© Wade Muir Photography
Nicky Lawrence transforms the cruelty thrown at her into a beautiful ode to being a Black woman on her debut record, Ugly Black Woman.
Taking her critically acclaimed play from the stage to the studio, Lawrence shows a star power that’s been ten years in the making. Her debut record is set to be released on 18th October 2024, and she sat down with INJECTION to share her story, describe her creative process, and talk about Black women’s deep-rooted place in the arts.
What does Ugly Black Woman mean to you, at its core?
For me, it really means the opposite of what the words say. It’s the celebration of Black women and how beautiful we are. There are moments, which is where I got the title from, that people in the world can make you feel really ugly because they have been taught that we are less, because of the way that we look. The moment that I came up with the title, I was going through something with that, and that's how the title came up because I just felt horrible about myself. But over time, it's become a celebration and a way to look away, but allow other people to look in. Many dark-skinned women have approached me and said they've experienced this. I've also had this said to me, ‘You’re pretty for a black girl’. And so, I always have known that when people hear the title, they intrinsically understand that it's something they have been taught without knowing it.
How has the title grown with you?
I think I was angry when I first wrote it down, which obviously is another trope for Black women - being angry. I think that it's really grown to mean so much more to other people that it's allowed me to transform its meaning, because the first thing people say is, ‘Well, why is it called that? You're not ugly?’ And I'm like, I know, I'm not ugly, but you intrinsically understand that there's something in this, in the title, that allows you to go to a place that makes you uncomfortable - and so it doesn't make me uncomfortable anymore. It really has allowed me to grow, because it's been a positive in my life, as I've worked on the project for the last 10 years.
What’s it been like, having so many Black women come to you and say, ‘I really get this, I know what it means’?
Oh, gut-wrenching! I've always said this, I could sit down with Beyonce or Janet Jackson, and I don't know them as women, but I know them as Black women. And we could have a conversation that would parallel each other without ever having said a word to each other, simply because of this [she gestures towards her skin]. It has been the honour of my lifetime to have other black women say, I see myself in you. It's also been an honour to just have women in general come up to me and say, ‘Wow, the emotional depth of this record. Like, I thought I was listening to songs about myself.’ To have Black women say that they see themselves when they talk to me about the record is deeply emotional, but also validating for where my own feelings are coming from.
It shows in the song, ‘Autonomy,’ I feel like that encapsulates the album really well.
Black women didn’t have autonomy. We still don't. We aren't taken seriously medically. You know, I happen to have great doctors. I'm very lucky, but I've had the conversation with them: When I say I'm in pain, do you believe me as a black woman? Because you know, if you read Medical Apartheid, if you read about what has been done to Black bodies, the myth is that we can withstand more pain, and that funnels into now and into giving out aspirin. It’s still very live and still very real. We're living in a time where I, hopefully, have the opportunity to continue to change people's minds, because there are still a lot of archaic things that people believe about those who look like me.
What do you want those without this lived experience to take away from the album - particularly from a British perspective?
Well, first of all, I think that British audiences have always embraced Black culture and Black music specifically. Unfortunately, because you were so deeply involved in the inception of the slave trade, and also, if you look at the Windrush generation and what then happened with music in your country, it changed the scope of British music. It changed the scope of the British sound. Everyone from Paul McCartney to John Lennon to Mick Jagger will tell you they were influenced by Black artists. I mean, Mick Jagger fully admits that Tina Turner taught him how to dance.
I think that it's not a matter of what I want white people to do. What I want people to do is to listen and absorb and have those conversations with each other that you're afraid to have. Some people are afraid to say the title, right? So I would say have conversations with each other, use the record as a catalyst to look at your friend who may not look like me, and say, ‘You know what? This really touched me. What did you learn about Black women growing up?’ Have a conversation that's not based in fear. You don't necessarily need other Black people to teach you. Listen, absorb, and then talk about it. This fear that we all have to talk to each other needs to dissipate, and that's what I'm hoping that this record does. I'm hoping that this record erases the fear of being able to have tough conversations, but also allows people to listen and go: What happened in the past, I wasn't a part of it, but I sure as hell am going to be a part of making sure that there is a future that we can all live in, regardless of how we look, that is sustainable, that is comfortable and that has messaging for people who look like me, that doesn't make us the “other” consistently. Have the conversations. It's okay to talk about it amongst each other because the thing is, we can't fix it. We didn't do it. We didn't start the fire, as the song says. So y'all have to talk to each other and make peace with it. That's really where it begins.
When you guys start talking to each other, you will find incredible things happen. The way that you look at the world, the way that you look at a Black woman, the next time you see her having heard this record, hopefully, you'll be kinder, hopefully, you'll be wiser, hopefully, you will speak to her in a different manner.
© Wade Muir Photography
Do you think that seeing the play and listening to the album are two different experiences, or are they the same at the root?
The album is within the play because I'm talking about my experiences, and then I'm talking about these remarkable Canadian Black women who sacrificed so much so that our country could be what it is today.
I think the interesting thing about the show is that there's a direct connection to the UK, simply because we were a colony of you, and the laws were changing based on what was happening in Parliament. All of the colonies had to enact the same laws. So when you see the show, you start to understand the fullness of the record and the poetry and how it's attached to each of the women. I do believe you can have different experiences if you come to see me in concert and if you see the play. But, the play and the album took a really long time to emulsify together, and so they become the same.
How long did it take for you to make both the play and the subsequent album?
This project has taken 10 years. Wow! Yeah, and you know what? I've lived it. I feel like that scene in Sex and the City where Charlotte stands up in the restaurant and she's like, ‘This is my friend Carrie! She's been dating the same guy for 10 years! And they're finally getting married!’ When this album comes out, I need to go to a restaurant and recreate that scene!
Yeah, it took 10 years to come together, and that's the thing. It's all lived experiences throughout those 10 years and what I think is really important - it’s the hill that I will die on, is that our society is fast-paced: now, now, now, instant gratification! This record is the antithesis of that. This record is the growth of me as a woman. This record is my experiences as a sister out in society. This record is me becoming a well-rounded artistic, ready, individual who has something to say about the world, based on experience. I want and hope to see more artists like that, because the world, I believe, is hungry for patience. I believe the world wants to slow down, that people want to slow down.
I really did know from the moment that I wrote Ugly Black Woman on the page that it would be a 10-to-15-year journey. But that's no different than some of the greatest artists we've seen step on stage. We love them because the discipline that it took for them to get there and the work they put in means that they're in arenas, and they're soothing your soul because they've put the work in. I wouldn't change anything, because I wouldn't have this piece of work, and it’s tangible. It’s meaningful. You don't listen to this record and go, oh yeah, there's another single.
© Wade Muir Photography
What was different about being in the studio, writing, and recording versus actually having the audience in front of you when you’re performing?
In the studio? It's pure shenanigans! It's me with my friends. I mean, these guys know me inside out and I know them inside out… For half the night we're just talking about our lives, but the friendship and the love are deep. And then somebody goes, ‘Yo, I've been working on this beat.’ Or I'm like, ‘I have this lyric.’ You know, the process wasn't always smooth, but it definitely was so fun, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes frustrating, sometimes dehumanising, sometimes financially devastating, sometimes financially full. It was the human experience all of it.
Over the last 10 years, I have been on the roller coaster of my life. That being said, when I step on stage, it's like a pressure cooker and the lid can come off. I feel so fortunate to be able to stand on a stage and release my emotions in a way that many people do not get to. It's saved me many, many, many times. It's the joy and the privilege of my lifetime to step on stage, express my story, my deepest dehumanisation, and my enlightened joy, and have an audience clap and laugh and encourage me.
What significance does releasing this album in Black History Month have to you as an artist?
I think Black history is all history. I think it's important to have it come out during Black History Month, just to honour the sacrifice and the violence and the emotional turmoil that Black women and Black men went through and continue to go through. It's heavy, but it's light.
I want to point that out because as a culture, the reason you guys love going to Carnival is that it's light and it's fun, and we're jamming down and we're having a good time, and you are immersed in a people who have used music and storytelling and dance and food and the safety of who we are as a people, no matter what island we came from, no matter what African country we came from, to sustain us during the most horrific times in our lives.
I can't speak for the people who came before me. But I can say that what I've read and what I've researched lets me know that celebrating them every day is a priority. But it’s equally important to celebrate them when all eyes are on a particular month in a particular country because that means that the people who are not usually paying attention are then paying attention. And I think it's important for them to hear something that could possibly change their minds.
What’s next for you?
I keep saying, this is the beginning of you seeing me as an artist. So there's so much more, you know, because I'm an actor, director, producer, a writer. I've been doing these things for years. It's just now they're all coming to the forefront. So you're going to see more from that side.
With a witty yet deeply introspective sense of self-guiding her art, it’s clear that Nicky Lawrence will go from strength to strength, and that Ugly Black Woman is going to be the start of her meteoric rise to notoriety in whatever field she chooses to turn her hand to next.
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