Mariah Carey, Questlove.Photo: getty images (2)
Mariah Careyis making sure she’s in control of her own narrative.
Chatting with Questlove (né Ahmir Thompson) in an all-new episode ofhis podcastQuestlove Supreme, the five-time Grammy winner, 50, opened up about some of the challenges she faced while growing up as aracially ambiguous child.
“When people years from now tell my story — hopefully that happens — they’re gonna have to use that book as a template,” Carey told Questlove, 49, ofher memoirThe Meaning of Mariah Carey. “This is my actual story. I look at a lot of people that I admired who didn’t get a chance to do that. They may have told their stories through their music and people interpret their stories.”
She continued on the episode, which drops Wednesday: “I know some people, Ahmir, like to have everybody else’s input and their perspective. But what I wanted was to tell my actual story, which doesn’t begin with, ‘Mariah Carey put outVision of Lovein 1990.’ No, it doesn’t begin with that. It begins [with me] coloring in the ‘wrong’ crayon with a brown crayon for my father, so they all freak out at me.”
“It begins with, ‘I don’t understand my hair because I’m [half-black],'” recalled the star. “It begins with all these identity issues, these issues of race, these struggles. Then it goes to the issues of control.”
As she began breaking into the music industry, “there’s a thing where there’s a constant theme [with] being a woman in a male-dominated industry. Then [I was] a woman of color with all this ambiguity and [had] people deciding how they’re going to market me [at the time].”
Ahead of her memoir’s release last September, Carey told fans the book was an “improbable and inspiring journey of survival and resilience” documenting her lifelong struggles with “race, identity, class, childhood and family trauma.”
Part one of Carey’sQuestlove Supremeepisode — which will cover “everything from her catalogue of chart-topping music to her new memoir,” according to a press release — will be released tomorrow; a second portion will drop on Friday.
source: people.com
