By Renice Bostic for Island Spotlight Magazine
(March 2012)
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| Photo from Alison's album Caribbean Queen |
STRIKING beauty, exquisite form and strong self confidence
are the images one is greeted with when Alison Hinds steps on the stage decked
out in one of her diva outfits. It is an image which after 20 years on the
stage has remained immaculate. An image many are envious of. As I sit in the company
of this Barbadian Soca artiste, I admire her natural beauty which is revealed through
her warm personality and physical appearance. I am stunned when she tells me
she has struggled with her self esteem. I am in sheer disbelief.
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| Alison performing during Crop Over 2012 at BRC |
“I started to feel like I
wasn’t good enough.”
When a famous and talented artiste makes statements like
these, you want to roll your eyes. When Alison Hinds, the Caribbean Soca queen
says it, you possibly will look at her in scrutiny waiting for her to laugh and
say something like ‘Happy April Fool’s Day!’ like I did. But she doesn’t.
It is a rainy morning in March and I feel slightly overdressed
as Alison emerges bundled in a thick robe without any make up. Becoming
comfortable, we discuss our various carnival experiences in Trinidad.
Her smile broadens and her eyes light up. It is evident she is involved in an
industry she is deeply passionate about, and for her sake I am grateful she
wasn’t forced into accounting or banking.
“I had a racist teacher in England who used to pick on me and
the 2 other black kids each time we had math class and the experience made me
hate math...seriously!”
Like many others Alison Hinds has had to deal with her
share of challenges. However the root of her issues is slightly different from
the average person. It is as a result of her musical career and rise to
stardom. Her challenge began when she made the transition with her former band
Square One from the hotel circuit to the club circuit during the 1980s. Without
anyone to guide her at the time, her lack of fashion knowledge lead to her
performing in whatever she felt to.
“It was really me wearing whatever I felt was fashionable,
but it really wasn’t stylish at all looking back at it. It was flat shoes all
the way. Heels were a big no in those times!”
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| Alison being interviewed by ReNice 2012 |
Somewhere along the way, Alison discovered leggings in
every colour and pattern so she proudly boasts that she “was wearing leggings
long before there were all the Heels and Leggings fetes” which are now
occurring in Barbados.
She boasts in her strong Bajan accent, while bellowing out her vibrant laugh. I
breathe a sigh of relief that I didn’t have on my leggings for Alison to laugh
at my “now-come-to-shore” fashion. Leggings though were the beginning of her
issue with self esteem.
“People began having a problem with what I was wearing. I
was always wearing leggings at the time because you could see my shape well and
I was in my 20s which is an age you want to show off your body. They were
saying all kinds of negative stuff about how I looked and how I was dressing. I
heard all kinds of weird things about myself and they even went as far as to
call me a drug addict. All these insults were coming from people I didn’t know
and who didn’t know me.”
Alison
is indeed a household name over twenty years later which means she didn’t give
up when people were clearly fighting her down. Her mother is credited as the
person who kept her focused when she was feeling depressed and badly about
herself. This is why Alison believes communication is the key to overcoming as
it allows you to get emotions off of your chest and creates a good support
system.
“I remember feeling so so so bad about myself and asking
‘why me?’ I couldn’t understand”
“I
couldn’t understand why these people who knew nothing about me had such
negative things to say. I thought I had a problem. Then I spoke to my mom and
she helped me to understand that people will always say things about you and
try to rain on your parade. You have to take it and move on.”
So Alison
made a conscious decision not to let what people say influence the way she felt
about her self. Constantly telling her self to keep going and ignore others,
she went back to the stage to build a career doing what she loved to do; singing,
performing and entertaining people.
Those
who had negative things to say in the past would probably be upset today as
Alison still prances around in some of the hottest outfits in addition to heels.
She’s no longer in her 20s but she’s still showing her shape, which has become
even more curvaceous after the birth of her daughter, Saharan. I guess those
people will have to accept her because the show is definitely going on in 4 inch heels! How she is
able to perform in those heels and ‘wuk up’ like only she can baffles me since
she readily admits that she is not very athletic; she’ll sprain her ankle by just
walking!
Though
she wears sexy outfits on stage, she is aware of the impact her fashion choices
have made on the entertainment industry, especially for women.
“In a lot of my earlier years I used to wear hot outfits.”
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| (Photo from Web- 2011) |
I point
out that she still does and after being overtaken by laughter, she finally
agrees with me. “I guess in a way I set the precedence in terms of how female
artistes look and a lot of them try to emulate that mix of being strong and
being sexy.”
It
is a hard balance between sensuality on stage and still getting people to
recognize the artiste for their talent and not necessarily for how they look.
Women in entertainment face many challenges which men do not even have to think
about. When the female’s on stage persona is rejected or even her talent is
downplayed and she becomes objectified, her self esteem often takes a heavy
blow.
“A
difficult task is to get people to see past how you look as an artiste and see
that you have a brain that is functioning and you didn’t just become a singer
because you failed in school.”
Be confident in your own skin, and in what you wear.
People will learn to accept you for who you are once you do it yourself. Anyone
who knows Alison knows that she is a strong advocate for female empowerment. It
is evident in the music she sings such as her hit, Roll and even now in her
recently launched foundation for female empowerment called The Alison Hinds
Wonderland Foundation.
“One of my favourite aspects about being an entertainer
definitely has to be the joy I see on the faces of my fans, young and old, when
they hear their favourite songs from me. When they email, tweet, message or
just come up to me and give me that positive feedback it just encourages me to
keep going.”
And that is what it is all about. In the midst of your
troubles, you have to keep going. Even when “the iron have you so bazodee, you
just keep going!”
