What is the state of the Philippines today?
I can't speak for the entire state of the Philippines today only because I don't live there, and I'm not there long enough each time to feel like I have a true grasp on what the state of the entire country is. But I do have a feeling, from what I have seen, experienced, drawn from stories my elders have told me, and stories my younger cousins have told me. The Philippines is at the moment just a microcosm of what is going on globally, a pressure cooker of human rights inequality and injustice that is going to explode and end in bloodshed. The divide between the rich and poor is ever widening. Areas where the homeless squat on landfills of discarded plastic bottles under houses made of plastic tarp are cleared and leveled to make golf courses. I see the people building the huge houses in our province eating a lunch consisting of a giant bowl of rice and two okra, while my family and others constantly eats new things cooked by their chef every few hours. My uncle owns the only medical clinic in our province and gives children of lesser-off families the opportunity to work, and the promising ones he sends off to receive an education or to live in Manila with our other family members to find a better job there. There is no one to police the political corruption because the root source of that corruption is the police and its government officials. The rich want to stay rich at the cost of the poor and the poor only hope to survive at the mercy of the rich.
The Philippines, in my opinion, never got over Spanish imperial mentality, or maybe it could be that it was always innate in our blood that we should go for self, and only protect our own. After all we are a nation of a great many separate tribes, each speaking a different language. What is our identity? That’s the question that I feel plagues the state of the Philippines today. Besides tourism there, the leaders of the Philippines have failed to create a self-sustaining economy. We can't create our own jobs. We rely on others to outsource their jobs to us. We buy foreign products.
Our natural resources bought and exported by foreign countries. And someone is getting rich off of all this, while so many don't even have shoes. We bleach our skin, we get plastic surgery to look more "white", we're obsessed with beauty, material wealth and celebrity. The Philippines is and has been in a state of identity crisis and until we realize we are all the same tribe nothing will ever change. The only hope would be is if someone in one of these mafia-like "power families" said, hey, I'm influential and I'm going to change things. But that would most likely result in assassination.
Have you been there? What were your experiences like there?
I have been there a handful of times. A few when I was younger and a lot more recently. My experiences there have been both breathtaking and inspiring and terribly bittersweet. Every time I leave there it’s like parting from a mother you know needs your help. Like you should stay and do something, but you know you can't. I have actually had conversations with my mother about moving there and trying to do something about everything that makes me so horribly sad about my motherland, and her response was "you'll get shot". I remember a few years back the first time I landed in the Philippines being a woman and not a child. I saw a young woman in the streets holding a baby with scabs all over its face, begging for money. I rolled the car window down to give her some and my aunt yelled at me to never give beggars money because they are part of a syndicate of beggars that are operated by the police. What the fuck, man. But then there are those other moments, sunsets on the beaches where my parents used to swim, trekking through watery caves by lantern only to come to a clear blue pool at the end and a wall full of royal hanging coffins, the rice terraces of banaue where old women sit on the side of the road wearing feathered head dresses and colorful woven skirts, walking at night in my parents’ hometown when all is silent, listening to my cousin tell ghost stories of the old woman who hangs from the tree over the cemetery by her hair, the "black jesus" that hangs in the old church who miraculously appeared washed up on shore decades and decades ago. It’s beautiful. All the memories. I fear for the preservation of that beauty, where hearts are ugly.
What inspired this style reboot when compared to your J Natural days?
I don’t know, man. I was just over JNaturaL. She just wasn't me anymore. I mean I felt like I just didn't know where to go from there or what I was trying to say. JNaturaL to me was this girl of 25 who was idealistic and conscious and there was always a positive solution or lesson to be learned. And I had to rap rap rappity rap and have bars all the time or I wasn't hip hop. I feel that my last album under that name was a total conflict from who JNaturaL was. To be honest it was almost fake to me and done under pretenses that really involved ego. With Posey I slayed the ego. I killed her. Because I’m not always conscious, shit is not always positive, shit is fucked up man, and shit is painful, and I feel dark emotions. and sometimes I fucking hate hip hop.. i just hate the box it puts me in.. i hate the box in general. i don't want to make music. i want to make performance art. and I don't want anyone to compare me to who I used to be or what I look like. so I decided no, I won't use my female gender or my physical appearance or body to garner attention. And if you like my shit, cool, if you don't like it even better. if I get 20 real views on my Youtube, it’s better than 10,000 fake ones. It’s art, man. It’s not a fucking iPhone 6. You don't have to buy it.
What’s the future of Posey Rothschild?
I plan on completing this EP. I don't know what it’s going to be about or what it will be called, but I'm going to finish it. Along with that, a slew of visuals that will visually portray my emotions in the song. Lots of free music. Posey will live until I kill her too. Her future is uncertain.
What’s your favorite album of all time and why?
A Book of Human Language by Aceyalone. I don't like that I have to explain why on this, so I won't. Just listen to it and see why. Its pure alchemy.
