My Experience with Getting Kicked out of a Band Because of My Race

By: Shama Mapingire

“In what world can a black girl and white boy be a successful musical duo?” I thought this to myself two years ago , but at the time I was an ambitious 18 year old and I knew that things happened for a reason and that there had to be a reason for everything going wrong in making the decision to be in a duo.

The key thing I want people to know is ‘Perspective’ the opportunity to become a great musical duo and to be successful was there, the belief was there, the ‘image’ was there, the talent was there, but we were polar opposites .

In 2011, I entered college and for the first time In my life, I had the chance to meet amazing people of different races, sexualities, backgrounds,and languages. While immersed in this new environment, I decided to explore my interest in music.

Around this time, I met a boy who for the sake of this article I’ll call Tod. Tod and I were complete opposites. I met him on the the first day of college , and at the time my obsessions were with Lauryn HillI and jazz, while his obsessions were with Jeff Buckley and alternative indie rock.

At the time we met, we were both still trying to find our musical voices. He couldn’t distinguish the type of performer he was, which in turn led to not many people understanding him. He couldn’t and still can’t be tied down by something as subjective and complex and diverse as music and at the time I believed that just like me he was looking for who he was as an artist and most importantly as a person.

The blending these factors led us to decide to begin a musical duo and experiment with different sounds. We eventually began writing and recording songs, one of which in particular was our ‘single’ called Happy Shoes.

After recording that song ,a famous producer somehow got in contact with Tod and said he wanted to hear “our material” (he was mostly interested in ‘happy shoes’) and things started to change from that day.

After hearing our material the producer recommended that we transition from a Duo to a rock band, so we did so, and as time went on Tod became more involved with the producer, while I, on the other hand never had the chance to talk to him despite my persistence to get to know him .For some time I was led to believe that I would be meeting the producer but I soon learned that Tod had sent him two of his own songs and I was slowly being pushed out of the picture.

As time went on I was made the “backing vocalist” of the band before eventually fading into the background as the producer decided he liked Tod’s music and decided he wanted to work with him as a solo act. Apparently I wasn’t the right “fit” for the band or for Tod so it was determined that it would be better for him to work alone. This really stung and hurt me but I had no choice but to do my best to show true friendship and be happy for him, he was a good singer and played guitar very well and I was happy for him , but it would have been great to have had the opportunity to so showcase my talents as well.

If he had just been honest with from the beginning instead of deciding that I was no longer compatible with working on music with him then I would have left with dignity. But that didn’t happen, and through the process, I lost who I was and only had myself to blame for letting someone treat me the way I felt I should be treated at the time.

In this story, Tod is not the villain and I’m not the victim , this is just the story of two people whose hearts were in the right place at the wrong time. Society’s reputation mixed with the determination to reach the top can play on peoples minds and spirit. In the beginning, we didn’t care about skin color, image,differences, or preferences; we cared about the sound we made together, who we wanted to be, and the truth, which was that music could be used to bring people together in the world, but we crushed that hope. Both of us.

In this whole situation I can’t shake off the feeling that race played a big role in me being kicked out the group and see some forms of discreet discrimination in my experience. Black people are often overlooked in society and in this case I was overlooked as someone to respect , and as a result I was easily tossed aside in the name of ‘rock’.

To Tod, the image of a successful rock band was three white guys with grungy looking expressions wearing black and grey clothes and he couldn’t see past this image in his head. I also had the opportunity to get in contact with a famous producer and I couldn’t do that because they were only interested in him and the ‘image’ that he took to heart and made sure that I was not in the picture so he could have his shot at success.

In the aftermath of me getting kicked out of the band I often wondered what it would have been like if I was a white girl with skinny legs, straight hair, a thin nose, and a skater girl look. I absolutely believe i’d still be in a band with him and even more , we would probably be booking gigs right now .All the things we talked about doing that he went and did by himself after he broke off the band with me,we would have done together.

He would have probably also respected me more as a white girl, mostly because its rare to see a black girls in rock bands, thanks to our society that has appropriated the dynamic in which a certain race’s are made for certain genres of music. It’s this mentality in which I base my theory and judgment of Tod justifying his acts of subtle discrimination that he was unaware of but probably knows to be true deep down like most people who have done similar things to people from different race and backgrounds.

I could deal with the everyday discrimination of being called out as the ‘lazy’ , ‘loud’, ‘too proud’, ‘big bum’ black girl stereotype. I could also deal with the ignorance that comes and goes now and then when I’m told “wow we don’t see people like you around here,” when I’m working as a waitress in a pub. I couldn’t however, handle the utter pain and feeling of being completely alone when someone I trusted not to hate me for what I look like, because of what it would do to his career, ended up disliking me in the end .

My biggest takeaway from all of this is that after all this happened, life was still in session. The world didn’t stop because of something as small as some white boy kicking me out of a band after two years . We should stand together, not tear each other down, no matter who we are and how we live or what we do. We must not look at our differences and shoot an arrow but we must equally be one Though change is sometimes good,showing love is even better.

The Duo was then and now it’s time to do over.