Seasons Change (Part I)
Interview conducted by: Raven Ekundayo
Photographer: Edith Williams for Diamond Digital Photography
Navasha’s Stylist: Safiyatou
I interviewed Navasha Daya years ago as a journalist for Gabriel the magazine. I was tremendously nervous about meeting this sister as she was the voice of my favorite band, Fertile Ground. The interview was very awkward as she was to go on stage at the African American Heritage Festival right after our interview and I knew she needed time to get into her proper space spiritually and mentally. Everything felt rushed but she was kind throughout it all. Years later I’m the Editor of my own magazine and had a chance for a “do over” so to speak. Lol. Edith Williams had planned a shoot with Navasha and it worked out perfectly as Navasha and I were thinking of a place to conduct the interview. We decided to do it all at Rock State Park here in Maryland. The eXperience was phenomenal and the location beautiful. During our conversation we touched on her background, her views on faith and astrology, her time with Fertile Ground, her new journey as a solo artist and her new husband. Our conversation went on for so long that there’s actually a part II. So here you are Misfits, Part I of my conversation with this truly phenomenal woman. Free your mind….
Raven – I read that you grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. At what point did it hit you that you wanted to be a musician?
Navasha – Oh wow. My father is a professional musician so I was raised with bands rehearsing in the living room. I always sung, my siblings and I would sing together, harmonizing and things and putting on shows for our parents. My mother told me when I was 4 I told her she was flat….
Raven – (Laughs) Wow!
Navasha – So I’m assuming my ear was pretty good when I was little. When I was about 9 I auditioned for a School for the Arts in Cleveland. The school started from 4th grade and went to 12th grade. I auditioned, actually with ballet as I started dancing when I was 3. I still sung, and by the time I got to 5th grade which was the next year I was in a group called the educational 5 and we sung gospel music which was my first introduction to singing gospel music. We were singing in 4 part harmony and 3 part harmony at 10 years old.
Raven – I 5th grade!
Navasha – Yeah that’s pretty intense and I didn’t think about it at the time, but anyway, In that school you had so many opportunities to sing on the radio and TV shows. We were singing really cutesy children songs and it was kind of the cream of the crop but more so children who were naturally talented and focused. That gave me my base to feel like I could be a professional. Then I majored in music and started singing jazz. Ms. Michaels was my teacher in elementary school in School of the Arts and Dr. William Woods was my middle school and high school teacher and he had us singing everything, Classical, Negro Spirituals, Jazz. I also became assistant choreographer at one point. These things were my orientation to the arts. When I was 13 I started singing in my father’s reggae band called “The Word” which is now called “Jah Word”. I started singing with them from age 13 to 18. Also, around 13 or 14 I became a member of an African dance company. That was kind of my cultural eXpression. I was always dancing, I was always in a talent show with some friends. I was a cheerleader; I was just always artsy in that way. I didn’t think “Oh I wanna be a professional singer”, it’s just who I was. I did have to make a decision when it came to my college degree. I wanted to go into psychology because I like to do healing work….
Raven – Yeah I went for theater but I felt I was supposed to move forward with Psychology, but that’s another story. (Laughs)
Navasha – My mom told me that I was good with music education so I applied to a couple of schools. One of the schools was Morgan State University and another was Berkley college of music in Boston. When I applied to Berkley I was offered a full scholarship and it’s interesting because that would have been a different trek in my career because they’ve produced professional artists from that school; Rachelle Ferrell went there, a lot of great artists went there. I chose Morgan State University. I remembered being 14/15 years old and going on The Black Collage Tour and thinking that Morgan had the best food (Laughs).
Raven – (Laughs)
Navasha – Interesting right? So I chose it and I don’t regret it. I had an academic scholarship so when I was on the MSU Choir under Dr. Nathan Carter he didn’t really know me. As he got to know me I eventually became a part of the singers and the group that traveled a lot and this was in my freshman year. I eventually became the president of the choir as well as a soloist. That was my trek. It was very natural, very gradual; there wasn’t any hoopla or I’m some fabulous child star. It was a great opportunity for me to grow in myself as a woman but also for me to grow in my instrument as a vocalist.
“Freedom is God.” ~ Navasha Daya
Raven – Wow. I guess what strikes me the most is in doing my research I never knew the parallels between your dancing and your singing.
Navasha – Right.
Raven – I mean when watching you perform I can see you go into your space or your zone when you start to move. The very first time your dancing really struck me was a couple of years ago when you were in DC performing in “Sign of the times” the tribute to Prince.
Navasha – Oh yeah! I did choreography with the group, I’d always wanted to do that. I would tell my mother when I was 12 or something that I wanted to be like Janet Jackson when watching her videos. She would say “You’re going to sing jazz” and I would say no, I want to be like that. I wanted to do dance routines and sing. I get to kind of do that with myself but that was my first time getting to do that with some ladies. I plan to do that in my shows eventually as it comes.
Raven – My mouth dropped watching you that night (Laughs)
Navasha – Right, it was like another side of me.
Raven – (Laughing) I was like wow! She’s really getting down right now.
Navasha – That’s me, that’s definitely Navasha Daya all day long. And my siblings would be on stage doing choreography with me, how bout that?
Raven – Wow. That has to be an awesome feeling. Ok, so what does music smell like to you?
Navasha – Hmmm. It smells like….wow. Flowers, fresh breeze. It depends on the flavor because music comes in different flavors so it depends on the mood. It definitely smells floral and it smells like fresh rain, also incense. That’s the mood I feel when I hear music.
Raven – What does music look like to you?
Navasha – Like different colors. It depends on the mood that the music produces or what it makes me feel like. If I see it it’s like pink and yellow or blue and purple. It depends on what it is. It depends on the song or the writer….
Raven – And lastly of these three, what does music feel like to you?
(Navasha lights up when she hears this)
Navasha – Aw man it feels good!
Raven (Loud laughter)
(Navasha breaks into a quick James Brown impersonation)
Navasha – Music is just the truth. It’s an aspect of God and creation that manifests in this beautiful way that helps us change our mood, that inspires us, it brings us to focus. Music is very very very very powerful. Sound is very powerful so I look at sound as music. When I teach my children music I always have a point where I do vocal sound.
Raven – Ok.
Navasha – We do sounds of nature, sounds of animals, sounds they feel to the rhythms. I teach them that you can create music with anything, with rocks, with sticks, with leaves rubbing together as well as traditional instruments from different culture and your mouth. Music is just really powerful. Music feels like freedom.
Raven – I like that. I do my best to not respond in the positive or negative when asking those 3 questions but that last answer was awesome. (Laughs).
Navasha – Thank you
Raven – Ok, so I want to talk to you about your time with Fertile Ground. As my favorite jazz band and with you being one of my favorite singers I never had a chance to ask you as many questions as I wanted to when I interviews you years ago.
Navasha – Ok.
Raven – So I wanted to ask about Seasons Change first. There was such a wonderful energy to that album and I always wanted to ask what space were you in when making it?
Navasha – I don’t know, I think I was just in a certain space spiritually. That was like 2001/2002 and I was doing a lot of deep spiritual studies and focusing on my development as a woman. I guess that’s where I was to be honest.
Raven – Now how did Fertile Ground first come about? Did this take place while you were at Morgan?
Navasha - I met James (Collins) through a mutual friend while I attended Morgan State University. I told him I wanted to gig and it just kind of grew from there. We had a show at UMBC under the band name "Fertile Ground" and he liked the synergy of me, Marcus and himself so we started to work together. We didn’t get a record deal, we started to put our own cd’s out.
Raven – What was the feeling like coming out as an independent group? Did you feel as though you were supposed to go straight for a major label deal?
Navasha – I personally did because that’s what I knew. James definitely felt differently. He was the leader so we went in the direction he wanted to go. At that time Black bands didn’t get signed and we weren’t doing rock. It was like bringing back Earth, Wind and Fire and things like that. The number of Fertile Ground is 1 which is the originator so Fertile Ground is definitely an energy that was built upon and an energy that was doing thing that were never done; however, I believe in having support and you can only go but so far by yourself.
Raven – Ok. What was it like traveling the world. I know I personally consider you guys to be my favorite band but what was it like to travel the world and share your music with everyone?
Navasha – Nice because you’re tickled when you see them singing your songs, you’re like “How you know bout this” (Laughs).
Raven – (Laughs)
Navasha – It tickles you and touches you and touches you that folks care about good music and they research it. See Americans, especially Black Americans, we actually create the culture of America and we represent the culture of America very strongly, especially with the urban kind of thing, so people are looking to see what is the Black music now? And we were representing the Black music and it was an alternative to the other music that was out because ours was more jazz and more soulful and more afrocentric and earthy or whatever, and it caught their ear, especially DJ’s. Traveling is wonderful. Like take “Be Natural” for instance when we performed that in Japan. I think James was writing from the point of view of the hair and the mind and loving yourself and I interpreted it as being who you are with your soul. Now combine that with being in Japan and I’m thinking the song was just for Black people but I’m singing that song to them as well you know? We’re all connected and it’s really nice to see the connection and the freedom of performing around the world and people knowing your music and appreciating your art. You feel blessed that you get to travel for free. I’m real clear about that now and it’s a blessing that people pay you to travel. I give thanks and I feel very honored and thankful.
Raven – This is the zodiac issue of ETM. I always love having conversations with people who are into astrology in some way. I wanted to know if astrology plays a part in your day to day life at all?
Navasha – Yes. My father had all of our charts done when we were children. I’ve dabbled in it. I’m a teacher, it’s a slow process for me as it’s not my destiny to be….I use it as a tool. I know my rising, my moon, my mercury, all of it. I think it’s a raod map to understanding yourself better. It’s just one part of it. You also have numerology, you have the spirits that walk with you, your ancestors, you have a lot of things that play into it. It all helps you to navigate your road and I feel like we all have our destiny; we all have character traits that are productive and none productive and astrology helps you to understand yourself and what people are seeing; like with your rising sign. You can see why you feel so deeply or why you don’t feel so deeply about other people. You can kind of deal with that and not feel like “I don’t understand myself”. You can instead feel like “Oh, that’s why I’m like that.” It’s self knowledge, it’s just knowing yourself. This is the root and the key of your spiritual journey. It’s really important to know yourself and to understand what God is and what is your service to God.
“Music is just the truth. It’s an aspect of God and creation that manifests in this beautiful way that helps us
change our mood, that inspires us, it brings us to focus.” ~ Navasha Daya
Raven – Ok, so my sun and moon are both in Scorpio.
Navasha – Mhm.
Raven – And from what I’ve been told it’s very rare to have the same sign in your sun and your moon. My rising is Libra and my Venus is Sagittarius. I’m always caught off guard by how folks view Scorpio’s. I’m told of how we’re so vengeful and vindictive, but I’ve eXplained to people that even though I know that energy eXists within me I made a decision around 19 to change that energy to something more karmic.
Navasha – Right.
Raven – Instead of being vengeful when someone does me wrong I decide to focus on the karma. Whatever it is that you put out into the universe will come back to you.
Navasha – And you don’t have to fight.
Raven – eXactly. Instead of me feeling like I have to do anything to you I’ll let the universe take care of it.
Navasha – Mhm.
Raven – I’m told that’s strange for a Scorpio but that’s just me.
Navasha – Well your rising is in Libra. Libra is fairness and balance so you crave that, it’s in your heart space. That’s important to you. If you had a sign that was a little more care free you might be like “whatever” or “I’ll get you”
Raven – I’m not a very sporadic person either. I’m not someone who can just get up and go. I believe in being organized and everything having it’s place, unless I’m in a relationship. But even then it seems those who I date are always people who are free flowing and just want to “go”…..
Navasha – Be adventurous.
Raven – Right, which I’m totally down for but I don’t get how someone can just live their lives with no structure at all. I mean my way of thinking is totally free. It’s in other areas where I need complete order.
Navasha – I mean adventure is different things. You can have adventure physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. If they’re attracted to you it could be something else about you that seems adventurous to them. There’s something about you, remember that Scorpios are very deep so there’s something to discover with Scorpio always. As far as your freedom space, there were times in my life where I would feel a little more closed in, my moon is in Scorpio too, I was born on a full moon actually; but my nature is really free actually, and freedom brings my blessings. It’s very important that I embrace freedom more. The little girl in me, my real self is woooooooooo! Through conditioning and people being mean and peoples judgement towards me, it affected me at times.
Raven – That has been my issue at times as well.
Navasha – But I said “nope” to all of that and now I’m free. That’s a representation of my life, my career, everything….I’m free. Freedom is God.
And this was just part I. Join us in August for the conclusion of my conversation with Navasha. We’ll discuss more about astrology, her new journey into being a solo artist and her new marriage. There’s LOTS more Misfits. Stay tuned…..
