ourINTERVIEWS

Christina Fasano

Christina Fasano, who may be better known to you as "Funky White Girl", was one the first solid artists I encountered at mp3.com. With her online career in the hands of NMA success story David Blumberg, she was destine to get the attention she deserved. But in the past year she has not only proven herself a worthy web artist, but she took home the LA Music Award for Best R&B Artist. I spoke to her from her home in California, after a week of great heartache around the world. She had a lot to say about healing people with song and love....

Mb: Hi Christina.
Christina: Mb… Just got back from a National Speakers Meeting. It was great. Quickly ate lunch… Now i have to quickly cook for my husband, BUT I can answer questions in and out of that duty… Just bear with me and we can get this done. So hit me up!
Mb: So what's been happening lately?....Hard to find the first question in light of last Tuesday.
Christina: Ok.. well I'll address it from that angle. I feel the nation has been tenderized, as I put in the poem I have made the homepage of my site. I certainly have been so aware of my humanity and how I now want to intereact with my fellow humans on this earth. It has become a joy to meet new faces and new souls and share in the deeper parts of ourselves rather than just going on first impressions and surface questions like "What do you do for a Living?" "Oh that's nice." It's more like I just wanna look in someone's eyes and say, "Hey, you in there.. yah.. let's touch one another and connect on a heart level, before we even say a word.." This is something I want to bring to my live stage performance in a BIG way and I feel the nation WANTS it.. wants to connect. Not in an airy-fairy way, but in the REAL. In the Present Moment... Ya know?
Mb: It certainly changes the way we look at art.
Christina: Absolutely and I feel we need art more than ever now as people need artists voices and paintings and dancing and writings to open up their hearts and souls to what they want to say.
Mb: What do you think people want to say now?
Christina: But not only in art can this be done, but also in each person's daily lives. They can bring who they are more now into the equation. This is the open door to being more real. Being more of who we are. Time and life is way to short. I think many many people's gifts of humanity are hidden from shame and fear of judgements. I feel with this tradegy that a door has opened allowing us to say... "To hell with my fear, the world needs what i feel in my heart and soul and i'm going to find a way to give that in my daily walk." This is the indirect gift of the tradegy. I feel people want to say what's in their hearts, no matter what it is. I feel people want to feel the freedom to be who they are without being judged by how they look, or their nationality or their color or how they walk or talk or what the hell ever! Hey... look beyond this skin and this face and this hair and this body... can you hear me in here? "I've got something to give!" We all want acceptance and love and just to be allowed to 'be.' It's actually very simple. When that need is not met, the ways we act out sometimes become messed up or perverted to the point of mental insanity. Like I cannot believe that someone could hate so much as to kill that many people and to also take their own precious lives in the process. That is a major amount of hate and it is also a major f-ing cry within their souls for something... I mean it goes way back in our history. People want a cause.. a way to express, to feel, to be… and when that gets screwed up from dysfunctional childhood or whatever, the result is people who followed Hitler, who ran those planes into the WTC, etc., etc. They suddenly have a cause, a reason to be alive.
Mb: So do you think this will enlighten the individual or spur team mentality?
Christina: I think it already has. It's extremely obvious and if that wasn't the case we would certainly be suffering alot more than we are right now. However, the other countries are suffering much much more than we are if they have been brought up to hate and judge us like they have. This also branches out into the various relms of our own society where people hate and kill blacks and other people of color. It's a major wakeup call to look within to what the hell is crucial and important. The big question to always ask of one's heart before undertaking anything is 'What Serves?'
Mb: You sound very passionate about this. Your music is so much about love and seduction.. didn't notice the social side of your commentary. I'm listening to "It's just a Funk Thang" now for instance... it plays to that sensibility.
Christina: Yes, hear those words? They can be very heavy. Yah, like the first verse talks about when we are born and how as we grow up in this world and slowly become corrupted on a mind level and that causes walls to go up around our hearts and pride and things of that nature block our 'freeflow' as human beings.
Mb: So how do you look at your art now? Its place…
Christina: Gosh.. it has always been there for people to dip into and hear their own message. The emails I get where people "get what the songs are talking about," telling me how they have been blessed and touched and reviews like the Les Reynolds review on my site. These make my heart explode with tons of endorphins that say to me, "Baby, keep on goin' cause what you have to say, people want to hear no matter what the major labels are putting out." You just keep following what the muse is your life is leading you to do, what your soul came to this earth to give. "BE WHO YOU ARE CHRISTINA"... It's like when someone ask Ghandi as he was leaving on the train.. "GIVE US A MESSAGE.." and he simple said "My life is my message." Beaufiful. Our lifes are our message. How we live, who we are, how we give and share and interact and love. How we love.
Mb: Tell me a bit about your daily life.. what do you do?
Christina: Gosh.. now you are gonna think I'm boring!!! Ha... I workout, i cook so i can take care of my health, i write when the muse hits me, i work 2 part time jobs; right now much time is spent on looking for band members.. (a horrid year long process now..) sigh... but my passion and deep soul knows that when it's time the players will appear. i feel on one level i have been in the tenderizing process myself with life taking me into the final stages of really being able to bring something to the stage that i would not have been able to bring a few years back. But I have tons of material just waiting to be hashed out with my band. The next cd will be slightly darker but that's ok. It will be good. When the band is ready, alot of my time will be spent on promo. I'm beginnging to work with two non-profit organizations that reach out and help the youth with my music, writing and performance and it will be a blast to do that with my full on band.
Mb: I noticed you're donating half of your cd sale proceeds to the Red Cross.
Christina: Absolutely. I will keep that poem up and do that thru the end of the year. Also half the Pay for Play monies I earn on Mp3 will be donated. which isn't alot BUT it still is something. some way for me to reach out.
Mb: How has winning the LA Music Award for Best R&B Artist changed your career?
Christina: Well.. it brings in a level of respect that I had not had before. There are so many struggling artists out there that it's hard for anyone to know who to pay attention to and the general public usually pays attention to what the majors have the money to put in their face. I don't have that type of money, so to be recognized for my CD and the huge amt of blood, sweat, and tears and money that went into it, and the quality of songs and production we strove to make sure we came out with, is a great great boon and a great tool to say... "Hey, I'm not just another flash in the pan, I'm a serious artist baby, and I've been recognized for that." It gets many skeptics to at least have a listen... and when i can lay it down on stage with the same professional quality that I have done on the CD, I will be unstoppable. I know this. It is not some green artist spewing out big ego claims. I know what i am here for. I am a performer that is performed. A singer that is sung. I am definitely a front person but beyond any strut one might see, is a soul that is making christina disappear so it can bring my raw heart to the people.
Mb: Anything yo'd like to leave my readers thinking?
Christina: Ha... how about feeling? I think we all THINK too much.

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