|
Make Way for Tocarra
Hamilton
by Micalos F. Arnold
 For
some, the phrase An Iron Fist In A Velvet
Glove means absolutely nothing. For less
focused others, it may conjure mental
remnants of a bad nineteen seventies era
Kung Fu movie that did not star the
spectacular Bruce Lee. But for those of us
who greet each day and the paramount -or
even simple- challenges that it brings, it
means everything. And for budding star
singer, songwriter, and reality t.v.
developer Tocarra Hamilton, 25, everything
is all that matters. "If this was the year
2020, who is Tocarra Hamilton? Tocarra
Hamilton is a successful entrepreneur!"
Tocarra 2010 gushes with confidence.
"Endorsements, a successful clothing line,
hit records, popular television show's, I'm
doing it all and having lunch with Beyonce!"
She laughs heartily, and it is immediately
infectious. Generally, it is all to easy to
clump such hubristic notions into the
bottomless 'pot of dreams' where hope and
ambition liquify invisibly and evaporate
over the flames of 'The Lost Soul's of The
Industry'.
Not this time. Not with this young lady.
It must have felt like the nightmare many of
us have had. You can't speak. You can't
move. You're covered with blood. But on a
fateful day that she barely remembers, a
then sixteen year old Tocarra Hamilton was
not dreaming. Instead, she was regaining
consciousness in the back of an ambulance
speeding towards a hospital with life itself
hanging in the balance. "The car accident
itself I just don't remember," Hamilton
buffers the subject with a nervous chuckle.
"I really don't know what happened, so I
just had to go with the flow of the moment
of being in the ambulance. What I do
remember in the process of all that is when
I was in that ambulance, the Devil was
messing with me. He wanted to discourage me
because at that time- at that moment- I was
conscious and realized I was seriously
injured. My face was messed up, I could not
move, I'm thinking I won't be able to
walk.....I really just wanted to leave....to
just die. But after having those dire
feelings, my mom prayed and prayed some more
for me....and I came back from those
feelings. I came back, you know? I have
faith in God. I believed that I would be
okay. I realized that I really wasn't ready
to go like that."
Years ago (okay, somewhere close to 1998)
when Destiny's Child first made a splash
with their first hit record No, No, No, I
was a frequent forum contributor on a few
'choice' soul music websites. Within these
online forums and digests, myself and other
readers and members would exchange opinions
and viewpoints about artists, their music,
and their general legacies amongst the world
of soul, jazz, blues, and r&b music. Many of
these opinions were expressed anonymously by
musicians and performers themselves (the
site owners and developers often knew who
these artists were, and dropped hints here
and there about who they might be).
Naturally, rarely did a forum commence where
we were not debating (and even arguing)
about who the best jazz guitarist in history
was, or was Gladys Knight a better singer
than Aretha Franklin, and so on. These
sometimes heated cyber exchanges were the
core of the forum. For one thing, most of
the contributors really did know their
music, and it was fun reading their takes on
the days topics. But one of the most
volatile, heated, exchanges I ever
experienced in the online soul music
chest-pounding community was the day in 1998
that I had the audacity to proclaim that
Destiny's Child, and Beyonce Knowles in
particular, were not only talented, but were
going to be big stars. "You're an idiot" one
writer wrote. "Man, we thought you knew
music. You're a sham and don't belong here"
another lambasted. "Just another
run-of-the-mill silly girl group going
absolutely nowhere" one woman finally wrote.
Needless to say, with over sixty million
albums sold between Destiny's Child and her
solo career, and dozens of music awards to
boot (including songwriter awards) and a net
worth estimated to hover between three
hundred fifty to four hundred million
dollars, Beyonce definitely is not some
run-of-the-mill singer. Thus it gives me
great satisfaction that this young, driven,
survivor Tocarra Hamilton has goals as lofty
as those achieved by Beyonce. Her career may
not ever mirror what 'B' is doing, but
that's not my point or the point. What is
apparent is that she has that something-
''it'- that has fueled many a successful
career long before Hamilton ever uttered so
much as a nursery rhyme. She's a real woman
and a great mother. And she is smart. A
thinker. Case in point. Develop a reality
show not centered around a well known star
and the trappings of wealth, concert
rehearsals, and who put scratches on the new
Bentley (problems I'm sure Hamilton welcomes
eventually). Instead, how about a more
compelling television visual of an
up-and-coming song writer and recording
artist's struggles and triumphs as she
fight's, strategizes, and navigates her way
through the murky and formidable world of
the music industry. I don't know how others
feel, but that's a show I'd watch. And I may
very well may get my wish, because Make A
Way, a reality show about the attractive
Hamilton, is being filmed and shopped to
television companies. "I want people to see
the grind of an independent artist that's
not yet signed to a major label and working
with all the money budget, and power that a
label brings to the table. I want people to
get to know me. I want people to have the
option to like me or not like me. The show
is a real look at what I'm trying to do, who
I am, and how I'm going to get there from
here." See. Smart.
Read the rest of the article here. |
