Amena Brown:
Ooh, you all. Welcome back to HER with Amena Brown. And I just want to give you all a special shout out all of my listeners. I am seeing you all when I go into the back end of the podcasting, I'm seeing you all listening on here. So I just want you to know you are appreciated. And I want you to know that I am very excited about the guest we have in our HER living room today. I want to welcome singer songwriter and half of rock and roll country, soul duo The War and Treaty, let's welcome Tanya Trotter.
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah. I am so excited to be on this podcast with you today. I'm so excited.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, listen. Let me tell you all. First of all, I had the opportunity to meet Tanya and her husband. We were on the road together on the Together Live tour shout out to all of my Together Live folks that we got a chance to tour with in 2019. And I immediately struck up a conversation with Tanya and her husband talking about television. We just-
Tanya Trotter:
Yes and who knew we'd be doing this for the next nine months. Watching series, watching tv.
Amena Brown:
Exactly. They were giving me tips on different shows they had watched. And then there was some shows we all watched and we talked about it. We spent all the time before that show just talking TV. And of course, getting a chance to... One of the things that's a big plus of being on a tour Together Live is that you are on stage while everyone performs. And those of us that are touring artists that's not always the case, so getting a chance to be on stage together and experience each other's performances which is how I got a chance to hear Michael and Tanya Trotter do the thing.
Amena Brown:
And if you all, haven't heard this music, you all need to go do that. Don't go do it yet because we are about to talk. But after we talk, you all need to go and do that, because it is just I mean, I've been in that room, we also... I had a chance to perform at MAKERS Conference, sharing stage together there and it's just beautiful. It's just beautiful.
Tanya Trotter:
Thank you. And we experienced you and you are incredible. I mean, you know people use words like cliche words, like incredible, phenomenal, she's so amazing, but you I mean just breathtaking. We talk about it all the time, just how you're able to capture the audience with your words. And they're holding on to every thing that comes out of your mouth and I'm just so happy that we had an opportunity to experience you. And we all made that human connection that we made during that tour time.
Amena Brown:
Yes, you all, I'm telling you all when the pandemic is over, I don't know where The War And Treaty is going to be on tour, but I'm just going to go there. Just uninvited. I'm going to go there and be like "I'm sorry, I thought we was doing this together, it's not? I thought we was doing this together." I'm just going to show up there because that's how I feel about it.
Amena Brown:
So first of all Tanya, I want you to know that The War And Treaty as a duo, you all have fans and individually, you all have fans as well, because I was telling a couple of people that I was interviewing you today. And they were so excited. They were like, oh my gosh, yes. I want to hear everything. I want to know everything. So Tanya, I want to talk about the duo of The War And Treaty, but can you tell us a little bit about your half of the duo? You have been singing, writing songs, you have also been involved in film. You just had a lot of different experiences in the entertainment industry. So this is what I want you to do, start me out. And if you think of yourself, when you were first entering the beginnings of the entertainment industry, did you expect entering it then what the music would become now?
Tanya Trotter:
I had no clue. I started out in church like most people sing on the choir and my mom was from Panama. So in my household was gospel music, it was Calypso music, it was classical music. And then being from Washington DC, it was global music. It was a plethora of music just flowing through my household and flowing through my church and my community. And I just knew that I wanted to do music. I knew that there was... Once I heard my brother sing one Sunday morning I think I was about six or seven years old, I was like, I want to do this for the rest of my life. And I didn't know how I would do it or what avenues I would go about doing it. So I started doing talent shows and getting in a pageant, Hal Jackson Talented Teen Pageant which was really big in mid nineties.
Tanya Trotter:
And I won that pageant. Then I went to high school and studied music there and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. And from Duke Ellington School of the Arts, I went back to Potomac high school where I ended up getting a scholarship to Morgan State University for vocal music.
Amena Brown:
Wow!
Tanya Trotter:
And I'm in the process of doing that, I was at this time 17 years old about to enter college and I entered this talent contest. It was called Big Break and the legendary now late great Natalie Cole was the host. And I performed on that show and a record company saw me performing on that show and they reached out to my school at the time. And they were like, we want to give you a contract. So I went to New York with my mom and ended up signing a contract with a company who was managing Melba Moore. These are people Pearly, Melba Moore, back in the day being in on Broadway. I was obsessed with her voice and her being able to hold this note. So the thought that Melba Moore's management company had wanted to do with me at all, I was like yes.
Tanya Trotter:
So I signed with them and then Sister Act 2 opportunity came up. And that was something that we all kind of just auditioned for not knowing what would happen from that. And I did that and ended up in that movie, put out a record. And right when the record came out, I remember touring with all the big acts, Ashlee Simpson, Freddie Jackson, who were also very kind to me. I remember one day and I was just like, "I don't want to do it this way. I want to do something different."
Tanya Trotter:
I like Leontyne Price, and Kathleen Battle, and Tina Turner, and Dolly Parton, and I like all these different styles of music, but I was stuck in this box of just doing R&B. At that time it had the Black music division and the ANR division. And you were a Black artist and you only at your shows saw Black faces. But one of my best friends was white. And I'm like, why can't I just do music that is just good music, yo? And so at that time I told my manager that I didn't know what to do. So we went on and we kept touring and doing things like that. And we ended up leaving this particular label and I signed briefly with Sean Combs at Bad Boy.
Tanya Trotter:
And that experience was definitely not what I knew I wanted my career to be. Not that it was a bad experience. I just I knew I wasn't a hip hop artist. I knew that this wasn't the path for me, but in that process I learned a lot about the business. And so I left there, they recorded so much music for me. That's where I started writing for Shanice Wilson. And I wrote for Heavy D and a lot of big name artists at that time. So I left and this is the funny part. And I decided in the middle of my career that I wanted to go to hair school.
Amena Brown:
Wow!
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah. So people are like, "What happens to Tanya Blount?" I was like, you know what? I don't want to do this, I don't want to do it this way. I'm going through some kind of spiritual awakening. I don't know what's happening with me. I'm trying to hear this voice that I'm hearing everybody talk about since I was seven years old sitting in the baptist pews. I went to hair school and I did that for about I would say seven to eight years. I also I dibbled and dabbled in music where I would kind of teach worship teams and stuff like that. But I knew that that wasn't it either. I wasn't just going to be a worship leader there was more. And I could take the experience from worship, the experience from gospel, the experience from R&B, Christian.
Tanya Trotter:
My dad from New Bern, North Carolina, I could take that country experience that I had sitting on the front porch with my grandparents, drinking ice tea and playing in the pond with the frogs and the cows and the pigs. I could take that country experience. And there was going to be an opportunity where I could one day mesh all this together. And fast forwarding, I met my husband. I heard him perform at this love festival out in Laurel, Maryland. He was incredible. I mean, the lyrics, everything, it just rushed from the stage to where I was in the middle of the field. And I'm like, who is this guy who could be this vulnerable with music? Because that's what I wanted. I wanted to meet someone who would once again ignite not just a fire for music in me but the fire for life because I had lost my sense of life.
Tanya Trotter:
And we met. Not right away, we started doing music because my brother was trying to record. So I was working with him at the time. There was some stuff. And I asked Michael to write a couple of songs for a project that we were going to possibly do. So he did that. And my brother did make a rehearsal. Michael did some reference vocals to the track. One of my girlfriends heard the song and was like, "Do you guys hear this? Do you hear what you guys are doing?" And we were like, "Yeah." And we kind of just brushed it off. Six months later we get married. We don't sing together for three years. So The War And Treaty didn't happen with music. We just fell in love. It was like every day we're together. We were like I'm just wanting whatever this energy is that he has, this incredible human being.
Tanya Trotter:
So we get married and I find out that he's a wounded warrior and he starts letting me in on why he writes the songs as fast as he does. And as deep as he does. And it clicked. We started singing together. He started letting me into his world and that was the birth of The War And Treaty.
Amena Brown:
Wow!
Tanya Trotter:
That was it. And I knew right away when he started writing these songs, I was like I can do music again because it's honest. And I'm not trying to be something that I'm not, I don't have to put on a mini dress and toss around some heels and sing songs that I won't really like just to sell a record. I didn't want to do that. And that's what we did. We got in our van with our little baby and we toured the country, coffee shops. Sometimes two people would show up. Sometimes five people would show up and I started all over. I started from scratch and people thought Tanya Blount was dead. I would read articles about it. And people will... Did you see this? My friends are like, they're saying you're dead. You've got to find a record. I was like, I am, I'm dead to that life.
Tanya Trotter:
I'm dead to that. And I'm born again in this. So that's my quick spin of how I got to The War And Treaty. And the spiritual experience that it was because it was very spiritual getting to this place.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. I mean, there's two things you said that really hit home to me. The most ignorant part is... I mean, I can sing enough to hold a note but I should really be with others like in a choir type of situation. I shouldn't be alone singing. But because I don't have that gift, I just always imagine people who can really sing are just walking around their house all the time singing. So my mind is like, how could these two vocalists which is probably why I didn't get the gift, because if I was married to somebody that could sing like the two of you can sing, if I could sing and he could sing, I feel like I would just be walking around the house and just singing random words all the time for nothing.
Amena Brown:
So I just can't even imagine that. But I think that's a beautiful part of the story in that the foundations were the love and the relationship, and then building the ability to be partners in art and in business. I think it's beautiful that the foundation was, you all be in a love with each other and walking through life. Walking through all of the ups and downs that life is going to bring. The other thing you said that I thought was so important, and I have given this advice when I've done talks with college students that are artists or performing artists. And they're always like, "I'm about to graduate from college, what should I do?" And I'm always like, "You should get a job." And I feel like it's always the unsexy advice, because I think they're hoping I'm going to say, you should go onto it right away. You should make an album. You should do those things too.
Amena Brown:
But even you telling that story, all of these experiences you had in the industry and then you coming to that point where you like, I'm about to go to cosmetology school and I'm going to do that. And just do that for awhile. But that's life that's... Those experiences are where for me, the poems they come from the life that we live, whatever that looks like. And I'm like, sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is take a break from some of this and just get you a job.
Tanya Trotter:
That is so true until you can... Because your art form, it's an energy that's best, it surges, it pushes through an atmosphere. So whenever you're putting out art, it's not like a hairstyle where you'll do someone's hair and it's great for that photo. And when they wash it, it goes away. Music never goes away. People can always find this energy that you put into this world. And I'm like I don't want to put songs that I don't feel good about into the world. Or energy into the world. So the best thing I could do, like you said, go sit down somewhere until I figured out what is my energy? Who am I in all of this? Because I started so young, I started record deal at 17, right out of high school.
Amena Brown:
It's just amazing to think about. And I hope for any of you all listening that are artists. I think the other thing that you said that really encouraged me is sometimes as an artist, it's challenging to balance finding your own voice and honoring your own creativity while being in the middle of a business as well. And doing what you have to do to take care of your soul, to honor your creative person. Even if that goes against what air quotes the business says, you should be at that point, or you should be doing, or you should be sounding like this or that when really, so much of it is about you coming to sound like yourself. And continuing to become who you are as you grow and experience different things. I thought that was so powerful. I do have another question, which is somewhat selfish because my husband and I also work together.
Amena Brown:
We have performed together as a duo before. And that was fascinating because we work very differently. I need a lot of quiet and jazz and stuff in order to write my poems and my husband as a DJ, as a music producer, he could watch a cartoon get inspired from that, or watch a stand-up comedian or just grab some things and make some noise. So when we tried creating in the same room, we were like no, we can't do this. We can't do this. In the same room like this. So what has it been like, being married to your duo partner also because there are people that perform together, but they don't have the other part of their life that they live together. They're not romantic partners, they're not parenting together. So what have been some of the lessons you've learned as you and your husband have navigated that.
Tanya Trotter:
That's not a blueprint for us. People are like, "Can't you get sick of each other and don't you need your space?" There's none of that. We wake up and whatever the day is going to give us, we kind of take it. Sometimes Michael will say, "Hey, look let's rehearse." And I'll just pretty much say, okay, maybe we can rehearse at this time. So that's the lead in it because I do more around the house, For the most part I'm the person that does most of that when we're home. And we travel with our son. So I homeschool him as well. So the creative side of it is really more so Michael is the writer. I write very minimum. I'm from writing on the new stuff that we're doing, but he'll bring me a batch of songs and he will say, "Okay, I'm thinking about us going this way with The War And Treaty, what do you think?" And I'll say, nah or I'll say, yeah. And then we'll start just crafting what we want to talk about. And we'll have these songs and Michael will bring them to me.
Tanya Trotter:
And then we kind of just chop them down. We thought it was 50, we may end up agreeing on 12 to 14 songs together. But the balance is, there is no balance. It's really hard when I hear people say, we try to balance it, I just don't, there's not one. When I feel like I don't want to record, or I don't want to sing today, I'll just say to him, I don't want to do that right now. And he'll say, okay, let's watch a movie. And here you go, we'll watch a series for two days. Watch a television series or something like that to break up the monotony of doing music all the time. So that's our balance.
Amena Brown:
I love that. And I do feel like for my husband and I being life partners and business partners as well, it is this interesting. I don't know, I wish I need to come up with a better word for it. Because I feel like you're right. I feel like balance is not the word that I want to put there, but there's a lot of things that overlap, I guess in that experience for us, that there are times we are creating work together. And then there are times we're talking about work, but it's not just talking about business. It's talking about the part of our hearts that wants to figure out what we feel, we want to create and how that affects us even as people. So to your point, it's definitely not something that's like at 8:00 PM, that just turns off. And we going to wait till tomorrow at 7:00 AM to continue that.
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah. We don't have a balance. It's really hard to do that. I mean like now Michael is recording and doing it in the studio. We have a little studio in our home now since the pandemic hit. So at any moment we can go in there and just start creating. And we rehearse with our band as well here. So we just... It depends on how I feel. I've learned one thing that the pandemic has taught me and I've kind of always tried to live this, but I've now... I had to practice it. It's take it day by day, take it every day, every minute, every second for what it is. And if you have a schedule, then great, you have a Zoom call or a phone call or rehearsal or show you take that.
Tanya Trotter:
But you don't plan your whole life around that. You know what I mean? It's something that you have to do for work, but my life is at work. There's so many other things that fulfill me throughout the day. And so I've gotten into this thing where I'm like okay, how can I create this day to be what I want it to be, in spite of all the work that I have to do. And sometimes that's plugging out and just say, "Hey babe, I don't want to record today." And another day it's like, hey, look, let's do this.
Amena Brown:
Oh, I love that. I love that you brought up that word create. And in our every day life. What's the day that I want to create today, which I think even broadens a lot of times. Obviously, as artists, we think about creativity in that way, but I have a lot of friends who are like, "But I'm not an artist." And I'm like but there's a lot of ways to be a part of creativity that are in our everyday life.
Amena Brown:
Even if you're not painting or doing choreography or other things that people think are outwardly creative, there are ways we can create joy or create space for memories and there's different things we can do like that, that also are really important to life. And I do think this time of the pandemic has... Obviously the year has been trash in some ways, but in other ways I think it has helped us a lot of us really focus in on what's important to us and what really matters and sort of like pairing that down, which I think is a good process.
Amena Brown:
Okay. I want to talk about Hearts Town. I'm always curious about how albums get made because I am not a musician myself, but I'm a big music fan. So whenever you listen to someone's whole album in particular and especially when you're listening to that from singers who are also writing this music, I mean, there's something so rich about listening to that, but I'm always like, "Oh my gosh, how did you even go about making an album?" I know. I mean, I'm sure for like singers, songwriters, musicians, I don't know if it's like old hat. But for me I'm like as a fan, I'm like how do you do this? So you talked about earlier that sometimes you all will have bunches of songs. You might have 40 or 50 songs. And then you're sort of narrowing that down to the album. How does that list of songs become an album like Hearts Town?
Tanya Trotter:
We have an interesting process. What we used to do before the pandemic had began as we were touring so we did the year before last, or I guess it was 2019, 2018. All the songs you hear on Hearts Town. We actually toured with those songs. So we would perform them and let our fans tell us what songs they love. So a song like Five More Minutes on Hearts Town we've actually been doing that song for a year. And when the album came out, the fans were like, "Oh my God we are so happy you released Five More Minutes." As well as us performing Hearts Town.
Tanya Trotter:
So we tested them on our fans to see what they wanted to hear, and not that you make a record based off of what your fans want to hear, but they're the ones that have to buy it. And then we started to notice on the road that people would send us a lot of messages through Facebook and Instagram about their personal lives, because we're so open with... Of course, Michael has PTSD and I've suffered from depression before. We both like to eat, so we are not skinny people. We're weight people. So we talk about our struggles with weight and PTSD, being a combat veteran, and us touring with our nine year old now on homeschooling.
Tanya Trotter:
So we took all these different things that we were doing on stage, and we were talking about them and the fans just started talking back to us. So they would text us or email us or whatever and say, "I'm suffering from cancer. Your song helped me through my treatments." Or, "I'm going through this with my spouse. Can you all give us a call to talk about our marriage?" And we just started creating this community of people whether they were gay, they were straight, they were Democrat, Republican, white, Hispanic. Whatever they were, they would call us. And we would respond to them on social media. And we kind of created this family.
Tanya Trotter:
And we started a group on Facebook called Hearts Town. It's a community, probably about 4,000 people now, but it started with nothing and they're on there encouraging each other now and accepting each other. And when we talk about the moments with the song Five More Minutes where that was Michael having a PTSD moment where he wanted to die by suicide. And we talk about that. So you have a community of people who now no longer are living in the stigma of having to hide because they are gay or having to hide because they may have tried to commit suicide two or three days ago.
Tanya Trotter:
They put it up on in Hearts Town and we wrap these songs around them and it became the album. So you have sounds like Five More Minutes. You have songs like Lonely In My Grief, which we were doing two years ago before even the social justice Black Lives Matter actually blew up the way it did. And we would talk about it because we are in as African-American artists, it's probably a handful of us that are doing Americana style music. So we had our challenges as African-American artists on the road going to some of these places where people treated us different, or it would just be one Black act on the entire festival of 100 people, you know what I mean? 100 acts.
Tanya Trotter:
So we talk about being lonely in our grief, lonely in the process of being Black people. And nobody's standing up and saying, hey, why aren't there more Black people on festivals or in Americana, whatever the case may be. And we did them in love. So we put that song on the record Hey Pretty Moon. We talk about that. We talk about jealousy and a song called Jealousy. And these songs kind of just came from an honest place of where we are and where we were over the last 24 months. And that's how the record came about.
Amena Brown:
I love that. And just even having experienced some of the songs on Hearts Town live. And just how... rich is the only word I can think of Tanya to describe that. But think what's really beautiful. And what's important about the music that the two of you are making is that it does make people feel heard and seen and known. Even if they're in the audience and they never may get a chance to get their story to the two of you, but hearing the two of you share those stories and sing those songs, it's making people feel understood. And I think that is the power of music and of writing. It's our hope, those of us that are making art like this it's our hope that as we're pouring our soul into what we're doing, that that translates for somebody sitting there who may be going through PTSD, but they don't even have the words to describe how that experience is impacting them.
Amena Brown:
And they hear this music and they're like there's the language? There are the words that I couldn't say, and I also have experienced just a grief. That's so heavy. It just takes my speech away almost. And when I hear it come back to me in a song it's just it's such a beautiful experience for me to think. I was so deep in sadness. I couldn't bring the words to that, but here comes a musician here comes a singer and a songwriter that can give language to an experience that we know as human beings.
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah. You nailed it. And I really live on this principle that you can't love a person if you're judging them. You can't, if they don't feel accepted, if they don't feel like you hear them, you can never really sustain anything, not a relationship, not a fan base. I call it fan ship. Not a fan ship-
Amena Brown:
Oh I love that.
Tanya Trotter:
Anything with the ship behind it. It can't be established unless there's some level of respect, love, and acceptance. And that's what we... And honesty, and that's what we give our fans. We're completely vulnerable with them and transparent sometimes to maybe our own detriment. But what more can you give? We give hearts, we give it all. And there is no, we don't hold back.
Amena Brown:
Oh. Yes. Okay. I have some music questions that I want to ask you Tanya, maybe you will give the people some things they can add to their different playlist on all the places where you can make a playlist. My first question to you is what is the first song, or even if it's a couple of songs, what's the first song that you remember learning to sing?
Tanya Trotter:
First song I learned was a church song. It was called It's Going To Rain. And I can't remember who the artist was, but I remember singing that song. The first song I sang, which was like R&B song publicly was Anita Baker, No one in the world.
Amena Brown:
It's a good choice. It's a good choice right there. Yes. Okay. Now you may this may be, it's not a hard question, but I feel like when you are an artist, it's like how can I pick from all these things? But I know sometimes as a poet, it's not that I can say, I love any of my poems more than the other, but I go through seasons of time where there might be one poem that in that time, that's my favorite one to do or to perform. Do you have a favorite The War And Treaty song right now that you're that's the one I love to sing.?
Tanya Trotter:
I'm going to say off of the Hearts Town records, Hey Pretty Moon.
Amena Brown:
It's a beautiful one.
Tanya Trotter:
I love that.
Amena Brown:
Oh. Yes.
Tanya Trotter:
I love that song.
Amena Brown:
What is your favorite cover to sing?
Tanya Trotter:
Well, not cover. I don't do well with cover songs, but I do, I love listening to anything Ella Fitzgerald, Bare Bones-
Amena Brown:
Oh yes.
Tanya Trotter:
... that kind of music. And I'm a vocalist, so I listen to a lot of singers and how they interpret songs. And am like, I can't ever even try to do it that way. But I don't know. I can't really say that I have one. I can't really say.
Amena Brown:
Oh my gosh. I'm like for those of us who are listening that can't sing, I'm like what about this?
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah. Tell me what [crosstalk 00:31:42]-
Amena Brown:
I will tell you-
Tanya Trotter:
Give me some suggestions.
Amena Brown:
Okay. I will tell you what are mine which is not a cover. Because like I told you, I can't be seen really singing publicly by myself, but the person whose music I sing like it's my concert, when I'm by myself is India.Arie. She's like my person. I'm in the shower-
Tanya Trotter:
[crosstalk 00:32:04] she's amazing.
Amena Brown:
... I'm in the car I'm like in my mind I'm hitting all the notes. I'm hitting all the same notes that she is singing. If somebody else were in the car, they would be like, "That's not it. That's not it." But in my mind, I'm like me and India are in here doing an equal duet. I'm singing just as good as she is.
Tanya Trotter:
Okay. So I'm going to say this. I would have to say Mahalia Jackson. I'm going way back. Just the way she just attacks a lyric is insane to me, her interpretation. I would have to say her.
Amena Brown:
I love it.
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah. And on the countryside, Patsy Cline, people like that. Their voices are just crazy. Patsy Cline singing that song, it's insane.
Amena Brown:
Oh, so good. Okay. This is a followup question to that. Do you have a favorite music diva? And I know that I'm leaving that definition to be relative because there's a lot of names that could go there. I mean, that could be Dolly Parton. That could be Chaka Khan. It could be Reba McEntire, there's a lot of divas. But do you have a favorite music diva or a couple of them? And if so, who would be some of your favorite music divas?
Tanya Trotter:
I'm going to have to say, of course the queen herself Aretha Franklin, the late great Pamela Bell, chorus of voices and she's in her seventies and she's still slaying, Dolly Parton of course. I love Brandi Carlile, she's incredible. Valerie June, these are all new artists. Valerie June, Brandi Carlile, Cyndi Lauper, that's my girl, let me think. The list just goes... Dead and alive, the list goes on and on. Sara Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald. God I can't even keep going. The list is extensive. Emmylou Harris. The list is very long, keeps on.
Amena Brown:
So many divas. And it's been interesting to me to think to... I mean, of course part of this is like oh, I'm getting older, but it's interesting to me to think when I think about my mom's generation's music and I'm like okay, I can look at their generation and be like okay, here were the divas of that era of music. And then I think about the music I loved when I was maybe that high school into my early to mid 20s.
Amena Brown:
And now we sort of get to a point when we get in our 30 and 40s forties, that we can then look at the music that we grew up with, the people that were our contemporaries that are going to make that diva cannon, which is been exciting to me to watch. Because when you're young and you're listening to Aretha you're like, "Oh, my gosh. I mean, here is this diva of that era, but I wasn't born to get to go to the show and see her do that in person." There's so many times I'm like I just wish I could... if I could go back in time, I would want to see her live. I would want to see Marvin Gaye. That's like I mean-
Tanya Trotter:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
... do you have artists like that when you-
Tanya Trotter:
Sam and Dave. Sam and Dave, all those soul cats. Otis Redding, just be able to experience them in their prime is insane. I would have just lost all of my mind.
Amena Brown:
Everything. And the fashions. Okay. I do have one more music question, but I do need to step in here and discuss the fashions Tanya, because you are also about these vintage fashions. Can you discuss how did you come to... You already described to us how you came to find your voice musically and you also have come to find this fabulous and gorgeous look when I look at the fashion of you. So talk about that. What was the process of you finding sort of this is my style or how my style is evolving.
Tanya Trotter:
Yeah, it evolves from of course Anita Baker, Julie Andrews style short 1950s pixie cut. And my mother passed away five years ago. This will be five years this past Thanksgiving. And she was from Panama and my grandmother was a seamstress in Panama and my mother's friends were seamstress and they would get all these expensive clothes from the house that my grandmother and my mom and they lived. And they lived with a rich family in the basement. And my grandmother made clothes for this family in Panama. My grandmother was from Costa Rica. So she would have these, my mother would have this beautiful lace, beautiful fabric growing up. And I remember as a kid, I would always like certain things and she would never just buy cheap fabric. And if I did come home with something that was cheap, she was like you don't want to get that because you want to be able to have this in 10 years.
Tanya Trotter:
And when she passed away I got a couple of, I was willed some of her things, like her sweaters and her purses and some of her jewelry. And I was living in a little town called Albion, Michigan, and this place just happened to be a historic area. And they had a ton of vintage stores. So the home we were living in was from it was built in the 1900s. Actually it was built-
Amena Brown:
Wow!
Tanya Trotter:
... in 1900. And so you had this beautiful wool and these beautiful big bay windows and the hardwood floors, and a lot of the artifacts from that era. And it was like something inside of me just exploded when I was there. And I would start going to the even thrift stores, had this fine fabric that my mother introduced me to as a young child and the detail of the clothes, the Cape coat and the 1950 swing dresses or the 1970s dresses where the detail was just so incredible.
Tanya Trotter:
And I fell in love with the detail. And I was like this is like if you've watched that movie Lovecraft Country, where it's like a portal and they jump in and out of the portal, and I was like oh my God just jump into the 1950s, I'm here. And something happened. And I just happened to start dressing like that and then got involved in a community, a pinup community where I could find these clothes overseas and like London and Amsterdam and New Zealand, where it's very popular over there for a lot of the girls to still dress like this. And that was it for me. And I was stuck. I was like this is it. I want nothing else with my life. Am stuck.
Tanya Trotter:
So the turbines and the Cape coast and the long opera gloves, things that in that era, from the forties to even the sixties, people just dress like that every day. I didn't see any pictures of my mother or in growing up when my mother wore tennis shoes.
Amena Brown:
All right.
Tanya Trotter:
Maybe when we went to Kings Dominion or amusement park or somewhere, or she went walking with me, but things that we wear every day now that are common for us, yoga pants, that was for the gym. There was a specific place for you to wear sweat clothes. And that was my... So that's what I saw. And I never even saw my mother until she started getting older, maybe five years before she passed, wear pants. So I went through my whole life seeing this woman wear dresses that just touched below the knee.
Amena Brown:
Wow!
Tanya Trotter:
And but they were fitted dresses. They weren't like... They were the wiggle dresses. There were still sexy dresses and I fell in love with it and it's been what I am just attracted to my soul is just attracted to that energy. And when I see it, I'm like I got to wear this. I have to put this on. Even if I'm the only one walking around looking like I'm in costume.
Amena Brown:
But I mean-
Tanya Trotter:
It was great.
Amena Brown:
It's gorgeous just having seen your style. And of course, following you on Instagram and seeing all of these amazing styles and all this fashion, I mean, it's just it's gorgeous, Tanya. And I think that's really important to... And not all of my listeners are women, but I know for a lot of us who are women, it's finding fashion can be this other place where you get to find your voice and find who you are and how you want to express that through your clothing. And yes girl, you did that. Okay.
Tanya Trotter:
Thank you.
Amena Brown:
Last question I want to ask you is when you need some joy, what are your favorite songs to listen to right now?
Tanya Trotter:
Oh, Michael wrote this song called Joy Don't You Go, and it's a John Lennon-style song. And his actually, not even because he's my husband, I'll tell you a story when I first met him, he had the CD called Shift and I bought six CDs. There was like a Christian rock kind of thing. And I bought six CDs and I played that record to death. If people were stealing it from me, I bought so many, they were like we're taking it because we were sick of hearing it. But he's my favorite songwriter. And I think it's because of how far in he will allow himself to write. So that song, Joy Don't You Go, anything by Mahalia Jackson when I want to feel closer to the universe, when I want to feel, get my soul to that place. There's a song called Oceans. I can't remember. I think it's a Hillsong song and it's one of my favorites when I want to feel close to who I am and what my purpose is. I listened to that song as well. Yeah.
Amena Brown:
Oh, I love it. You all thank you to Tanya Trotter for coming on here, inspiring us, telling us your story, Tanya. Getting to hear some of the music that you love, getting to hear how you make the music that we love as well. Tanya, thank you so much for joining me. I will definitely be letting everyone know how they can follow, but you can listen to Hearts Town. I'm going to tell you all that right now you can listen to Hearts Town wherever you listen to music, go to there, go to there and listen to it. And I heard a rumor Hearts Town be on Vinyl too, for the people that want to be involved in that. It's a lot of things you can be normal, but just go to there and listen to Hearts Town. Tanya, thank you so much.
Tanya Trotter:
Thank you so much for having me and just being the beautiful light that you are. Love you to death and life.
Amena Brown:
Thanks again to Tanya Trotter from The War And Treaty and I'm not playing. You all need to go and listen to that music. You can check out their website, thewarandtreaty.com. You can listen to their newest album Hearts Town, wherever you like to stream your music. You can follow them @thewarandtreaty on Instagram and you can follow Tanya @she_lovesvintage on Instagram. And of course, don't forget, you don't have to remember all this in case you're driving or otherwise indisposed. All of this information will be on the show notes at amenabrown.com/herwithamena. You can find notes, links to the different things that I talk to guests about. So make sure you check that out.
Amena Brown:
And I hope you're following me already, but you're not follow me @amenabee, @amenabee on Instagram. I would love to connect with you. I would love to engage with you, hear your thoughts about these episodes. You can also find on my Instagram there are some different clips and questions they're following up on some of the content we're talking about on the podcast. So I'd love to engage with you there.
Amena Brown:
This week's Give Her A Crown is a shout out to Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayshi, co-founders and co-CEOs of Shine, an award-winning self care app and community for people with anxiety and depression. I use Shine myself. And let me tell you to know that there is an app like this with meditation and sleep stories, and so much more founded by two women of color and hearing the voices of women of color as I meditate or take some time to calm my mind while using the app means the world. If you are looking for an app that centers women of color and encourages self care, I highly recommend the Shine app, Mara and Naomi. Thank you for paving the way for women of color and startups and for encouraging conversation around mental health and self-care Mara and Naomi, give them a crown.
Amena Brown:
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.