Blending the brilliance of her art and skills with her passion for activism, Maya Azucena has a lot to say to the world. Be it Gender based Violence or Genocide, be it questioning wrongdoing or denouncing violence, Maya is an ambassador of peace, through and through. The artivist shares her story with us.
I would say that my journey as a singer and an
activist – I like to use the term artivist – it kinda happened in stages. Being
a singer was something I started when I was a little girl. It was very natural.
I was four years old. No one made me do it. I didn’t grow up in a household
that was full of musicians. At four, I was memorizing songs and trying to
present them to my family and friends. I was in every school play. I had
conservatory style vocal training in high school years where I studied opera
and learned the technique of voice. You would have to skip ahead to a time when
I realised that music was my calling and that I wanted to take something I like
to do to something that is very purposeful.
I have always been an empath and
have always felt a deep connection to people around the world and their stories
of struggle, pain or oppression. I always have that feeling of how I wish I
could do something to help and be a part of fixing it and always felt
momentarily helpless.
I would say things came to a head when I was in
New York City when the tragedy of September 11 happened, and I was there. And I
shared this experience again with all fellow new Yorkers – of helplessness and
wanting to do something to help. When the towers fell, New Yorkers gathered to offer
blood so that survivors would have blood – and the eerie thing is that there
were no survivors. So you can’t – there’s not even remotely a way to fix the
problem if there aren’t survivors! So in this time, of course, we reflect in
our depression and sense of overwhelming tragedy. My sense of helplessness was
followed by an overwhelming desire to sing. “I need to sing, I have to sing. I
have to get out there, I have to sing.”
It was almost like discovering my superpower – like this is what I had.
I don’t have money, I don’t have the ability to fly to all these destinations
and start foundations. What I have right now is this thing inside of me that I
can use consciously to impact change and consciously to be of support to those
who are hurting. It was at that moment that I became Maya Azucena, artivist,
and started really consciously writing my songs in a way to contribute to
change.
I thought a lot about choosing a cause. And
then that seemed so wrong to me – because when you’re dealing with Human Rights
infarctions, it’s so ridiculous to say that one human rights cause deserves
more attention than another. To begin with, I really started to think – what is
it that I want to do as an artist with a voice? I am an advocate for art as
power. As such, I believe in being of service to these causes and the leaders
of those causes. I felt that if I can show up as someone and be the voice that
gives rise to the voiceless, or brings empowerment through my songs, this is
more of a spiritual thing. The spirit of overcoming an obstacle. The spirit of
not giving up. The spirit of not backing down and demanding your rights.
However, I can specifically say that the closeness I have to the cause of
gender-based violence has a lot to do with the fact that I am a survivor of
gender-based violence. I was in an absolutely terrible 7-year prison sentence
of a relationship. I think that that experience has made me have this anger and
fight and desire to stand up for other women when it comes to this subject. I
want to put my body ahead – the warrior in me developed through the course of
that pain.
As a survivor, I know that it is vulnerable to
tell my story and uncomfortable to recall those moments of horrible
experiences. But now that I am past it, I want other young women who may be
experiencing this to know that there’s something possible after that, and to
know that it’s possible to set themselves free from the situation. If I keep my
silence on how I got through and how I got to be who I am today, then someone
like me out there won’t necessarily know what’s possible for them.
A woman that I admire greatly, is a success
story I look back on. She is a film director and I’ve known her for many years
– but I hadn’t seen her for many years. I bumped into her, and she said to me,
‘You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you something. One day, I was planning to
commit suicide. And you sang Halleluiah.”
I don’t do a lot of cover music, but I did this one cover by Leonard
Cohen and I have my own version of it. And she said to me, “You sang
Halleluiah, and I found reason to live that day.”
To hear it seven or eight years later – I
didn’t know! Every time before I sing, I always think, “I want this to touch
somebody.” You never know if it does or doesn’t, but to have somebody report
back, it feels like I am fulfilling my purpose and my intention with this.
I support a Ugandan cause called Bead for Life.
They are an incredible organisation. Their work is based in Uganda. Their
mission is to empower terribly impoverished women to become sustainable
business women and entrepreneurs. They use a training program that trains them
with making these traditional style of jewellery beads from coloured recycled
paper. They buy the beads from the women – the women work for themselves from
the very top and sell the beads to the organisation. They are taught how to
open a bank account, negotiate and sign contracts. They are taught to empower
themselves entrepreneurially. The funds that they’ve saved from all this income
is invested in their own business they started. They graduate from the program
in 18 months, they invest in themselves and own businesses. I was invited to
Uganda to see the work up close. It’s incredibly real and deep. The women who
founded it are based in Colorado, USA, and they help sell the jewellery made
from the beads all over the world.
I don’t experience sexism a majority of the
time – that’s probably got to do with the fact that I work for myself. A lot of
experiences in my life are shaped by the people around me, and around who I
respect and who respects me. I have had primarily a grass-roots music career
which is a patchwork of somehow making a successful career without the
privilege of corporate funding or big major record label support. Because I
navigated a music career outside the system, I haven’t experienced the issues
that come with that system. I have, though, experienced sexism and a sort of a
shallow idea of what a woman’s focus should be and obviously people notice that
it is image-centric and is not based on the quality of your work, skill set or
talent. I tend to avoid people who don’t respect me – if they don’t respect me,
I keep them moving. I’m a business woman – and if I’m talking business and
you’re not, then keep moving!
There are many challenges. On one hand, you
have to look at straddling two sides of a fence – you straddle an entertainment
career. You have to be a professional and understand the business of music
which has nothing to do with activism – the packaging, the branding and
everything that professionalism in terms of shows and all that. The other side
is inserting the causes and issues of cultural relevance and how to fuse those
two. My journey has been about integrating that successfully. Beyond that,
other challenges I face include apathy. Apathy is heartbreaking. We live in a
world that worships celebrity and money, but if you talk about something as
atrocious as the fact that 1 billion girls would have been beaten and raped in
her life time, which, like Kamla Bhasin said, is the war of our lifetime.
Everyone should be outraged by this. Getting people to stand up and act on
solutions and results – it is harder than one would think. So, I just challenge
myself to continuously come with sincerity and trust that people who need to
hear what I’m offering will hear what I’m offering and not be distracted by
those who are apathetic and hard to move.
