Now I want to bewise so I can still take care of myself and not have to rely on just money to make everything happen. Wisdom is not what is expected from celebrities or recording artists who came from nothing. They expect us to get money and spend it all up on furs, cars, diamonds, and mansions. All that crazy stuff in the videos.
People ask me what I spend my money on, and I tell them that it is important to me to take care of my family. I have been asked, “Why do you feel you have to do it?” It’s not that I have to do it, but I want to do it because it’s the promise that we made to each other on Montlieu Avenue just a few short years ago. I just happen to be the one who got blessed first. We were all in it together—my mama and daddy and brothers, we were all travelin’ and singin’. That’s all we did for most of my childhood. At times, we all slept in the same dark room together. We ate grits, bacon, eggs, bologna, and corned beef hash for days at a time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Westruggled together, and although we were young, my brothers and I had grown-folk struggles. When we had no hot water in the house, we used to yell down to the kitchen, “Boil me some water so I can bathe!” Everybody used to huddle up together to keep warm when there was no heat. When I think back to those days, it brings tears to my eyes. My tears are tears of joy because we survived and we never have to be out of heat or water and now we all have our own rooms. I was the youngest, but I would always say, “Man, one day we’re going to make it! Watch when one of us gets somethin’ and we’re not going to have to go through this anymore.”I meant that. We were normal kids: We wanted to go places and we wanted to have things. All of those memories of growing up remind me ofwanting. That much wantinghurts.
As crazy as it sounds, even if I hadn’t made that promise to my family, I would still be doing exactly the same thing I’m doing for them, because I would be lost without them. They are all that I have ever had. My house was meant to be filled with family. That’s why we all worked so hard to have something; it wasn’t only my efforts. It just turns out that I made it first. By giving the prize to me, it was really for all the Barrinos as a reward for all those years of strugglin’ together. My brothers missed out on basketball and football games, proms and nights out at the drive-in. I missed out on joining the cheerleading squad and track meets. We missed out on everything that most kids our age were able to do because we were out singin’ and performin’ and trying to satisfy our hunger for music.
My situation with my family is not without problems. It is hard enough to be me, wanting so much that I never had before. Imagine a whole family that has never had anything and now being able to give them what they really want and need, in addition to my own wants and needs. I’m trying to get my family to see that it really ain’t about the bling, but that is a hard thing to show people when the bling is all that they have ever dreamed about.
My family has very little formal education and only now are we starting to see the light about how important education is. My father is a certified truck driver. My grandmother’s husband, Ray, got him a job with his trucking company so that he could take care of his family. My mother started her nursing education, became a certified nursing technician (CNT) but never stayed in school so she could become a registered nurse. Because our family has such a passion and talent for music, it has always been that we are a little stubborn about working in other areas that don’t involve music. Of course my parents had to do other things because they had mouths to feed, but my father did manage to get us involved in music despite his trucking job, and despite the fact that we should have all been in school learnin’, but more than anything else, he just wanted us to sing. As the kids in my family have all have grown up, we honestly didn’t, and still don’t, have much interest in anything that doesn’t involve music.
Whenever I come home to Charlotte or High Point, my cell phone constantly rings with people giving me a list of needs, wants, and loan requests. My problem is that I always end up giving what they ask for, but it stresses me out, because I can’t afford to do all the things that everyone wants for much longer. It seems no matter what I say, it continues to be the same thing, more calls asking for more things. I was trying to help them so that they could help themselves, but it isn’t working.
I bought Tiny a small car so he wouldn’t have to ask people to take him to his job. I wanted him to feel independent and free of worry about beggin’ people to take him to work. Tiny and a lot of other people back home have a hard time keeping a job because they don’t have cars and it makes it hard to be reliable about getting to work. But Tiny has the music hunger and so he won’t get
