EP 2 Billie Holiday - A Voice of Resistance - Women and Resistance

This conversation delves into the life and legacy of Billie Holiday, exploring her early influences, rise to fame, unique vocal style, and the impact of her iconic song 'Strange Fruit.' 

In this discussion Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla highlights her defiance against societal norms and government oppression, as well as the lessons we can learn from her struggles and triumphs as a pioneering figure in jazz and civil rights.

Takeaways

*Billie Holiday's life was marked by resilience and defiance.
*Her unique voice and style set her apart in the jazz world.
'*Strange Fruit' was a powerful protest against racism and violence.
*Billie faced significant personal struggles, including abusive relationships.
*Her music was deeply influenced by her life experiences and pain.
*She challenged societal norms and fought for her place in the music industry.
*Billie's legacy continues to inspire artists and activists today.
*The importance of community and support in overcoming adversity.
*Her story reflects the broader struggles of Black women in America.
*Billie Holiday's life teaches us about authenticity and self-acceptance.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Billie Holiday and Her Legacy
02:45 Billie Holiday's Early Life and Influences
05:24 The Formation of Billie Holiday's Identity
08:13 Billie Holiday's Rise to Fame
11:02 The Unique Style of Billie Holiday
13:53 Billie Holiday's Impact on Jazz and Society
16:29 Billie Holiday's Defiance and Government Targeting
19:20 The Significance of 'Strange Fruit'
24:00 The Impact of Billie Holiday's Music
27:02 Billie Holiday's Rise to Fame
29:10 The Struggles and Triumphs of a Jazz Icon
33:17 Billie Holiday's Defiance Against Oppression
39:52 Lessons from Billie Holiday's Life
46:33 Authenticity and Identity in Billie Holiday's Journey
48:12 Billie Holiday's Legacy and Impact
50:54 Lessons from Billie Holiday's Life
57:02 Exploring Billie Holiday's Story Through Literature
59:50 Takeaways from Billie Holiday's Journey

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:00.908)
Yes. Greetings, greetings, greetings. Yeah. Welcome to the premiere episode of Women and Resistance. And I'm one of your hosts, Adeesuji Ginla. You know me as the host of African News Review here on Adeesuji Speaks. But tonight, I'm honored to have someone from who I consider a mother.

sister from another mother, she's an advocate, she's also the host of Rethinking Freedom, Aya Fubara and Elia Squire.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:41.891)
Thank you. It is such a pleasure to be in this space with you. And I'm so excited about what we're going to be doing with Women and Resistas. I'm so excited. So thank you for this opportunity.

Adesoji Iginla (00:55.412)
Okay, that said, yes, you were going to say something with regards to our champion of resistance tonight, Billie Holiday. Who is she? And could you just give us a brief introduction as to who this enigma is?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:20.673)
And enigma is the right word for her. So let me just give a little bit of background as to how I got introduced to Billie Holiday. I actually was born here in the United States of America, but I was raised in Nigeria. And one year, my father traveled to the UK and he came back with a VHS tape and it was a recording of Diana Ross.

Adesoji Iginla (01:40.803)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:49.636)
And I think it was, I think it may have been her performance at Caesar Palace or whatever. And so I became this huge, think I was eight, something like that, but I became this huge fan of Diana Ross. And then as I started to collect her albums, she had a whole album that was Lady Sings the Blues and she's singing all these songs. So I'm doing a deeper dive.

And that's how I found out that she was singing Billie Holiday's songs and that she had acted as Billie Holiday in a movie. And that's how I got introduced to Billie Holiday. But it was actually through Diana Ross who recorded her music because she actually was featured in a movie about Billie Holiday. So this woman, Billie Holiday, you know, she died at age 44.

Adesoji Iginla (02:17.495)
OK.

Adesoji Iginla (02:21.998)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:39.45)
She died all the way back in if we can call it all the way back in 1959 And yet today there's still so much about her, you know, another movie was just made about her by um Featuring andre day just a few years ago. I want to say 2021 So what is it about billy holiday and I would say that it's really The fact that there's so many facets to her

And although most of us may have been introduced to her as this tragic life story cut down in her prime, the fact that she endures beyond so many other jazz artists and legends, if you will, shows that there was so much more depth to her. And I'm hoping that today we can really talk a little bit more expansively about Billie Holiday and not just the salacious parts, although.

Adesoji Iginla (03:33.422)
Obviously. Yes, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:33.869)
The salacious parts were part of who she was. So I don't usually dress like this. I got this flower simply because Billie Holiday always wore gardenias in her hair. And you won't believe how many florists I called today to see if I could get gardenias. And there's a story behind how she even started wearing gardenias.

Adesoji Iginla (03:40.782)
you

Adesoji Iginla (03:44.824)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (03:56.94)
You care to tell us that before we...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:59.444)
Sure. So Billie Holiday is in, I guess, her dressing room, wherever it was she was getting ready, and she's curling her hair. And she ends up, black women who've ever had to use a hard curling iron or even a hot comb, you can, if it's too hot, burn your hair. So she actually burned her hair and she had a clump that was kind of missing and she had to go on stage.

Adesoji Iginla (04:13.259)
How it come? Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:27.225)
So between her and whoever was assisting her there was someone selling flowers at the door. They had gardenias and Billie Holiday pins the gardenias in her hair. it was such an iconic look Everybody loved it. She made it part of her signature look that and of course the red lipstick, which is why my lips are red

Adesoji Iginla (04:47.586)
Hmm. Okay. Okay. That said, that said, a question would be how did a woman with no formal music training become one of the most influential voices of the 20th century? And what made her a U S government target? But I suppose the point to start would be who is she? Where did, how did we come to know of her? You know,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:17.815)
Well, you know what if you ask who billy holiday is it just depends on which book you're reading To have her tell it and let me see if I brought her book here with me. Her book lady sings the blues. Do you have that one? I'm looking around here because i've got so many of her books But her and her book lady sings the blues. billy holiday sets tells this story about her life, which is

Adesoji Iginla (05:17.964)
So what's our background?

Adesoji Iginla (05:24.91)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (05:29.656)
Go.

Adesoji Iginla (05:33.41)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:45.432)
Some would argue different from the truth. She talks about her mother having her at age 13, coming from a good home and just happened to fall in with this guy who also was a musician and that her parents eventually married and she lived with her parents for a while before her father went off on tour because he played with a band and then he ended up, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (05:59.438)
decision.

Adesoji Iginla (06:12.078)
The traveling jazz band,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:13.965)
He ended up divorcing her mother and then marrying this other lady. That's a story that that Billy tells. Yes. The truth is she was born Eleonora Fagan. She was born to Sadie Fagan and her father is Clarence Holliday. And she talks about in her book about her father being shipped off to war and taking in so much poison gas that she said it was a great thing he was in a trumpet.

Adesoji Iginla (06:20.45)
doesn't rhyme with... yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:43.61)
Trumpetist and he learned how to play the guitar he played the guitar in the banjo Because his lungs are so shocked from what he was exposed to he would not have been able to be great You know as as a trumpeter or or being on the horn Um, but she was born Eleanora Fagan. Her mother was actually not 13 when she had her Other accounts say she was closer to 19 and her father was 17. Yes

Adesoji Iginla (06:46.318)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (07:07.374)
scene and the f was younger. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:11.225)
Her father was strict and her stepmother, they didn't appreciate the fact that she got married, that she got pregnant out of wedlock. And so they kicked her out of the house. And so, though her mother and her grandparents lived in Baltimore, she actually was born in Philadelphia.

Adesoji Iginla (07:33.57)
Philadelphia, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:34.488)
And the reason she was born in Philadelphia is her mother went seeking a place where she could make some kind of living support herself. And one story is that she was actually cleaning the floors in the hospital of Philadelphia so that she could then pay her way and be able to have her baby there. But they ultimately returned to Baltimore. And then again here, the story goes up and down depending on who you're listening to. But we do know that

Adesoji Iginla (08:00.216)
who you're listening to.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:04.365)
Billy lived more with her aunt, Ida, and her grandparents than she did with her mother in her early childhood, and that she was beaten quite a bit by her aunt, not treated very well. We know that she was a tomboy and that her her father supposedly nicknamed her Bill. But we know that Billy actually came from an...

a white actress that Billie Holiday loved, Billie Dove. And so she wanted to be called pretty and she wanted to feel very feminine and she liked Billie, that name. And so she took Billie and then her father's last name, Holiday, because she was always trying to connect herself to her father because one of the ways her aunt would insult her is to say she doesn't have a father. And we know that at age 10,

Adesoji Iginla (08:35.04)
love you.

Adesoji Iginla (08:53.752)
Tired up,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:02.073)
one of their neighbors actually raped her. His name was, I believe, Wilbert. Wilbert Rich. Yes. Yes. And so her mother, they reported the rape. And while he got three months, she got sent to the Catholic house of the Good Shepherd run by nuns at that very young age. And in her

Adesoji Iginla (09:05.432)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (09:09.098)
Yeah, well, but and he got he got three months.

Adesoji Iginla (09:25.588)
of Gusha Padilla.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:31.29)
In her biography, Lady Sings the Blues, she talks about some really horrific things that happened there, including being locked in a room overnight with a dead girl and just the ways that they shamed her. There are other parts of the story where she talks about her mother bringing all this fried chicken and boiled eggs and all of that, that you can see that she probably was just embellishing and making herself feel a lot better. So she was basically locked up at age 10 being

Adesoji Iginla (09:32.95)
that syncs below.

Adesoji Iginla (09:53.78)
Embellishing a lot, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:01.081)
punished for being the victim of sexual assault. No counseling. No, we're so sorry this happened to you. She got victimized again. We know that she did get out early because initially she was supposed to stay there till she really turned, she turned 21, but her mother was able to fight and get some legal assistance to get her out of that place. We know that she was a truant.

Adesoji Iginla (10:02.413)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:30.003)
And she did not get past fifth grade education, although she liked to read. She was also a boxer as a little girl. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (10:38.904)
Yeah, are exa- which... It was the boxing bit. Go on.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:43.546)
Yeah, so, know she she was this absolute enigma, but we also know that by the time she was age 14 She had been arrested for prostitution With her mother she doesn't tell that version of the story in her own biography But there yeah, there are other Accounts of her life that that chronicle that and of course, it's public record as well except that when she was before the judge they

Adesoji Iginla (10:58.346)
or in Lady that Sings, yeah, but...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:10.915)
claimed that she was 18 and not 14. And that was when she was sentenced, I think, to 100 days in the workhouse. So she was very well endowed and developed at a young age. And that always kind of brought certain attention to her.

Adesoji Iginla (11:14.03)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (11:30.146)
on, yeah, on, savory attention at the same time, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:34.028)
What we do know when you asked about how did this untrained woman become this legendary musician, this really genius, she always had a knack for music. She was always drawn to music. And according to her, the places that had a victorola that could actually play music were mostly the quote unquote whorehouses, the brothels. In fact, at that point in time, jazz was labeled whorehouse music.

Adesoji Iginla (11:47.949)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (12:02.094)
music. Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:03.455)
And so she would, whether it was washing steps, with people's steps to their homes, basically serving as a maid, she would also work in these brothels initially because she said she just wanted to be around the music and listen to the music. And she was very much influenced by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. Of course, there are other sides of the story that her mother.

Adesoji Iginla (12:19.871)
eventually becoming

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:28.953)
took her to a brothel and she was working with her mother at the brothel and that's when there was a raid and they got arrested. She claims in her book that the reason they got arrested was since we're giving tea and and I'll give just a little bit of the salacious part, Billy got to a point where she said she only wanted white men to pay for her services.

Adesoji Iginla (12:34.286)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:57.07)
And the reason for that was that the white men had wives. And so they would, to keep it delicately, they would hit it and quit it and go home. And she said, but that the black men would want to like all night long and they were hurting her. And so it's not funny, but that's what she said in her book. And so that what happened was she actually rejected a black man who

Adesoji Iginla (13:04.568)
quit and go. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (13:23.286)
And we, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:23.725)
you know, had some influence and did not appreciate being rejected because she says, nope, not servicing anymore black men. And that's how the police were tipped and they were raided the following morning. But so she got, she fine tuned her ear listening to the music of some of the greats, but.

Adesoji Iginla (13:31.694)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (13:38.062)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:48.224)
Also, she started to frequent, she said if there was a dance, there was any place that played music, she was there. And she was there listening that, know, her family sometimes thought, she was just there to like go and hang out with men or whatever, but it was really the music that had attracted her. And she kept honing her voice and her instrument. As a matter of fact, people likened her voice to a horn in terms of the range of what she was able to do.

Adesoji Iginla (13:54.476)
as if she was there.

Adesoji Iginla (14:06.35)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:17.357)
the instrumentality of her voice.

Adesoji Iginla (14:19.662)
Yep, Okay, so she does a quote in one of the books, Her Life and Times. And the quotes, which is attributed to her is, the streets were my school and that's where I learned to survive. So even as a child, butressing the point you make in terms of the music, listening to the music and what have you, and building a foundation of it.

What would you say made her unique in terms of her delivery? Because at that time, yes, jazz, although we know it was restricted to, quote unquote, the unsavory aspect of town, but then people came to watch her perform because they heard there is this voice that you need. In one of the books, they put it, OK, that

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:08.411)
yes.

Adesoji Iginla (15:16.013)
There is this voice you need to experience, not listen to, but experience.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:22.297)
So in Harlem, in certain areas of New York City, that was definitely, especially after hours, the limousines, according to the stories, would just line up. They wanted to hear and partake of the culture. I think they're still doing that today. We don't like the people and we discriminate against them, but we want to partake of the culture. So to answer that question.

Adesoji Iginla (15:30.094)
You

Adesoji Iginla (15:35.95)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:45.966)
How about I just share what some of her peers and others have said about her voice, what sets her apart. Teddy Wilson said, her ear was phenomenal, but she had to get a song into her ear so she could do her own style on it. Duke Ellington says no one sounded like her. Bobby Tucker said, man, she had the greatest conception of a beat I ever heard. These are top musicians, right? Ella Fitzgerald said,

Adesoji Iginla (15:53.272)
You won.

Adesoji Iginla (16:10.902)
greats in their year accomplished.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:14.711)
We all want it to be like her. Tony Bennett said she could take a song and make it her own. Billie didn't just sing the melody. She lived inside the song. Frank Sinatra said Billie Holiday could express more emotion in one chorus than more artists could in a lifetime. Maya Angelou said her voice was filled with life's bruises, but in every note there was also beauty and honesty and defiance.

Adesoji Iginla (16:20.013)
own.

Adesoji Iginla (16:24.43)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:43.042)
Like you're not going to kill me and I want I would like us to at some point today if we can share some of the lyrics from ain't nobody's business Nina simone said she sang as if she had lived every word turning songs into confessions and confessions into anthems Johnny Hammond the record producer who discovered her In quote said she didn't just sing the blues. She was the blues

Adesoji Iginla (16:44.953)
me.

Adesoji Iginla (17:07.618)
What?

Adesoji Iginla (17:12.024)
blues,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:12.629)
And her feather, a jazz critic says, Billie's voice was a cry from the heart, a sound of both suffering and strength. And Lena Horne said, listening to Billie Holiday is like hearing someone tell you the truth, even when it hurts. So for me, when I listen to Billie Holiday's music and what sets her apart, first of all, once you hear her voice, you know it's her voice. Like nobody sounds like Billie Holiday. But Billie Holiday has

Adesoji Iginla (17:38.754)
Yeah, no, very distinct. Yeah, very distinct.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:42.56)
a way of carrying a note, saying a phrase, because her articulation was pinpoint, but in a way that just reaches into your soul and grabs a piece of you. Like she pulls you into the music. You can feel her heartbeat. That's how I feel when I listen to Billie Holiday. And so there may be other people who had stronger voices, other people who could scat better, other people who had, you know, whatever that they may have, but

Adesoji Iginla (17:49.517)
Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:11.843)
capturing the essence of Billie Holiday in her voice, no one has been able to do it.

Adesoji Iginla (18:17.966)
Speaking of capturing people with their voice, could you tell our listeners and viewers alike what she does when she's about to perform any of her classics? She has a way of setting the mood. What does she do?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:35.961)
Well, I'm not sure what you're referring to and what phase of her life. Because first of all, I mean, we know that Billy.

And I don't know if people know this as much because sometimes we think people just have raw talent So you might have to pinpoint exactly what you want to cover here, but billy had a lot of discipline Like they say that she would sit with and rehearse a song really hear it over and over again until she could now Figure out in her head what she was doing and when she sings a song that billy never sang the same song the same way twice

Adesoji Iginla (18:52.686)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (19:15.246)
That's the point I wanted to make.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:16.469)
It was always, cause she improvised as she went along. So like, like a horn when we see the jazz players improvising, Billie was constantly improvising with her voice. And that was one of the reasons that so many musicians loved to play with her. Cause you just did not know what you were going to get from minute to minute, but it was awesome. It was amazing. It was beautiful.

Adesoji Iginla (19:21.176)
based on the audience.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:43.127)
but it was unique and even she wouldn't redo it the same way again. Is that what you were getting at?

Adesoji Iginla (19:50.11)
Yeah, that's what I'm driving at. It's the point that when you go to her, like Hammond said, that you experience the music with her. furthermore, would it be safe to say it was that uniqueness that made her a sore point to the government? Because if she could capture... Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:01.303)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:15.065)
Yeah, that was the other part of the question they asked so when you when you talk about Billie Holiday being raised on the streets I mean Listen ten years old you're already locked up and then the discrimination the the horrors that she probably didn't share she talked about Women who in her book she called Dykes

Trying to molest her even when she was locked up the first time and the second time and again I refer to being locked up with a dead body all all night. I I'm not a psychologist. I wonder that what that does to the psyche the psyche of a girl who was already a Prostitute by time she was 14 earning her living in that way haven't already been a maid. there was a strength to Billie Holiday. There was a defiance of

Adesoji Iginla (20:52.834)
Mm. Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:08.109)
You know what, I don't care what life hands me, I'm going to make something of myself. So she talks about wanting the silk dress and the patent leather high heels and the fancy hat and all that. She wanted to be somebody, regardless of how humble her background was. And I think that is the defiance that allowed her

Adesoji Iginla (21:12.046)
throws at me.

Adesoji Iginla (21:17.122)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:36.1)
to record that song, Strange Fruit. As you know, and then you might want to expand on this, Strange Fruit was written by a Jewish man. Some people may not know that his name was Abel Miropol. He was also known as Lewis Allen. He was actually a college, he was a teacher. And when she got the, so was written as a poem. When she got it,

Adesoji Iginla (21:38.668)
fruit, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (21:46.338)
Jewish man. Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (21:52.064)
Miracle, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (22:02.262)
A poem,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:03.905)
She wanted to record it as a song and she went to her recording label Columbia. And once they looked at the lyrics, they said, no, not touching it. But she was insistent that she was going to record this song. And she ended up working with Milt Gabler who owned Commodore Records and that, and he did the arrangement and then she subsequently recorded Strange Fruit. And from all the research that I've been able to do,

Adesoji Iginla (22:11.618)
Nope.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:33.974)
it was singing that song and the way it attracted attention that caused the FBI to now say, a second. Now the FBI already had problems with jazz artists. They were after some of the jazz artists. It's rumored that some of the big jazz artists eventually became informants for the FBI. So you have Charlie Parker, you have some others who...

Adesoji Iginla (22:46.487)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (22:54.242)
No informants

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:58.808)
They felt like jazz and drugs, heroin at that point went hand in hand and whoring, to speak. And so they were already after them in a way that they weren't after any of the performers who were also engaging. you know, blackness is always cool. And so in their minds, at least from what they've written, was like, it's black people glamorizing this, making it cool that it's causing the white.

Adesoji Iginla (23:14.658)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (23:27.948)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:28.509)
know, elite or whatever to flock to them and it's creating problems in white America, so to speak. But in terms of the way they targeted Billie Holiday, it wasn't just because she eventually was abusing drugs. It really was this strange fruit and the story that she was telling with the lyrics of that song.

Adesoji Iginla (23:49.206)
It was said that when she performed Strange Fruit, she would often ask them to kill the noise and the lights go out. the only person that had light on them was Billie Holiday. And she would perform the song. And when the lights come back on, half of the people were in tears. Some people basically had to just get up and leave.

and the more they listen to it the more the word spread and then the governments you know started looking into yeah

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:26.559)
And she was telling a story that obviously America didn't want to have told. So if our audience will indulge me, I am not a singer. One time in my life, I could hold a note that time has passed. But I'm going to just read a few, just a few of the words from Strange Fruit. Southern trees bear a strange fruit. Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots.

Adesoji Iginla (24:36.086)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:52.301)
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze.

Adesoji Iginla (25:01.825)
as lynching.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:04.121)
Strange fruits hanging from the poplar trees. I would encourage each and everyone who's watching this to go and listen to Billie Holiday sing that because I could not even begin to do it justice. But if you can imagine that scene that Ade Soji just described, being in this arena, whatever room, all the lights cut, and she always starts without.

any accompanying music, so it's her voice and just these words. And even as I started to read it, just feeling this chill, because actually not even a 15 minute drive from where I am sitting right now, William Gentry was lynched here in Belton, Texas at age 18.

Adesoji Iginla (25:34.71)
see that?

Adesoji Iginla (25:42.414)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:58.178)
So I can only imagine for people who were in her presence when she sang this song, what an impact that it had on people. And you know, America is all about propaganda and they did not want the truth told. And so the FBI came after her and they came, they hounded her for the rest of her life. They specifically instructed her to stop singing that song and she would not stop.

Adesoji Iginla (26:21.641)
song.

Adesoji Iginla (26:25.068)
That's the first act of defiance in itself. And then they started throwing things at her, informants around her, so much so that...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:36.471)
and for informants including her lovers.

Adesoji Iginla (26:42.791)
we've not even gotten to the husband yet. That's, I mean, that's, that in itself is troubling. So

We've spoken about our fearlessness in performing the song despite not just industry pushback, but also government pushback.

Would you say the reason why the FBI went after her and I have a quote from her which is, sorry, there's a quote attribute.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:17.325)
Yeah, what do you think the reason is that they went after her?

Adesoji Iginla (27:21.794)
I think at that time, you're talking about the 50s. It's okay to have a problem, but to have the problem highlighted in such a format, knowing the power of sound, power of music, recording then was not as we live it today, where people can just be in their own little silos and you have Spotify.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:34.873)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:45.207)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (27:45.43)
you've got album, it comes on the gramophone, her voice is so serum that it hits the soul, just like you described it. And bearing in mind, this is someone's lived experience. It's usually okay as long as people don't get to hear about it, which is one of the, again, the define moments when Emetio's mom

again, refused to close the casket. Because for them, if she had closed the casket, you and I would probably never have seen that picture. So Billie Holiday giving her voice to Strain Fruit is essentially opening the casket of lynching. mean, Ada B. Wells has already done it in sense of chronicling it. But to have somebody play it over and over again.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:19.619)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (28:44.342)
It's like, you know, that sound that you don't want to get into your head, but then somebody keeps talking. And so for them, it's like, who is this woman? Make her stop. Make her stop. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:59.618)
I think there are other elements to why she was also targeted and if I can take a moment to just talk about what this woman did in her life, okay? So Billie Holiday By age 18 Had been discovered. Okay, so 14 she gets arrested she comes out. She's she's like not going to be beaten down she Actually,

Adesoji Iginla (29:07.64)
OK.

Adesoji Iginla (29:21.848)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:26.445)
was living with her mother and her mother was really sick and she was, they were facing eviction the next day. And she goes into this spot and they had a wanted dancer sign. They were hiring a dancer. She didn't dance, but she was so desperate. She goes in and she says, hey, I can dance. I'm like, okay, try out. And she's messing up there and the owner is like, hey, listen, get out of here. But.

Pianist who became her accompanist for many years said hey, can you sing says yeah and right then she starts to sing and He was so captivated by her voice that it was like, okay You'll hide on the spot and that night she performed in the place where they performed. This is how they dehumanize black women You have patrons eating drinking whatever sitting at tables and you're singing and the way you make your money is A patron holds out a dollar bill

Adesoji Iginla (30:23.8)
then you go to the table.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:24.171)
And you have to pick it up with your thighs. So you're pulling your dress up and you're opening your thighs to like clutch the money. And if you're not really good at it, you might not be able to get the money. So they couldn't just leave the money on the table for you to pick it up. They couldn't just give it to you in your hand. You had to be dehumanized in that way. And it is said that, one of the, there, there's lots of different reasons she started being called lady day, which came from her friend Lester.

But people started saying, she's a lady because she absolutely detested having to debase herself in that way to get a dollar. And she ultimately wouldn't. And people started actually handing her her own money. But she was able to make enough money to then pay for her and her mother not to be evicted. So think of this young woman at 18.

So I'm going to look at her her musicology if you will in three eras. So you have the rise of a jazz icon. This was um being 1933 because she was born in 1915 1933 being discovered by record producer John Hammond made her first recording with Benny Goodman including your mother's son-in-law and riffing the scotch those were her very first recordings.

By between 1935 and 1939, she was recording extensively with Teddy Wilson and his orchestra producing hits like what a little moonlight can do. What a little moonlight. Okay. I'm not gonna try and sing and easy living. Everybody go play Billy Holiday today. But here's the deal. She became a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance in the vibe in that jazz scene, playing at Savoy Ballroom, the Cafe Society.

Adesoji Iginla (31:52.694)
Alright.

Adesoji Iginla (32:07.278)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:11.545)
which was one of the first integrated nightclubs in New York. So Billie had influence. When we talk about why did the FBI target her, right? 1939, she records Strange Fruit, right? Politically charged song. The golden years of innovation would be the second phase, right? This will be 1944 to 47. At this point, she's no longer that nervous little girl she has.

Adesoji Iginla (32:25.496)
fruits.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:40.122)
come into her whole womanhood, right? She starts to achieve mainstream success. Lester, her friend, dubs her Lady Day. Now we have the Gardeinia. She has this whole persona going. She was very sensual, but she was strong, but her song had this fragility as well to it, right? Lester Young, by the way, her saxophonist is, and who she called her musical soulmate.

Adesoji Iginla (32:52.086)
Dinians.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:08.835)
By between 1940 and 1944, she had signed with Decker Records. Now she did Love a Man and she did Don't Explain. There are all these tumultuous love affairs going on, married, divorced, all of that stuff. But what Billie Holiday also did was she broke barriers by performing with prominent white orchestras. At that time, no other female, black female, was doing that, right? Including Artie Shaw's band.

becoming one of the first black women to front an all white band on tour. And they went all through the South where she dealt with a lot of crap because the tour bus, you know, that the, the, tour mates could go in the front door. They could stay in hotels, things like that. She would have to stay in the bus while they got up, got food and brought it to the bus for her, things like that. In 1946, she performed in Carnegie hall.

Adesoji Iginla (33:52.728)
front and she had to go through the back.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:05.195)
Solidifying her her reputation as a powerhouse as a jazz icon All of this while she's drink singing strange fruit So all of this attention, I mean if she was a little miss nobody singing strange food It wouldn't have been a big deal, but she was a rising star, right? And so at this time they start to hit her by 1947. They've arrested her for drugs. She goes to jail

Adesoji Iginla (34:14.53)
Drink fruit.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:34.734)
They take away her cabaret card and she did everything she could to get that cabaret card returned. And why wouldn't they give it back to her? It was a way of controlling her because you could, you needed a cabaret card to sing, to perform, right? And the cabarets had, you know, they always had alcohol that was part of the appeal to people. And because she had this felony and they took her cabaret card,

Adesoji Iginla (34:48.59)
to perform, yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:02.457)
She could no longer perform in many of these places in New York, which was the scene. So she ended up having to go to other places outside of New York to perform just because they had taken that carburet card from her. So 1947, the arrest for drug possession, which led to imprisonment. This obviously affected her income, but she gets back out. And between 1952 and 1959, when she died,

Adesoji Iginla (35:07.256)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:31.042)
She recorded Lady Sings the Blues, which also coincided with the release of the autobiography of the same name. She continued to tour Europe and end US. And then of course her final recording in 1959, which was Lady and Saturn. And then of course she gets arrested again. This time it didn't stick. And then on her death bed, they actually came in and charged her.

with heroin possession, she was so weak she couldn't even move. And they said they found heroin on her dresser. And these absolute pieces of trash, FBI human beings, and Louis McKay, who was her husband at the time, framed her and she was actually shackled to the bed and she died in shackles. But.

Adesoji Iginla (36:17.782)
Husband, yeah

Adesoji Iginla (36:24.11)
to the bed.

Adesoji Iginla (36:29.908)
having having withdrawal symptoms. What did she say on her way out? She said something.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:35.095)
What did she say? Tell me.

Adesoji Iginla (36:37.548)
when she said, you don't want me to play the song, but your kids and your forebears will sing this song. Guess what we're doing today?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:47.487)
And she was prophetic in that. She was prophetic. She was prophetic. Yeah. She was prophetic.

Adesoji Iginla (36:51.938)
Talk about defiance.

And so, I mean, she, we've gone into her motivation, her upbringing, her experience on the streets. Just a year.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:07.031)
We touch just a little bit. This woman is an enigma. Just a little bit.

Adesoji Iginla (37:11.95)
Can you give us some of the teas, as they would say, some of the uncultured stuff she got up to? Because there is a whole raft of them. I mean, okay, for starters, for starters, wasn't, yeah, for starters, she wasn't discriminatory with regards to who she gave her love to. And I don't mean genders as well. So

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:25.783)
Well, I mean, I mean, uncultured by whose definition, but go ahead.

Adesoji Iginla (37:42.232)
for some people, that time it will have been shocking because in reading her biography, Lady Sings the Blues, it's saying that 70 % of the stuff in there was actually left out because most people did not want to be associated with her. I mean, obviously the theme of the book, it's

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:03.649)
No, no, actually, what happened in the writing of the book is when they had the first draft, if you will, there were certain people who were just like, we will sue if you put that in. They did not want that part of their lives told, including like Tallulah Bankhead. Tallulah was rumored to have been one of her lesbian lovers, and that would have ruined, I guess, or negatively impacted her reputation.

Adesoji Iginla (38:07.214)
Mm hmm. Draft, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (38:15.406)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (38:24.449)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (38:30.88)
And to Lula.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:30.923)
So there were certain things that were definitely kept out.

Adesoji Iginla (38:34.048)
And Tulula was also instrumental in helping her to stand up to her husband.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:39.81)
Yes, she was. But you know, when you talk about the enigma and the mystery of Billie Holiday's life, there was a lady who was absolutely taken by Billie Holiday long after she passed away, Linda Kuhl. And she started to record all of these interviews with people who had lived and known Billie Holiday on an intimate level.

Adesoji Iginla (38:45.294)
Beliality.

Adesoji Iginla (38:59.054)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:05.177)
And it's claimed she committed suicide, but her sister says her sister was killed. So, yeah, still. So it's interesting. Will we ever really know the reason why Billie Holiday was targeted by the FBI in the way that she was and why even some of the black male, her black male contemporaries who were using drugs just as she was were not

Adesoji Iginla (39:12.405)
Wow, still.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:34.212)
Pursued and there was a time when they pretty much were following her every step of the way and so he devised a plan where They used a dog as a courier You know, it's like the dog would go out and then they would put the drugs in the collar of the dog And then the dog would be let back in by the doorman. but Yeah, I don't know that until all the vaults are open and J Edgar Hoover was definitely

Adesoji Iginla (39:48.183)
drugs.

Adesoji Iginla (39:58.22)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:01.525)
obsessed with her as was Aslinger as well. They wanted to destroy her. And unfortunately, there were some black men who it is claimed had the FBI had things on. And so one of the ways that they could get off on whatever they had on them was for them to become informants on Billie Holiday. And so at a point, I think she probably was very paranoid because it was just who could she trust.

Adesoji Iginla (40:07.822)
Speaking of

Adesoji Iginla (40:15.629)
on

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:28.281)
So in terms of some of the more salacious things, know, yes, she had multiple lovers. She was married a couple of times with all of her relationships that I'm aware of were very abusive with the ones with men in particular, to the extent that I believe when she performed, I think it was at Carnegie, she performed a broken ribs, like her lover had beaten her so badly, she had to be taped up to be in that dress.

Adesoji Iginla (40:50.807)
review.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:57.466)
She died penniless, although Louis McKay, who she was in the process of divorcing before she died. So the papers had been drawn up. She just hadn't signed them, ended up becoming her sole beneficiary. And he left her royalties, her fortune to his child by a different woman and to his then wife.

Adesoji Iginla (41:12.536)
beneficiary. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:22.265)
And so the people that Billie Holiday loved, including her godson, who she was very, close with, did not, none of them benefited from her body of work and all these royalties all these years later. Of course, we know that she did abuse heroin. We know towards the end of her life, she was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. She drank a lot. almost, in putting on this garb for Billie Holiday today, I almost brought a glass and I would have just put water in it, but.

Adesoji Iginla (41:34.062)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:51.864)
You know, some of her iconic pictures at the end of her life, she's, you know, in front of a microphone and she's got a glass of gin. And Audra McDonald actually did, you guys can catch this, it's a 2016 made for TV movie called Lady J at Emerson's Bar and Grill. And Audra McDonald really showed, the whole thing is based on Billie's last performance in her last days before she, you know, subsequently.

Adesoji Iginla (42:08.035)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:22.233)
Was admitted to the hospital and you just see her, you know She starts off one way and the more she drinks as the As her act goes on the more her words are slurred. Sometimes she stumbles all of that, but still you're mesmerized By her voice you're mesmerized by her wit You could see this was just not a woman who was going to Yes, yes

Adesoji Iginla (42:23.648)
left the

Adesoji Iginla (42:35.656)
Slurred, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (42:49.56)
give in easily.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:52.513)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (42:53.417)
Now,

looking at her life and sort of putting it in contemporary times.

Adesoji Iginla (43:06.83)
the people in the United States are living through interesting times. We've talked about high resistance, high defiance. How would you say some of what you gathered in research will translate into modern times? For one, she never quite had a community around her, although she had like Tatula, her mother up to when she passed.

There was another gentleman, the guy who wrote his... What's his name? Duffy. William Duffy. Yeah, William Duffy and his wife. And yes, those three would be...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:38.979)
So, y'all.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:44.653)
William Duffy, yeah, William Duffy and his wife, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:53.146)
She had other people. Yeah, those three do come up. So what I would say about, you know, as we talk about women and resistance, again, it pains me that we see Billie Holiday mostly as this tragic figure because I just see so much strength and resistance in her.

Adesoji Iginla (43:56.084)
But those three come up for regular mention in all the books. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (44:11.182)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:14.969)
Of course, we've talked about just the courage it takes to perform strange fruits and to speak up even when you're trying to be silenced. And what are we dealing with today? All across the globe, but certainly here in the United States, it's like the restriction of people's speech. You can't say this, can't, no, no, you can't say Black History Month or whatever, or that you work, anti-DEI, we're banning books, so on and so forth. And unlike many people who are just cowering, unlike many people who are folding like wet newspapers, if you will.

Adesoji Iginla (44:24.344)
silence.

Adesoji Iginla (44:39.629)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:44.698)
Billie Holiday being hounded by the FBI, this is a black woman being hounded by the entire FBI, stood her ground. I'm singing the Dagon song, do with it what you may. With the federal government, with the FBI, them saying, hey, give up whoever gives you your drugs and then we would drop the charges or whatever. Until her last breath, she's like, I ain't telling you nothing.

Adesoji Iginla (45:04.788)
drugs.

Adesoji Iginla (45:12.641)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:12.761)
Whatever it is you're gonna do to me. I am NOT telling you anything. Holliday famously responded I'll die with my trumpet in my hand Refusing to be silenced despite all of the the harassment and the legal troubles Right and all the issues that they had caused for her I don't know if people know that Billie Holliday sang at communist events She sang at communist benefits for Benjamin Davis who was a congressman from Harlem

Adesoji Iginla (45:27.31)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:42.518)
Of course we know that she broke barriers in segregated America. She challenged segregation during Jim Crow. Who is this little woman who thinks she can come and dictate any policies anywhere? But she spoke out against the mistreatment of black artists, demanded equal treatment, in places where she was denied access and so on and so forth, she just never let that stop her from believing in herself.

Adesoji Iginla (45:46.156)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (46:03.0)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:11.393)
And so lessons for us today, I don't care what the barriers are. I don't care who's trying to stop you believing yourself and keep going and whatever you have had to deal with, gather that up and try to use that to power yourself on. Now, you know, could we say, wow, she was weak to have used drugs and so on and so forth and alcohol? Yes. Is that a cautionary tale for all of us?

Adesoji Iginla (46:26.274)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:39.898)
Absolutely, it is so you listening to this and you look got a little alcohol a drug problem go get it handled but when you talk about the community as close as she was with her mother and She set her mother up Right in terms of the eatery that her mother had and all of that when she came out of jail and was down and out and couldn't perform and Needed some money her mother turned her down now. There's some

Adesoji Iginla (46:50.414)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (47:00.898)
mother turned on her as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:06.105)
There's some accounts that said it's because her mother didn't like who she was with and felt she was gonna blow it on drugs. But bottom line is her mother turned her down and that's when she wrote the lyrics, the song, God Bless the Child That's Got His Own. And there's actually a children's book by the same name, God Bless the Child, Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. But that's when she wrote that. So even her mother in her lowest times also, and maybe some people may consider it tough love,

Adesoji Iginla (47:18.776)
Ciao!

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:35.598)
but rejected her at that time. Billie Holiday also worked to own her own story through her music. So this John Hammond who supposedly discovered her was very critical of her singing Strange Fruit and said, hey, you should be singing a happy kind of stuff. She just went downhill with the melancholy stuff. Well, listen, her legacy endures for a number of reasons, but also because of Strange Fruit.

Adesoji Iginla (47:37.464)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (47:47.245)
discovered her.

Adesoji Iginla (47:53.678)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:04.097)
And so just being able to speak her desires and own who she was in song. So let me just let me just share a little bit about this woman's defiance. This is from these are lyrics from the song taint nobody's business if I do and businesses B I Z N E S S. says there ain't nothing I can do or nothing I can say that folks don't criticize me, but I'm going to do just as I want to anyway.

Adesoji Iginla (48:08.024)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (48:22.318)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:32.066)
and I don't care if they all despise me. I mean, she's singing this. I mean, just me reading it, I'm shaking my head. I'm like, can none of you do nothing to me, right? There's a whole attitude that comes with it. She said, if I should take a notion to jump into the ocean, taint nobody's business if I do. If I go to church on Sunday, then just shimmy down on Monday. Ain't nobody's business if I do.

Adesoji Iginla (48:36.878)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (48:53.166)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:01.173)
If my friend ain't got no money and I say take all mine honey, and she was very generous Taint nobody's business if I do she says if I give if I give him sorry, If I give him my last nickel if my man had got no if I give him my last nickel and it leaves me in a pickle Taint nobody's business if I do and then this part Well, i'd rather my man would hit me than to jump right up and quit me

Adesoji Iginla (49:08.29)
Business. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:31.834)
Taint nobody's business if I do so she owned who she was good bad and indifferent You know, this is who I am Again, do I feel like there's a larger story for us to learn especially as a black woman and With all of these women and resistance stories. I'm gonna be focusing on black women. I know that's what we're doing together. I did so do you hear

I think one of the cautionary tales for today is women, sisters, you can't find your worth and your self-value and love in a man or in drugs or in any kind of addiction. Like you've got to do the work to find that within you as you connect to your creator. That's a takeaway from me because she kept seeking that love, that stability she didn't have as a child.

her father rejecting her, her going out and saying daddy, daddy when she would see him and he's like, don't call me that. And she's like, if you don't want me to call you that, you better give me some money so I can pay the rent. And just being raped repeatedly. She was raped by police officers in this process of all this harassment. And who's gonna believe you junkie, right?

Adesoji Iginla (50:47.182)
Just those, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:54.797)
But this was a woman who lived very authentically in an era where that was not the thing to do. And you brought up already about her identity, her sexual identity. He loved men, but apparently she wasn't averse to loving women either. And she loved black, white, and I think everything in between. Of course we know that her great grandmother was a slave, was owned by an Irish white man.

Adesoji Iginla (51:04.129)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

like women as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:23.789)
That's where the Fagan comes from. I think a great grandmother had 16 children something like that. So her grandfather's Yes, her grandfather was half white basically But also just the way when we talk about money people don't understand this remember she died in 1959 Billie Holiday in her prime earned a thousand to three thousand dollars a week

Adesoji Iginla (51:25.518)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (51:46.84)
was ending. Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:52.922)
12,000 a month back before the 60s. know, do that math as to what that some of us listening right now do not make, wait a second, do not make, how many of you make 12,000 a month?

Adesoji Iginla (52:08.174)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:10.915)
I mean, the average American family does not earn 72,000 in a year in 2025. So think about how much money she had back then. So she talks about, you know, being in her Cadillac and the four coats and all of this stuff and traveling through Europe and so on and so forth. So, Billie also fought for pay equity for black women and for black artists as a whole. She used her platform to advocate for racial equality confronting

Adesoji Iginla (52:16.632)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:41.195)
the systemic inequities within the music industry and asking for credit for her music, asking to be paid at a level that they initially had not been paying people, which reverberates today. So what are the lessons for today? that I take from Billie Holiday.

We can't control always what like actually very rarely can we control what life throws at us. But we can control the meaning we attach to it and what we choose to do with that pain.

And the lessons learned. Billie obviously channeled that into her music. She channeled that into her swag, her sensuality, everything. felt, I mean, so yeah, my hair is burnt. Don't worry, I got a gardenia. Now I'm gonna turn. Listen, at one point she was trying to pin in these gardenias. I don't know if she was drunk or high or if she was just, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (53:34.658)
Yeah, I'm still gonna perform. The show goes on.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:47.488)
Excited about the opportunity or nervous the pins that she was using to pin her gardenia actually pierced her skull and She was bleeding. I think it was Carnegie her Carnegie press Yes, and she said and people didn't know she had on a black dress so they couldn't even see that there were blood stains on her dress but this she was just a woman who never backed down and I'm grateful for her life

Adesoji Iginla (53:55.374)
call.

Adesoji Iginla (54:00.0)
performance.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:16.949)
I am saddened about what she went through and what so many women, boys, girls, black women in particular still go through the loss of innocence at such an early age, the lack of protection from people you love who you believe should protect you, including, like I said, her husbands, her close lovers. And then of course, just this evil empire America, always trying to take a good black person down. Yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (54:36.365)
Has been, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (54:43.682)
Control, control, it was control. For me, the lesson would be...

Adesoji Iginla (54:53.42)
It's difficult being a human in the United States.

Yeah, I mean, that's the... No, no, I mean, reading the... You know, when you read one of the books about her, if you read the books written about her and then contrast it to the one that she co-wrote with William Duffy, you begin to see an element of this is who I am and this is what people are projecting onto her.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:01.02)
What you want you want you want me to stop crying right now, what are you doing?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:19.239)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:27.991)
Yes. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (55:29.784)
That projection onto her, again, that's what underpinned that statement. They just don't want you to be human. Because here in, I think it's in, what's it called? I think it's in the last interview, someone was recounting the fact that.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:38.711)
yeah. yeah. yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (55:52.8)
Anytime she goes out to perform, it's like she constantly looks out in the crowd because she knows certain people are going to be out there and there after her. So what kind of mindset would you have performing in a paranoid state, knowing that the state in inverted commas is watching you, listening to you?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:17.943)
Watching you waiting waiting. Yes You know, know the FBI created a whole section of agents black agents that they recruited just to be able to Infiltrate and go after black artists. Yeah

Adesoji Iginla (56:20.756)
when she was caught with illicit drugs.

Adesoji Iginla (56:29.332)
Just for Billy Holiday, yeah? Yeah. I mean, there was the case where she was caught with illicit drugs in California and Tatula was trying to get her off. Tatula actually called J Edgar Hoover and J Edgar Hoover said, it's out of my hands. Bearing in mind that time drugs was a federal crime. It wasn't a state crime. You know, again. So for me, the lesson would be

We need community and not just community when things are rosy. Community like in Strange Fruit, in the subsequent lyrics you read, which is people should not be afraid to tell you the truth. Because when they do, now you think immediately they're your enemy. But sometimes the truth stinks.

But it's a correctional tool rather than to bear the brunt of what will come down the pike. And it's important, you know, as we do this series, Holiday being the first, as we do this series, exactly, as we know, the next week will be a buildup on Billie Holiday, but we'll keep that.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:46.595)
Stay tuned for next week.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:57.028)
dressing up as her though.

Adesoji Iginla (57:58.912)
No, no, I'm sure you won't have to dress up like that. But I mean, you did make an effort tonight. Hopefully you didn't burn your hair though.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:06.757)
Just a little listen, listen. No, didn't. But you know what? I'm honest to God. I did not have any plans to do this until about 3 p.m. this afternoon. I feel like it was Billie Holiday. Just like what you're just going to like show up and be ordinary. Like you're talking about me. Do you know who I am? Like.

Adesoji Iginla (58:18.062)
You

Adesoji Iginla (58:25.39)
Exactly!

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:27.967)
So yes, I'm wearing a whole cocktail dress and everything and jewelry and all of that for Billie Holiday. But for people who are looking for more information on her, there's so much. I really like this book. It's in search of Billie Holiday. If you can't be free, a mystery. Because Billie Holiday.

Adesoji Iginla (58:32.167)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (58:39.48)
Yeah, my god.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:53.857)
even when she got to the height of her fame.

because that was after she had already recorded Strange Fruit. I don't know that she ever really felt free. You know, she was running from poverty. She was running from racism. She was running from sexism. She was running from the internal demons that show up when you are assaulted and brutalized in the way that she was. So yes, this book is by Farrah Jasmine Griffin. Interestingly enough, I think this might be the only book

Adesoji Iginla (59:01.838)
Is that true?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:29.081)
written by a black woman about Billie Holiday. White men are obsessed with this woman. So you have Billie Holiday, the musician and the myth, John Swade, author of Alan Lomax. There's so many other books. I had a whole list of them somewhere. have, of course, Lady Sings the Blues that is her autobiography written with William Jaffe.

Adesoji Iginla (59:32.161)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (59:37.378)
In fact...

Adesoji Iginla (59:54.86)
Which is very important. That's for me. That's the entry point. Start with her. Start with her. Start with her. Yeah. Yeah. She, no, no, she didn't just, she didn't just lie. What's the other one?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:00.191)
Yes, start with her. Although she lied. She lied a lot in there, but start with her. It will help you understand who she is.

She painted, you know what, she kept the myth and the mystery going. Cause she painted this whole image where you're like, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:14.018)
What's the other one? There is...

There is another book, hold on.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:22.231)
So there's With Billy that was published in 2005 by Julia Blackburn that was based on Linda Lipnack Kuhl's interviews. And that's the one that I'm telling you. They're saying she committed suicide and her sister is saying, no, she was killed. There's Wishing on the Moon, The Life and Times of Billie Holiday published in 1997 by Donald Clark. A detailed biography that challenges some of the myths, like leave her alone.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:25.644)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:40.386)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:50.231)
There's Billy Holiday, the musician and the myth. That one was published in 2015.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:53.038)
That one is the one that one is the go-to one for me because

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:59.671)
Well, why? Because that one really focused on the Salacious stuff. It was all about the tragic narrative.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:04.692)
No, no, no. He pointed out the salacious stuff that people, that the thing is they didn't really focus on the message in the music, but obviously they thought the salacious stuff is what people want to read about, not the message. And so that guy was very good. The Musician and the Myth is by, what's the name? John Suez. Brilliant book. That one is brilliant. In fact,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:15.701)
huh.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:20.769)
Yeah, that's what will sell. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:30.274)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:35.163)
I read that twice. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:38.722)
Yeah So you have that and then you also have strange fruit billy holiday cafe society and end and an early cry for civil rights Published in 2000 by david margolic and it examines the history and impact of her song strange fruit And then of course you have the movies on her lady sings the blues that came out in 1972 starring diana ross which

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:48.974)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:07.193)
You know what was so crazy is, oh gosh.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:07.502)
the

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:13.155)
Billy Dee Williams was the lead male character. And when I watched that, I fell in love with him and Diana Ross's love story. And it was only later as I read about, I was like, wait a second. First of all, that was a mythical character because what they did was roll a bunch of different people who were in her life, you know, lovers into one. But then they made him seem like such a saint. God, I'm recalling scenes right now. And Louis McKay was an absolute brute to her.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:21.518)
you

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:27.501)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:40.078)
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:41.721)
So they use Billy Dee Williams who if you're a woman my age you were probably in love with Billy Dee Williams way back when he's still fine anyway Then so that was in 1972 Lady Sings of Blues then the United States versus Billie Holiday Which was released in 2021 and that's the one with Andra Day and this one really focuses on how the FBI went after her but again

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:56.622)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:03:07.649)
Even the FBI agent that they use there that she ends up having an affair with it's a mishmash of different men in her real life so they take a lot of liberties in telling these stories and then there is a documentary just titled Billy that came out in 2019 that again was based on the interviews of Linda Kuhl who I was sharing with you But this woman played with everybody

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:30.678)
in reference to the

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:03:35.332)
Bassy, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn, she was just amazing. There are numerous documentaries on her. Billie Holiday, Sensational Lady in 2001, it's a BBC documentary. Billie Holiday, The Long Night of Lady Day, 1990, as part of the Masters of American Music series. And then Jazz Icons, Billie Holiday Live in 58.

a collection of real life performances showing her vocal abilities. And there are more. So in preparing for today, I actually read six books. I was like, I'm watching her interviews. I'm listening to her music. We cannot do her justice. Yeah. Yeah, we cannot do her justice, but she was she was an amazing woman who overcame a lot and left us such rich, rich gifts.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:21.09)
Yeah, trusty, trusty kindle, it's like.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:34.606)
As we come to a close, what would be your takeaway from studying this enigma? And I don't use that word lightly.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:04:51.075)
going to say my personal takeaway is.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:04:58.369)
You can't control what other people are gonna do. So do you. Just like live fully, live authentically, be your full self, whatever that looks like. In her case, yes, she used drugs, yes, she loved to be loved, and then she chose men who weren't the greatest for her, but she lived loud in every aspect. You know, what she was able to do with that voice.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:02.446)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:20.376)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:05:23.447)
what she was able to do with owning her own style in a time when I'm sure there were some people who tried to make her sound like somebody else, the iconic style she created for herself. I mean, who else? Who else do we know in that way? Like you say, performer, Gardena, immediately you're coming up with Billie Holiday. So what I take away from it is I've been playing small and you know what? Hey, just hold on.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:36.096)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:05:51.246)
because I'm about to unleash my inner Billie Holiday, which is taint nobody's business if I do, I'm gonna do me. And I think that's how she lived. And going back to just what people said about her voice, being able to own her pain.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:58.222)
Mmm. Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:06:13.857)
Now we can say maybe she tried to obscure it with drugs or alcohol, but in her voice you heard that she was not, and in her lyrics you see that she wasn't fooling herself. She knew she let people beat her up. She knew that she was making not so great choices and she owned all of it. And that's how I want to live. I want to stop playing so small to resist in every way.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:30.9)
Everyone, everyone.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:06:41.281)
and to understand that the resistance itself is victory, even if, so they may have felt they won because they had her shackled and they tried to humiliate her even in death. But hello, who knows the names of all those people who arrested her? Where are they recorded in the annals of history, except as a footnote maybe for trying to hold down this amazing woman? And so let's go live bold.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:45.486)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:58.709)
She's set.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:02.83)
Food notes, I mean.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:08.64)
She said it. She said it that your children will sing my song. They will sing and they will play it. And they're doing it right now as we speak. So she won. My takeaway is this. We all have to be true tellers.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:24.505)
She was.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:31.51)
Singing Strange Fruit was her way of telling the truth of what was going on. And no matter the pushback, she kept telling the truth. At great cost to her, she told the truth even on her death bed. And she left them with that note. Your kids who sing and play the song. And they are. So.

We've come to the end of our first episode and Sister Aya, I'm greatly indebted to you as with everybody that has listened and watched us tonight. Again, this is...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:08:16.663)
Yeah, I couldn't even follow in the chat. was, I was trying to like, so we'll go back in and respond. Like if you love this, leave your comments, go back, listen to Billy, come back in and of course subscribe, like, share, download the podcast, all of the above, but we're going to have fun with this series.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:22.836)
Yep. Leave your comments, share.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:33.29)
Yeah. Yes. The audio version would be on your podcast platform of choice by tomorrow evening. Yeah. Bearing in mind, know, I was, so yeah, I was good.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:08:47.905)
Yeah, but brother, I just, okay, I just want to say this really quickly. You know, we were talking about a book that I'm working on and, you know, I raised some of these women and I really appreciate, first of all, the fact that you listened and then for you to have said, hey, how about we share this with the world?

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:01.014)
Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:15.683)
telling the stories of our Black mothers, forbearers, sisters, contemporaries, all of that. So we're gonna have a lot of fun with this, just learning from who our mothers are and figuring out how we apply those lessons today. So I wanna thank you for this opportunity, because I would not have done this on my own. So thank you so much.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:23.342)
Mm.

Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:38.572)
No, no, no, no, thank you. Thank you for, thank you for listening because one must admit the fact that you're very busy and adding this to your plate is... Okay. All right. Some people, some people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:51.029)
It's so much fun!

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:55.434)
It is, it is. Now, I might need a, what they call it, a stronger prescription of glasses, because there's a lot of reading, but I love it. I really love this.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:03.414)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look at me. I've, I had to go and bring out my special pair. So you can tell that this is because, mean, just reading about her is, I mean, you read lots of history, but then from an human angle and a woman in the midst of the instruments of state. And we're not talking about just any state.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:31.033)
Not just a woman though, like she was woman. She's strong, was feminine, she was sensual, was all of it. She owned her whole femininity in every sense of the word.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:36.212)
Yeah, exactly. And we're not just talking about

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:43.135)
Exactly.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:47.466)
and she went out swinging. That's for me, that was the most defiant of all. It's like, you know what? I'm dying. But these are my last words. Your kids.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:50.425)
She did.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:01.357)
just wish she had signed that divorce decree, dig on it. That's the one part that just gets them. I was like, that man did not deserve to live off of her money. But hey, even that is a lesson. wait a second. And as an estate planner, listen, y'all, you want to go and meet with, you want to meet with an attorney who understands estate planning so that people that you don't want to have your money, don't get their hands on it. Plan ahead.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:04.159)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:10.434)
Yeah. So yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:16.749)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:22.2)
free advice.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:29.64)
Yep. speaking of planning ahead, next week, same time, we're going to be having another special woman. yes, we special woman, special woman dead there. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because if you tell, you know, that's like giving them the presence, you know, element of surprise. Yeah. So

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:30.521)
Plan ahead, she should have planned ahead.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:42.105)
Special moment.

Should we tell? No. No, okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:53.781)
Yeah, so the elemental surprise.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:59.328)
All of these women that we're going to platform have done their bidding. And like we said in the intro to the podcast itself, if you download that is either due to their humility or the fact that they have been pushed into relative obscurity is the reason why some of these names are not on the lips of everyone.

Some of them you will know the moment you hear them, but some you will not. But then whatever it is they've done in the course of their life has impacts on girls, women, even men.

Because the next one we're going to talk about. No, let me stop. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:51.065)
So I know we're trying to end I do have to say this because it just occurred to me that I didn't say it talking about taking agency Named Eleanor of Fagan and she basically renamed herself Talking about the importance of fathers in their daughters lives. She was forever chasing that love of her father Which is why she took on holiday her father's name, even though Her parents were never married and

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:07.778)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:13:19.157)
it's unclear how much he claimed her. And so there are lessons for us all, not just women, but men. know, love should not hurt y'all. Love should not hurt. And if you can't love a person, then let them go. And if someone can't love you, go, like leave. Leave, yeah. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:25.998)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:38.25)
Leave. Yeah, leave. That's it. Leave. You know. So speaking of leaving, we love you to leave you, but sorry, that's a play on words. We'll convene again next time at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. And again, we've got somebody very special, you know.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:13:52.362)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:06.083)
Somebody very special. We're reading the books already. Somebody very special.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:07.342)
Very special for you next week. So yeah, yeah, the books are being, oh my God. So yeah, the books are, oh God. Yeah, the books are being read and yes, we'll convene again next time, next week. Again, each one bring one, each one bring one. So we have over 40, 45 at the height of what we're doing earlier.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:26.733)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:35.96)
So we expect to see 90 next week. yeah. And what can I say? Thank you for all coming and listening and good night everyone.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:38.611)
Awesome. Yes. Why not?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:49.827)
Good night, everyone.