In the 1950's women knew their place: they were expected to play the happy homemaker, tend to the house, bake cookies, and burp the babies. Upon graduating from high school, a trip to college wasn't necessary, their career path was pointed in the vicinity of Secretary Land, wherein they could further extend their expected roles of serving and helping the "man of the house" by typing, filing and answering phones. Did they need a Masters Degree for that? I think not. "Throw this in the Johnson file, honey."
In order to get a seat in the boardroom, a chick was required to get dressed in costume, complete with a fake nut sack, penciled in mustache, and breasts tightly strapped down and disguised as A minus cups, and that was the plight of white women, so you know what Chocolate City went through. There was one thing that was shared equally across race and gender lines though: smoking.
Spark up and puff. It wasn't the Mary Jane that Rick James lovingly sang about, they were smoking tobacco filled cigarettes. The M.O.? Hang it from your lower lip or nonchalantly hold it between your fingers as you talk shit and flick ash in the nearest ashtray. A social statement. Like the platinum jewelry so in fashion today, it put you in the cool room.
The Way Back Machine hasn't been invented yet so Tweet's smoking habit wasn't influenced by that scene. She developed her penchant for stogies, her favorite being Marlboro Ultra Lights, after a breakup with her boyfriend. But don't preach.. "Yeah, I know it's not healthy, but my boyfriend left me, and until he comes back I'm just going to smoke." She documents her habit on a song called "Smoking Cigarettes," off her debut album Southern Hummingbird.
Tweet's music is inspired by past situations with people who've secured a position in her heart and then bit and pierced her soul, the pain seeping into her veins like poison. The antidote was to pick up a pen and write songs: "A lot of my songs come from the bad situations I've been in. The best medicine for a broken heart is to write songs. It's better than seeing a psychiatrist; it's like a healing process for me."
The youngest of five children, Charlene Keys was born in Rochester, NY. Her family was heavily involved with music. Her parents were part of successful gospel groups and her three brothers and one sister have mastered, among other instruments, the piano, bass guitar and drums. So music came naturally for Charlene and she decided early on that she wanted to make it a serious part of her life.
She describes her sound, her vibe, as being calm and rooted in a tradition of warmth. "Basically, I'm an old soul and I give that off."
One person who felt those soulful vibrations was Missy Elliot. In 1994, she worked with Tweet as a producer and songwriter for a group called Sugah. The group never got off the ground and they parted ways. Missy went on to become the ee ee oww girl, and Charlene, she found herself on the road to self-destruction.
Moving back in with her parents, who had relocated to Panama City, Florida, she became increasingly distressed over her failed singing career and non-fulfilling relationship. Picking up the smoking habit, which *ehem* the surgeon general has determined to be hazardous to your health, she resolved to speed up the death procession by taking a bunch of pills, cutting the pain off completely by taking her own life.
"I was gonna take a bunch of pills.. I had gone through this period looking for any regular job I could find and coming up empty. My love life was deteriorating. The music business seemed a million miles away. I was just existing, hiding from my parents how deeply depressed I really was."
Things happen for a reason, what you do and the people you interact with during the course of a day can have a profound effect on someone's life. You might not even be aware of it, but a small gesture can make a huge difference. The day before Tweet decided to end her life, Missy, who had begun recording Miss E So Addictive and in need of some background vocal work, decided to track down her old friend from Sugah and offer her the job.
The phone call was heaven sent, providing another shot in the music business and giving her someone to talk to. Recalling the incident Tweet says, "We hadn’t spoken in a long time, but I felt I could tell Missy the truth about how I was feeling because she and I had come from the same place having been through the same ordeal.." regarding the thoughts of suicide, she adds, "I wasn't feeling life at all. If it wasn't for her being concerned and remembering me, I don't know where I would be.. I call her my guardian angel now because she truly rescued me from ending my life.”
With the work on Missy's album completed and her own album set to be released on April 2nd, Tweet's life is just beginning.
Her sound has been described as a cross between Tracy Chapman and Minnie Riperton, acoustic soul. Her plan is to transcend the usual boundaries of R&B, by incorporating the sound of some of her influences in country and alternative music: Beck, Bjork, and country act, The Dixie Chicks. Will there be any collabos down the road? If she blasts off you can bet it'll happen, "..you wouldn't normally see a hip-hop artist wanting to do something with the Dixie Chicks, but my music is for everybody. It's music that's missing in the industry."
The digital funk bounce of her first single "Oops (Oh My) has lit the fuse on her career, people are talking. Not only about the sound, but the lyrics as well. What does she mean.. Oops? And talking about touching herself.. what is she singing about?
It's speculated that it's a song about masturbation. An accusation that was refuted by a girl on her message board. She relayed Tweet's response to the question of the song's true meaning, from a recent interview on NY's HOT 97 with Angie Martinez: "Tweet said that the song is talking about how she's starting to appreciate her skin color, because she always had a problem of having dark skin. And said she was expressing her feelings on how she thinks she looks, and that she doesn't care what other people say, she now appreciates her skin color. She also said that she talks about her skirt dropping down to her feet because she has beautiful legs."
The folks on the message boards, love her, but they don't buy it. One girl wrote this in response to Tweet's explanation..
"As I listened to Oops...it made me think....The flow was tight and the words were screaming at me...So, Tweet you saw your reflection and it looked so good you had to touch yourself...lol...Hmmmm, lets see: The symbolism of the song is that the reflection of yourself represents a girl right....and you found yourself being attracted to a girl right....and Oops there go your shirt, skirt, and whatever else fell off...... LOL.. I like that.. stay true.. I'm out."
There you go. Unconditional love.
