An Artist’s Perspective: Kara Jackson
Image: Lawrence Agyei
Happy Women’s History Month! This month, and every month, we’re celebrating women and change makers who use their gifts to tell stories. As part of GIFTED’s ‘An Artist’s Perspective’ series, Kio Briggs delves deeper into consciousness, creativity and compassion. He connects with female artists from the creative industry to highlight their journey, and share their words of wisdom.
To kick start the month, Briggs sat down with Kara Jackson ahead of her debut album - an American poet, singer and songwriter from Oak Park, Illinois. Kara unravelled stories from her journey so far, including her sonic influences, how the creative scene in Chicago has inspired her growth and the healing experience of art in community.
Sonic Influences
Inspired by a diverse creative group of artists, Kara grew up in a household steeped in a rich musical culture. Even as a child, her parents found it easiest to get her to fall asleep by playing jazz on the radio, which inevitably filtered into her consciousness and has greatly influenced her creative expression. Raised on jazz and soul music, she grew up admiring iconic artists: Kara draws on Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell and Donna Summer, in particular, as having a huge influence on her musical musings: “My parents have always been music connoisseurs - I inherited it from them.”
Being raised near Chicago, Kara was naturally influenced by rap and hip hop too - she mentions 36 Mafia, Pharrell, Missy Elliot and 2 Chainz as artists that her brother listened to growing up. Legendary Lauryn Hill was another core inspiration during these formative years: “My music tends to pull from a lot of directions.” First inspired by pioneers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Donna Summer, and then further by the sounds of rap and hip hop, Kara Jackson’s musical expression becomes a natural evolution of the sound of culture.
As Kara evolved in her experience of music, she became intrigued by more popular music. She has early memories of sixteen hour road trips with her family to visit her dad’s side of the family in Georgia: “We would listen to music the entire trip - Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé...” As she grew into her own artistry, she continued to experience an inclination towards pop sounds and visuals; in 2005, her youth was captured by Shakira’s, ‘Hips Don’t Lie’: “I became infatuated by the pop space as well and what female pop stars were doing. I experienced empowerment; women [were] taking up space in those rooms, and I was inspired by these female singers at the front, [who were] taking ownership of their sound and space. It was inspiring to see women of colour taking up space in a genre that hadn’t always been welcoming to them.”
With regards to her contemporaries, as an artist who sits in the folk/country space, she mentions artists Doji, Waxahatchee and Laura Marling, and the music and poetry scene in Chicago: “There's a lot of cool stuff happening in Chicago at the moment, and our music scene is very important to me - with artists like Noname and Saba.” Clearly, Kara’s sonic interests has been integral to the way that she thinks about music, as she continues to redefine what her sound is.
On the Rise
Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, she was exposed to music young. Her musically inclined parents were insistent that she played musical instruments: “I got my first guitar at 11, and by the time I was 12, I started playing in front of people and performing in artist galleries.” However, it wasn’t until she was in high school, when she started writing and performing at poetry slams, that she got immersed in Chicago’s creative scene - it was there that she found her poetic peers and multidisciplinary community.
It’s clear to tell when speaking with Kara that Chicago is a special place for her: “It’s such a unique place to be an artist - there’s so much musical history here, from jazz to the birthplace of poetry slams. Our art scene really embraces multifaceted artists and that’s why I was able to blend both in the poetry and music scene; and it made sense to people in Chicago because that’s typical of the artistic scene - everyone here does a bit of everything.” Along the way on her path, she found her footing performing at open mic nights and opening shows for her friends.
Chicago’s Community
As she evolved through the journey, Kara made the mature decision to consciously choose to be around the sorts of people that she wanted to be like. The feeling of community was intuitive: “It was during my teenage years… that was such a difficult time, evolving and knowing myself… I was able to find a lot of solace in taking the train and going to meet up with other artists [that] I could share the journey with.” Taking what can typically be an isolating experience for an artist, Kara turned it into a collective experience. Poetry as an artform found her at a time when she needed to understand how she could use her feelings to make something that could help her to process them. “Slam poetry became like group therapy; a lot of us were dealing with very heavy feelings as teenagers, and that brought us together - forming a community along the way. I was lucky to grow up here and to have the proximity to Chicago's artistic scene; there’s a magic that’s almost supernatural about the way we do things over here.”
Rest is Resistance
When discussing the difficulties of the artist’s journey so far, Kara muses: “I still feel like I’m on the outside looking in… I'm still unpacking these things now, but I did have friends who were already in the scene, which made it easier for me to learn from the people [that] I was close to, who had gone through the stages that I was fearful of going through - like shows and opening for people. My mentor has been such an integral person in my life with regards to navigating this space and dealing with artist visibility - especially being so young.”
Opening up about where Kara is in her journey now, we take things back to 2019, when she was named the National Youth Poet Laureate and released her EP: “I was doing all these things and it felt like it was taking off for me; then 2020 hit with the global pandemic and it seemed like things began to tank - I became unsure about music.” However, the community that she fostered during the earlier stages on her path got her through that time; she got back into the groove of writing in 2021 and that’s what led her to finish her debut album Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? - the beauty of community once again holds strong: “My forthcoming album is a reminder to myself that I’m not alone and that artistry is not an isolating pursuit.”
Kara’s journey is also typical of artists who, on first listen and glance, don’t seem to fit into a mould; she shares her experience of sharing a type of music [folk/county] that some audiences are initially reluctant to validate. Although she too writes about feelings of love and heartbreak - things that we can all relate to - the cause for the hesitancy to welcome her music doesn’t seem to be the music itself, but the face that she wears whilst making it - as well as her age - Kara’s a young, black and gifted woman. “I’m learning how to trust myself and be assertive about my perspective,” she says. “That’s always been something I’ve had to learn to overcome.” Learning how to be audacious despite the perceptions of age and race is something that many young artists, and perhaps all artists of colour, must face to evolve into their fullest selves - for the culture.
Celebrate milestones along the way
Kara relates the experience of her career to sculpting - chiselling away at a block of marble until it begins to look like something. “I’m now getting to a point where I can acknowledge to myself that I am doing the things [that] I’ve wanted to do. Although I do tend to feel like I’m still not where I’m working to get to.” She mentions experiencing a few wins that she’s always wanted to experience along the way, like being included in a Spotify editorial playlist, “Watching my peers, it always looked like the celebrations came so easy and quick.” Comparison tends to be the thief of joy. Through time, black women in particular have tended to have their successes undermined, making even the highs feel like an uphill battle, leaving them too tired to celebrate. Taking the time to reflect on her wins has been important in helping Kara to reset and remind herself that she is on the right path, as well as surrounding herself with community and following through on the things that she set out to do from an early age as she rode the trains through Chicago’s creative scene.
Words of Wisdom
“Don’t let other people tell you who you are. Have a clear sense of self and check in with yourself. Even if people don’t see your vision, as long as it’s good for you then you’re good. Nurture your sense of self, reflect and do things that make you excited. People are always telling you what you have to do to make it, but I don’t believe in a ‘formula’ - joy is the formula. If you're not excited, then something is off. Success for me is making sure that, when I go to bed, I feel great about myself.”
Kara recommends:
Read:
SZA’s Ruination Brought Her Everything, Danyel Smith.
Watch:
Abbot Elementary, Quinta Brunson.
Yu Yu Hakusho, Yoshihiro Togashi.
Listen:
Growing Up Jazz with Andromeda Turre, Sirius XM Real Jazz.
