Wow, what an honor. Well, I'm surprised and honored. That's ... It's funny, like they say you never really know the rooms of which your name is being mentioned, and you just let me in a room, girl. Thank you.
Amena Brown:
That's right. Well-deserved, sis. Well deserved. Rea Ann, I'm just so excited to get a chance to talk to you about your favorite things and just for our listeners to get a chance to learn more about you. One of the things that I have really enjoyed about hosting this podcast is, obviously, I'm getting to talk to brilliant Women of Color every week, which is amazing, but one of the things that is pretty consistent throughout all of the Women of Color that I've interviewed is our sense of groundedness in our people and the people that we come from, and some of that is our parents, our families.
Amena Brown:
Some of that is the city we're from or the country we're from. We have all these different places that are our people, and I would love to hear from you in your career and your, just trajectory in your life, how has that groundedness influenced you in your success? How have you been influenced by the people that you come from?
Rea Ann Silva:
Wow, that's a big question, and only big because there's been so many grounding influences that have helped direct me along the way. Being Latina and being from Los Angeles, I think is a combination of characteristics that really helped me in life, but more specifically, since we're talking about business, in my career. Starting out as a makeup artist in general, wanting to be in the entertainment industry, there's no better area to be from than Hollywood, California, right? Being that I'm a native Angeleno and come from Southern California, I mean, there is an added advantage that I feel is ... It's kind of like a DNA in some ways.
Rea Ann Silva:
For example, what I mean by that is I don't really get starstruck because I live in Los Angeles. I see people walking around on the streets all day long. I'm used to identifying and seeing people that I see in TV and on film just walking down the streets, so there's an element of familiarity, I think that gives a person a little more confidence than maybe someone that doesn't have that in their everyday life. I can tell you that as a makeup artist, hiring other people to work with me, I could always tell when someone was from another kind of upbringing because there's a certain nervousness they would always have being around a celebrity, where when you are just organically around them every day, it becomes normal. Again, being a Latina from Southern California, there's a huge Latin community here, always has been.
Rea Ann Silva:
I'm Mexican-American. My family that I identify with is Mexican, and really, from Colorado, but transplanted to California. I think that being Latina definitely contributed to my ability to recognize complexion shade ranges, and that was very useful in entertainment, whether you're working in film or television, commercial, music video, being able to create looks that don't look crazy, okay, and being able to work with celebrities of color, which I was very much known for at the time that I was working a lot. Right now, I spend most of my time running my Beautyblender business, my second life baby, but yeah. I think both of those facts about me being a Latina in Southern California really were some of the very helpful, kind of just organic characteristics that I held that enabled me to work successfully in this business.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love to ... Even in hearing that part of your story, Rea Ann, it's like, it is this history that we come from that makes us and gives us sort of this confidence that we need to step into what our life brings, and now, you are also making history yourself, so you were recently honored in a Smithsonian exhibit. First of all, just seeing the word Smithsonian just takes me all the way, like-
Rea Ann Silva:
I know. I'm with you. I'm still like, when I first met the curator, this woman, Crystal that lives in D.C. and works at the Smithsonian, I mean, the first thing I said to her was like, "Are you sure you got the right person?" I mean, I guess I was like, "This is too much. This is so incredible."
Amena Brown:
Oh my gosh. I actually lived in D.C. area for a little while as a child. My mom was a nurse. She worked at Walter Reed for a while, worked at George Washington University, so I just remember sometimes we would have like mom and daughter's day out, and she'd take me out of school, and she'd get off work early, and we would go down there to the Smithsonian, and the idea that someone would call you and say, "Here's this amazing institution. We want to honor you and your accomplishments," what was it like to see that coming together? What did it feel like?
Rea Ann Silva:
Well, I think I just told you. I mean, part of it was the ... I mean, okay, so I guess the story I just told you about, being from California and being a part of, kind of like the entertainment community simply because I lived in Los Angeles, gave me a certain kind of familiarity, and that someone from another place may not have. Well, then now, take me in the Smithsonian, like I was that person that was completely unfamiliar with ever thinking in any way that anything that I did in my life would ever be memorialized in a museum like the Smithsonian in an exhibit, like the only one in the room, which honors and recognizes women that have been game-changers in their industry, and being able to, to be included in a group of women that includes Madam C.J. Walker, I mean, come on, just I couldn't have ... I never dreamt that big. Do you know what I mean?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Rea Ann Silva:
I just never saw that coming, so it was a complete shock and a complete, just kind of like a moment where I just, you get on your knees and you think, "God." Like I don't know what your readers believe in, but I don't mean to be like a Holy Roller or any, like crazy thing, but I mean-
Amena Brown:
All of that's welcome.
Rea Ann Silva:
Those are the ones where you realize there are powers and plans for your life that you have nothing to do with. You can plan ... Like right now, I plan my life so much, like I plan my schedule, I plan all my launches, I plan strategies, but there are some things that you just cannot plan for, and just knock you on your ass, and really, that was one of them, and gratefully so, obviously, it's an incredible honor. I just think about for the years to come when I'm dead and gone, my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, they're going to be able to find me there. It's just, it's so crazy.
Rea Ann Silva:
It's insane. I could just ... I get misty thinking about it and talking about it. It's just crazy.
Amena Brown:
I'm here from a distance, and it makes me feel misty too, and just thinking about how many Women of Color in generations before us, and this is still happening obviously, some today too, just did such amazing work and their names were never attached to it, or there were these things they invented, they made, and someone else came along and swooped in, put their name on that and got the credit for it, and that's what made me emotional, seeing you featured there and like, there you are with this business you made and this invention you put out there, and your name is there forever. I mean, that's amazing.
Rea Ann Silva:
It was really a lesson to me also, because I felt like my career as a makeup artist happened before the digital revolution. I always tell people I came from the school of pretouch, so you don't have to retouch, because before everything was digital, a makeup artist was really valued for how perfect her makeup artistry was prior to Photoshop, like it would be very expensive to go back and be retouching everything all the time, so you became known for someone that the producers of the shoots didn't have to spend a lot of money fixing your makeup, fixing the stuff you did. For me, I worked really, really hard, and I did, I worked and I did so many jobs and so many incredible things that I felt were never acknowledged. I went through over 20 years of working when the videos that I'm working on were getting Moonmen, and Video Awards, and the TV shows that I would get, was working on were getting Emmys, but they weren't necessarily awarding the makeup artists or recognizing the artists, or I would see my peers who, I never get jealous of my peers, I'm always very supportive of them, but you have to take notice sometimes where you see some of your peers getting awarded for things and you're happy for them, but then you think like, "God, I did something really great that nobody knows about."
Rea Ann Silva:
The Smithsonian kind of just put all of that to rest, and I think that's something really important for people to know because we live in such an Instagram world right now, where everybody is seeing everybody's best life, and we never see the bad days or the struggles that people have on social media. You only see like they're living fabulous lives, and it was for me a moment to kind of just like say, "Hey, everybody has their time. Everybody has their moments," and I don't know how many of my peers are going to ever end up in the Smithsonian. I may not have gotten an Oscar for the movies that I've done, or I may not have gotten an Emmy for the TV shows I did, but I got a Smithsonian. Like that's amazing, right? I mean, crazy.
Amena Brown:
Oh, so amazing. Okay. I want to talk about some favorite things, Rea Ann, okay? I want to start with, do you have a favorite resource that you would say helped you as a business woman, because obviously, I'm asking a little selfishly because I'm also a business woman, and I know that there are a lot of listeners who may be on the verge of starting a business or maybe in that sort of gridlock where you started the business, but it's not quite achieving the way you want it to be. What are some favorite resources you have that you would say have really helped you in your journey?
Rea Ann Silva:
Okay. First off, I would like to say it was more of a human resource, so not so much a book I read or anything like that. Although there, I will give you a book that I read that was very helpful to me, but I would say first and foremost, the generosity of people in my industry that shared their experience was very important to me as a makeup artist. Look, and I went to FIDM. I thought I was going to be a fashion designer, ended up being a makeup artist, and didn't really ... I didn't go to a makeup school.
Rea Ann Silva:
I'm doing air quotes. I didn't go to a makeup school. I'm totally self-taught, so for me, I didn't have the benefit of an academic education that could have helped me along the way in business, which I would have very much benefited from, let me tell you. I wish I would have gone to the Wharton School of Business or gone to a university that would have prepared me for the back-end work that you have to do as a creative. However, I learned on the fly, and I'm still learning.
Rea Ann Silva:
Even to this day, even as widely distributed as my products are, I'm still learning every day, but I would say my most important resource as a brand founder and starting out was the generosity of human resource, people that were willing to share their experiences, share their failures. It's easy to share your win, but I need to hear your failures, because those are the watch-outs for me. Those are the things that I need to learn from, and failure is a great teacher, so don't think you ever, as an entrepreneur, go into any business and ... You shouldn't hope to fail, but when you do, just learn the lesson that that failure teaches you. From an actual reference book, for me, one of the biggest, helpful books that I read at the time was this book called The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Rea Ann Silva:
Me, again, as a creative, I had a whole vision for Beautyblender, that by the way, didn't include global domination. It was really me as a makeup artist, feeling like I had an opportunity to share this wonderful tool with my peers that were all going to be having the same challenge and that would be creating beautiful makeup, natural looks for high definition, because high definition was very new at the time, and all high definition is this digital film, but I didn't know the business and the administrative parts of the business that I needed to know, but I also needed to learn more about the marketing and branding of a product, and I had all these ideas that I knew I could launch with other makeup artists, but how do you cross-over into the consumer's market? How do you position a product that's never been seen before, that's a completely new concept? How do you introduce something new to the consumer that they don't know they need? That book was very helpful.
Rea Ann Silva:
It taught me about the importance of competition, so when you create a category, like Beautyblender created its own categories, there's no competition in that column. You are the only ... You are at the top of that list and you've created something new. There's no competition for you to bounce off and compete with in order to keep marketing going, so it was a really interesting book for me, because at the time, I didn't realize I was creating a category either, by the way. I just knew I needed to be able compete in a market where there were other application tools. That book was very, very helpful to me, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.
Amena Brown:
Ooh, come on. That felt like a masterclass to me. That is good. That's good. Y'all can check the show notes for the link to this book because I'm going to get it too. Y'all can get it.
Amena Brown:
We can talk about it. It's funny that you said in your first part of this answer, that the main resource you were thinking about, that they were human resources. When I looked at this question, I was like, "Oh, I feel like if someone asked me that, I would almost have like names to name or stories to tell of people that had those conversations with me." I mean, I remember in my industry as a poetry performer, I sort of walk the line between a performing artist and a keynote speaker, and so when I first was getting booked for things, I don't know how much to charge. I don't know there was a lot of business being done in the green room, that I didn't understand what was happening, and it truly was other women of color that sort of, we became our own backchannel community to each other in a way of going, "Okay. Well, did you get booked for the blah, blah, blah, and who talked to you there?," and like, "How much did you charge?"
Amena Brown:
"How much should I charge?," and having those real, sort of behind the scenes conversations that I wouldn't normally walk up to anyone and just start talking about money or any of those things, but the fact that there were people in my industry willing to say, "Hey, when you go to work for that person, here's some things to think about." So empowering. Can you share now what is your favorite way to treat yourself?
Rea Ann Silva:
It's changed in the last year, because we're all living in this COVID world where we're quarantining.
Amena Brown:
Okay.
Rea Ann Silva:
If you would have asked me that question a year ago, I would say my favorite way to treat myself is to spa. I am like a spa connoisseur. I mean, literally around the world, I go to whatever the traditional idea of spa is for that country, for that culture, for that area, and I just really immerse myself in self-care and treatments. It's a part of my education too, being in the beauty industry. I try to just stay on top of cultural traditions and beauty procedures that maybe I'm not exposed to, so spaing was something that I did, but now that our spas are all kind of closed, we can't share those kind of close quarters and those kind of experiences.
Rea Ann Silva:
In the last year, I would say primarily it's self-care, and it's really just trying to align my mind, body, and spirit, and soul together, and trying to relax and breathe because I tend to be able to take on a lot of stress, and I don't realize that I'm taking on a lot of stress. I'm just a doer, so I just, I stay in motion. I don't feel stress, but it's there, and this last year has really made me realize that. What I mean is in the last year, since I've been home since this time last year, I can't even believe I've been home this long. I have, by the way, never stayed in one place this long in over 30 years.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Rea Ann Silva:
What I've learned in this last year about myself is being still, and really being able to rest has been hugely beneficial to my mind and my body. I have lost over 70 pounds in the last year, and I attribute it to not traveling.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Rea Ann Silva:
I attribute it to sleeping in my own bed every night. I attribute it to being in the same time zone every day. I attribute it to Zoom. Zoom is one of my favorite things now because it allows me to transcend and travel to different locations. Like 7:00 this morning, I was talking to a lab in Italy, and I was talking to somebody, and I didn't have to fly to Italy, which I know people are like, "We would love to fly to Italy," and so would I.
Rea Ann Silva:
I would love to fly to Italy right now too. However, the schedule that I kept before with all of the traveling, where I was in different times zones, not sleeping in my own bed, by the way, having breakfast, lunch, and dinner, happy hour meetings, and drinking, and having food, like all of those things were cut out, right? It was forced on me. It allowed me to feel the best that I have felt in over 20 years I feel right now. I'm rested, I'm healthy, I can move, I had back problems, I was starting to have knee problems.
Rea Ann Silva:
All of that is gone, so right now, my favorite self-care or indulgent thing that I do for myself is just to give myself time and space, and to really understand now when I feel stressed, because before, I was numb. I never knew when I felt stressed because I was go, go going, so now is just to really check in and understand when I'm feeling stressed. I can actually feel it now where before, I couldn't.
Amena Brown:
Ooh, I really identify with that, and I wonder sometimes if that is a rhythm entrepreneurs get into, because so much of our business is connected to us, connected to what we have to do to keep it going, and I do remember a family member stopping me in the before times, because like you, I was travel ... I mean, that was my whole business, was traveling, and performing, and events. That was really what I was doing before I was full-time podcasting, and so I was all the time on the road, and I remember I had a family member stopped me at a family function, and she was like, "I'm really concerned about you, concerned about how stressed you are," and I was like ...
Rea Ann Silva:
I'm fine.
Amena Brown:
It's like, "What?" Like I just ... But now, to your point, when you are home and you have time to contemplate your life and its rhythm, and that slow down time, I was like, "Wow, okay. Yeah." Now, looking at the response in my body, I was totally stressed, so I think that's wonderful.
Rea Ann Silva:
Women in general and Women of Color, I will say, we are super women. If we have children, we're everything to those children, plus, usually have a career, but depending on the kind of career you have too. If you look at the career of being in a service providing position as a makeup artist is, and at a high level with celebrities too, you learn to be selfless, okay, and you have to give yourself up to someone else's schedule. You never can prioritize your schedule. You're either on a TV schedule or a celebrity schedule, so for me, I learned to always put myself second, third, fourth position.
Rea Ann Silva:
I never put myself in the first position because I had to make a living. My priority was to make sure I could feed my children, and clothe them, and take care of them. Then, secondly was to make sure that my parents and my elders were comfortable, that I was contributing to making their life as comfortable as I could. Then, it was my partner trying to have a personal relationship. It was never me.
Rea Ann Silva:
It was always someone else before me, and then a celebrity. When you align yourself with a celebrity and you start working with them, the way that you align yourself with them and the way that you mutually create a relationship together is that they appreciate the fact that you can get on their schedule, because you're there to make their life easier, whether it's making them look beautiful. When I do someone's makeup, they shouldn't have to sit in the mirror for five minutes later, and then look at it. It should be like they get up, they go, and they do their job. You make their life easier, so for me, and then being a brand founder too, they're kind of the same thing.
Rea Ann Silva:
Like I suddenly had staff, and I suddenly had people that I wanted them to know, I cared about them, I wanted them to know that I had their best interests at heart and that together, we're going to create this magic in the business, so you tend put yourself back, but this year has really taught me that if I'm not feeling 100% and I'm not good, then I can't be good for anybody else, so you will be good. You will sacrifice yourself to make sure that you accomplish your goals, but at the end of the day, I was starting to feel very sick. I was starting to not feel well. I was starting to feel unhealthy, so yeah, giving myself time this year has really been a blessing. It's one of the silver linings, I would say of this whole situation.
Rea Ann Silva:
I have a lot of friends that said, "Oh my God, I've gained 20 pounds, and COVID." I'd be like, "I ..." I mean, for me, this has worked in the complete opposite way for me.
Amena Brown:
Oh, that is a word. Let me ask you this now. What is your favorite song? It could be songs, if it's not just one. If you have a couple of them, that's okay too. What's your favorite song that gets you motivated.
Rea Ann Silva:
Can I say favorite artists?
Amena Brown:
Yes, I'm here for that.
Rea Ann Silva:
I have so many like ... Okay. You've got to know, I worked in music video through MTV Revolution, and I worked for so many years. That was how I started in my career as a makeup artists. I love music, all genres and all eras, but I will say, the music that speaks to my soul the most are India Arie, who was a client of mine for many, many years, and we're still friends, and ...
Rea Ann Silva:
I mean, her music, it doesn't matter where I'm at, and it's not because I know her. This would have been something that would have resonated with me without knowing her, but India is for sure an artist that I can listen to at any time. It doesn't matter how many times I hear the music. By the way, I'm somebody, I don't like to watch a movie twice because first of all, I'm the worst person to watch a movie with because I'm looking at continuity all the time and trying to figure out, "Oh, they had to come back and shoot this another day because their makeup looks different." I mean, it's like crazy.
Rea Ann Silva:
I'm bad to watch a movie with, but music, I can listen to her anytime. The other one is also somebody I worked with, and again, it just still resonates with me, is Erykah Badu, anytime. I can listen to those ladies anytime anywhere, and I feel like I hear something different in the music. The message is different to me. I can relate to it and apply some of the lessons and the things they talk about at different points in different circumstances and situations that I'm in.
Rea Ann Silva:
It just always resonates with me, and Stevie Wonder. I mean, those are the three like anytime, anywhere, always. There's so many songs, there's not one, it's the vibe. It's just the messaging, and the music, and the production, and the quality, and those are my three.
Amena Brown:
Ooh, first of all, that was an amazing three, and second of all, I know we just met, Rea Ann, but we have those two artists in common right there because that would have been two of my names right there. Like I just, this year actually, started back listening to Erykah Badu's albums in chronological order, and like you said, just going back and like hearing the music develop over time, and even this theme in these first few albums.
Rea Ann Silva:
I did her on video like-
Amena Brown:
Oh yes, yes.
Rea Ann Silva:
She came to my house and we hung out before the video, and then we did the video, and it just like ... She's an interesting lady. She's a very interesting lady, and I tend to meet a lot of really interesting ladies and I always seem to get along with them. Maybe I'm an interesting lady. I don't know. I hope I-
Amena Brown:
I don't think so, Rea Ann. I think so.
Rea Ann Silva:
I feel very boring, but they're like these creative, like her and India both. I've hung out and spent a lot of, with India more so than Erykah, but I spent a lot of personal time, and they're just such interesting people. I think that's why the music resonates with me. I mean, it's so speaks to my soul, you know?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Rea Ann Silva:
Then, I met Stevie when I was very young and hung out with him a lot at his Wonderland Studios when I was actually going to FIDM, and had the opportunity to spend some good quality time with him too. Again, just so interesting. Interesting people.
Amena Brown:
And making art, that's so honest and has this element of being so vulnerable and so human. I love that too.
Rea Ann Silva:
Yeah.
Amena Brown:
What is your favorite food that makes you think of home?
Rea Ann Silva:
Oh my God, you got to know, it's Mexican food. That is my soul food, right?
Amena Brown:
Right.
Rea Ann Silva:
I mean, I remember being four or five years old and going to my grandma's house in East L.A., and looking up at the stove and her patting, making homemade tortillas and just ... It's the food that makes me feel comfortable. It's vibrant, it's flavorful, it's just, it's everything. I love my Mexican food.
Amena Brown:
Are there any dishes in general that are like your go-to, your favorite, or is it basically like anywhere you are that you can eat, get a Mexican food? You're like everything, everything is amazing?
Rea Ann Silva:
I have a pretty broad range of much loved dishes within Mexican cuisine, but if you want to say just like my comfort food, is some good, old, refried beans, homemade refried pinto beans, some Mexican rice with a little bit of onion and tomato in it, some green peas, some crispy beef tacos, some Chili Verde. I just ... We have traditional dishes within my family that we make. I know that Mexican families have different specialties, but those are the kind of foods that I liked, just enchiladas. My mom makes the most ... My mom, thank God, I still have her.
Rea Ann Silva:
She's 84 years old. We make tamales at Christmas. She makes the most amazing cheese enchiladas. I mean, just something so simple. Like it's not a fancy enchilada, it's just the most delicious thing, and it just, it makes me feel loved, it just fills me up, I feel like I could eat a whole platter of them, which I shouldn't, but they're just so good, and yeah, just Mexican food, and then you have to have a margarita.
Amena Brown:
Obviously. Yes. That's a must, please. Last question for you, what is your favorite thing about you?
Rea Ann Silva:
Man, I spend and I have spent most of my life focusing on other people, so this is a hard one for me. I don't know, you know? At 50 something years old now, that's a really interesting question. I guess my favorite thing about me is that I'm a very open person. I'm open to different lifestyles, I'm open to different life choices that people have, I'm open to constantly learning, and I think that's important. I feel like I've met a lot of people along the way that feel like they know everything, and at some point, they get stuck, and I never want to get stuck.
Rea Ann Silva:
I want to keep growing and I want to keep experiencing life. Listen, we're going through such crazy times right now, and I tell my son this. He's 20 years old. He goes to Howard University, and he's trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, and his college experience is so crazy right now because it's all online. It's like he's not getting that whole experience that you would think a college student would have, and I just, I try to tell him and I say this to anybody that will listen, that life is good, you know?
Rea Ann Silva:
The world is generally good. People are good, and you just have to stay open because right now, it's so easy to just feel like, we're so polarized and people are so different, and that we're in two different places, and the reality is that we are, but I think generally, we have to remember that life is good and people are good. I think that staying optimistic is a really important characteristic that we need to nurture and make sure that we grow within our spirits because it's so easy to become pessimistic, and judgmental, and not see the good in life, and life is good. Life is good.
Amena Brown:
What a beautiful way to close this conversation, Rea Ann. Life is good and people are good.
Rea Ann Silva:
It's not always easy, and you know what? I kind of ... The president of my company is always scared when I say this, but it's life is not always easy, but I do welcome the challenges because I know I'm going to learn something from them.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Rea Ann Silva:
It doesn't mean I want to walk in a challenge all day, every day, but don't be afraid when life gives you some complications or some challenges. It's your opportunity to figure some stuff out and grow.
Amena Brown:
I hope y'all are soaking all of this in, all of this goodness from Rea Ann today. Rea Ann, thank you for joining our community today, for sharing your favorite things and your inspiration and your story with us. It has been a big honor to me. Thank you.
Rea Ann Silva:
Thank you. It's been fun.
Amena Brown:
I hope y'all were soaking up all that wisdom and inspiration Rea Ann had for us. I'm so happy she got to be a guest in our living room. To learn more about Beautyblender, visit Beautyblender.com and follow Beautyblender on Instagram, @Beautyblender. To learn more about Rea Ann, you can follow her on Instagram, @reaannsilva. For this and other fun details from the episode, you can check out the show notes at amenabrown.com/herwithamena, and follow me on Instagram and Twitter, @amenab and say hi.
Amena Brown:
I might just say hi back. For this week's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to shout out singer/songwriter and podcaster, India Arie. Like Rea Ann, I have loved India's music for many years. Each of her albums seems to find me at the exact time that she is articulating the feelings and thoughts I'm processing at that season in my life. I listened to Acoustic Soul and Voyage to India as I found my voice and my career path in my 20's.
Amena Brown:
I listened to Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship while going through a breakup. I fell in love listening to her albums, Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics and Songversation. In the last couple of years, I started listening to India's podcast, SongVersation, and felt so encouraged and inspired hearing her share her journey in the music industry in her own words. India Arie's words and music remind me to be my full self, to use my voice, and not make myself small, to be my beautiful, soft, bold black woman self. India Arie, thank you for your music, your words, for reminding us all that music and love have the power to heal.
Amena Brown:
India Arie, give her a crown. HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.