Who needs drugs when you’ve got music?
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January 27, 2009
Gangster turned rapper to host music workshop for youth at Aurora College
By ...January 27, 2009
Gangster turned rapper to host music workshop for youth at Aurora College
By Shawn Bell
Music can be a catalyst for change. That is the message Shawn Bernard will be bringing to the South Slave, including a workshop at Aurora College in Fort Smith on January 31.
Bernard, an Edmonton rapper who goes by the stage name FEENIX, was the co-founder of a rap group that turned into a nation-wide gang. He’s been an alcoholic, crack addict and gang member, spent time in prison and watched his sister die of a drug overdose. Now he’s clean. out of the gangster life and working on his second album, the follow up to to 2007’s Canadian Aboriginal Music Award nominated “Tha Real O.G.”.
He also travels the country, telling his story and helping youth and adults turn away from a life of negativity.
“It’s about telling my story of growing up around drugs, prostitutes and alcoholic family members,” Bernard said. “How my rap group turned into a nation-wide gang, I was in and out of prison, they were going to take my kids away. When I was inside I made a promise to my Creator, that if he’d help me get out I’d be a good father for my kids. I got out and I went back to my culture, to sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies. I gave up drugs and alcohol and focussed on my music and good things started to happen for me.”
Bernard’s trip to the North (he’ll visit Yellowknife, Lutel K’e, Fort Smith, Hay River and Hay River Reserve) originated with two Lutsel K’e students who saw him perform at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards in Toronto. The students came back and convinced their teacher to bring Bernard to their school.
“There are a lot of kids who want to be rapper, entertainers,” Bernard said. “I just show them that I’m living proof that it’s possible”.
His workshop at Aurora College is open to everyone. Bernard will talk about the music industry and being a rapper. He’ll share stories from his life and give advice for anyone who could use it, be it about music or life.
I’ve been to a lot of communities,” Bernard said. “Some are big and some are small but I usually have a couple of kids come up to me and say that really learned something. It really makes them think, when they’re in that kind of situation and someone offers them something, that’s something Shawn’s talked about, it can make them think, am I making a good choice?”
Bernard added that he’s willing to hang around after the workshop and work with anyone who wants to rap.
“I’ll play some beats, if kids want to freestyle” he said, “get them up on the microphone in front of the crowd. That’s my drug these days”.
Rapper puts back to give kids a leg up
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by Jeffrey Severight
Shawn Bernard has been clean for four years. Since then he’s taken his chil...by Jeffrey Severight
Shawn Bernard has been clean for four years. Since then he’s taken his children out of child welfare, has a home and a car “everything with legit money for once” and has been giving back to the community who supported him through those critical first few years of sobriety. He is a motivational speaker on how to get out of the street life and is a rapper with such hot blooded and hopeful songs like “Fly So High” (a reference to a spiritual high) and “Isht”. Shawn is here to tell us that no matter how dark and ugly things get, you can rise up and overcome and even soar. You don’t have to do it alone. After a lifetime of gang activities, drug abuse and jail time, it took the death of his sister from an overdose to shake him out of his stupor. When he was ready to change and showed that he could stay on the straight and narrow, a host of agencies and organizations stepped up to support him.
“I had Boyle Street Community Services, Spirit Keepers Youth Society, iHuman Youth Society, Native Counseling Services and the National Film Board actually, all backing me up. They helped me from the beginning. I started off this whole journey be talking to Norquest. They are supportive as well. I had all these agencies, without knowing it, collaborating and working on me together.” Shawn said he capitalized on all his support to help him stay positive, accomplish things and live his dream. “I used all the means; iHuman to record my demo, Boyle Street for support letters, (they) always helped me fill out forms for grants and stuff like that, Spirit Keeper for financially helping me out when I needed to go to Toronto for the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards last year. They helped me out with hotel rooms while Boyle Street paid for my flights.
Shawn, aka FEENIX, has been nominated for Best Rap Album by the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. “If kids knew that these people could help them like this I know it would be a whole lot better for them. So what I do is go around talking to communities everywhere and I always mention these communities or agencies that helped me – and I always let people know that these are people that can help.” While rapping remains a passion and a powerful tool to get his message out, last year Shawn completed the Aboriginal Community Support Worker certification from Norquest College and is enrolled to commence a two-year diploma in Social Work this September. The father of six (four at home) is keeping his his own like on track, doing community work for both the inner city and the surrounding area. “These days I am working in a group home called Spirit Keepers Youth Society. It’s a society that focussed on getting kids out of gangs and finding them stability, a stable environment to live in.” He said “all these agencies that helped me are there for them.” When Shawn was younger, he used crack, solvents and alcohol. He said his spirituality played a big role in getting clean. “I got clean through locking myself in, through prayer. The Grandfathers, for asking for things, for positive things to happen and getting those positive things, I made promises to stay clean.” He wanted to be a positive force in life, not selling drugs to people and he’s been able to do that. “So I have to stick to my word and stay clean and focussed.”
Shawn, who is now a motivational speaker on gang prevention and high-risk lifestyles, has been involved with hip-hop since he was a teen. “I used to see groups like L.L.Cool J, Run DMC…back then I thought, these are just rhymes, I could write poetry. I’m going to write some Native rhymes. That’s pretty well my inspiration.” His hard core, shoot your mouth off lifestyle dominated his music. “you are what you is” but now his tunes have a decidedly positive side. “The journey to get where I am has been pretty well all my life. I’ve been through a lot in my life. I’ve been stabbed, jumped. I lived the drug dealer lifestyle and the gang lifestyle. It took all those hard experiences to make who I am today, to be able to go to communities to talk to kids about it because I have that “been there done that” story.
“ There isn’t anybody in this world that can dispute anything that I say is not true. When I go around talking to people, and the stories that I talk about and the things I talk about in my songs are all true, I try to spit the truth as much as I can in my lyrics.” Though the journey has been tough, Shawn will still never give up on his dreams to become a successful hip-hop recording artist. With two albums (“Tha Real O.G.” and “On Tha Rise”), FEENIX is well on his way.
For those looking to get more out of life, to rise above their surroundings, peer pressure, prejudice and all those things which can conspire to pull you down, Shawn has a few words of wisdom. “My advice would be to focus very hard. Like I said, drugs and alcohol slowed me down all my life. Now that I am drug and alcohol free, I am able to focus my mind 100% so if they really want something in life, any artist, no matter what the dream is, you have to give something up if you want to gain. I suggest trying to let go of what is hindering or slowing you down from letting you get to that goal.” Besides focus and sacrifice, Shawn mentions being true to ones self and one’s values.
“There’s going to be a lot of negativity as well. I can’t say that I wasn’t let down a few times by seeing people in this business or in this industry that promote promote positivity but are actually (promoting) negativity as well. Don’t let that get you down, just be who you are and do what you do.” For Shawn, he’s the living example.
Although Shawn was happy performing under his own name, “an old friend who was managing me suggested I should come up with a stage name. I kept seeing these little signs. I would open up a phone book and would see a company called “Phoenix”. When I was talking about what my name should be, I would look up and see a restaurant called “Red Phoenix”. I kept seeing these little signs- to me they were signs.” Drawn to this image, Shawn researched the myth of the phoenix. “He thought he was dead and then he rose up from the ashes and flew into the sun. I like to think of myself as rising out of the ashes. I rose above and I keep rising above and good things are happening for me. I feel like I’m going uphill with my career with the things I am doing and my accomplishments. I feel lie the phoenix symbolizes me and
The things I have accomplished and that I keep rising.”
Shawn’s work provides a light that shines the way for himself and others. Caring for family, upgrading his education, helping others and making music all keep the creative fires burning. The faith he has in himself, those around him and a greater spirituality inspires every effort. As he talks about juggling his duties as a father, with his rap music and motivational speaking gigs, what becomes apparent is the sheer amount of work Shawn does and does well. “I just keep going and going, the more busy I am, the more it keeps me from doing drugs and alcohol and I believe that’s what kids nee – things to do to keep them busy and occupied.
“If you want respect you got to give respect and what goes around comes around. If you want good things to happen, I suggest you do good things.”
supersonic
