introduced myself, I just kept going you know, and the next day I got an email from Speech, he had contacted my best friend to get my contact information and asked me if I would be interested in auditioning for the group. RA: So you impressed him obviously and didn’ t even know it.
Tasha LaRae: I guess so, and I didn’ t even know. RA: With Arrested Development being such a Revolutionary Group with prolific content in their music, as a solo artist does lyrical content play a part in your music? Will you be writing your own music? Tasha LaRae: Oh yes, definitely writing my own music. I think it will definitely have a great influence on it. Before I met the group I was pursuing a solo artist career and so with songwriting it was always important to write something that was meaningful, insightful and helpful. I never wanted to create anything that wasn’ t going to add any value to anybody’ s life. So being apart of the group stretched my knowledge and even my awareness of other issues because prior to that I wasn’ t as open to local issues and it’ s still a field that I’ m exploring but I’ m a lot more aware of what’ s going on around me. So I love that. RA: I love that. It’ s such a Responsible ARTistry fit. Let’ s talk about the entrepreneur side of you, not a lot of people may know that you have your own jewelry company called EarJeans so tell us exactly how that came to be. Tasha LaRae: Okay, so after I got the gig with Arrested Development I learned all the music in about two months( it was a ton of music) and our first tour was in Australia and we were going to be there for three weeks, eight shows, three weeks, and I’ m like I don’ t have eight shows worth of clothes you know as women that’ s the first thing we think about [ laughter ] forget the music and everything. I didn’ t have a lot of money so I thought what can I do, well I started pulling some of my clothes, I looked at old pictures of the group’ s performances and stuff and it was very organic, very thrifty and creative. So I started cutting up jeans and ripping stuff, adding stuff, painting and there was a particular pair of pants I painted and I was thinking what earrings would I wear with these? Seriously that was my first thought [ laughing ] and I thought it would be really cool to have a pair of earrings that has the exact same pattern on them made out of jeans and everything. So that’ s what I did, I made about three pairs of earrings like that and I took them on the tour, so many people complimented me on it and I was like“ WOW“ okay this might work. Throughout the months we did a few more shows and I started making little pieces just to fit that outfit and getting more compliments. One lady came up to me in Dubai and she said,“ I want your earrings and I will trade you mine. She was wearing some really nice sterling silver hoop earrings and I still have them to this day J� so I traded her and she asked me to autograph the back of my earrings and when she did that I said I’ m going home to start my business and that’ s how my company got started. RA: What is the mission of your company? Tasha LaRae: I want to help other people pursue what they want in their life and I want my company to help provide the jewelry that they’ re gonna need to get there. Because you gotta look fabulous in whatever it is that you’ re doing.( Continued on page 38)
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