#25: Charlena Russell

Charlena Russell is founder of Russell Music School, vocalist, multi instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and artist. She shares her experience of teaching and learning life lessons from her students. We talk about her travels and how she infuses parts of her cultural backgrounds into her art including her sound activated light suit. She also shares her perspective on Black Lives Matter and her realization that she’s got more work and unlearning to do around systemic racism even as a self described mixed race person.

“There’s an artist Janice Lee who’s a dear friend of mine. A shout-out to her and a thank you to her. She did a lot of work in KW to raise awareness that racism needs to be addressed. And there were Black Lives Matter protests happening 5 years ago that she was part of and I remember not understanding it fully and not feeling comfortable enough to go because I myself, as a mixed person, had more work to do to unlearn what I’ve been taught, and what I’ve been raised to, y’know, think I’m weird and hate myself and I’m ugly and my hair is ugly and all those things. I mean it’s the truth of what we’ve all grown up in. And I’m so thankful for artists like her who have taken the time to like speak. And if anything, the reason why I was posting so much on Facebook has a lot to do with the fact that she helped give me my voice.”

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 CHARLENA RUSSELL
 TEACHING: https://russell-music-school.com
 WEB: https://charlena-russell.com 
 IG: https://www.instagram.com/charlenarussell
 SOUND ACTIVATED LIGHT SUIT: https://bit.ly/3ihvTBn
 MUSIC - SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: https://spoti.fi/2YQfgoZ

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