As a child, jazz-soul singer Julie Dexter was the only black girl on the block in Birmingham, England, so today she feels right at home in Atlanta. Dexter, now pregnant with her second child, has a new album, New Again,” produced by Chicago’s Steve Miggedy Maestro. Dexter chatted with rolling out as she geared up for an Aries concert performance in the Windy City. –zondra hughes
What was it like growing up in Birmingham, England?
I was born in Hamburg, where lots of Jamaicans migrated to. We moved to the suburbs, which [are] mostly white. That’s where I spent my childhood from age 3 until about 18. Then I moved to London.
If someone said, ‘that black girl,’ everyone knew who they were talking about, because there [weren’t] too many of us.
But in my home, we had Jamaican music, we ate Jamaican food, rice and beans and chicken on Sunday. We visited other family members; I was never out of touch with my culture.
What was it like to tour with English jazz musician Courtney Pine?
I was pretty much well-rounded in my music, my background, my pallet, my friends, and my university. [Although] I was still very new, green, to the whole touring thing. It was such a big opportunity for me, we went to Japan, Europe — so many places I had never been to before.
… Japan was such an amazing experience to me. The signs, the barriers, everything was in Japanese, the symbols; it’s like a culture shock. That was deep for me, I was like, ‘wow.’ That was one of the best experiences that I had and it sealed the fact that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.*
Why did you choose to make Atlanta your home?
When you get to Atlanta in the airport, it’s black! Ninety-nine percent of the people working there, even the pilot flying the plane, [was] black.
That’s when I ventured out and started traveling around Atlanta, to the places with the Love Jones type of vibe where you could go and hear poetry, and the music scene was vibrant. There is soul vegetarian food, and shea butter, I was buying shea butter like crazy and sending it home to my mom. Afrocentric pictures, stuff I could relate to and reflect on who I was, and I wasn’t able to get that in England at the time.
How do you unwind?
I teach also, and having my own child [5-year-old daughter] around me and watching her grow, and seeing the inside of me — the eyes of a child — reminded me of how I was as a child. That’s my fun.
What can we expect from your new album?
It’s cool. It’s got little bit of everything, from where I come from. I have more experiences, I’m a mother, I’m a wife, my take on love, not necessarily my own relationship, but people I know. There were so many stories that I had to tell that I was able to tell with producer Steve Miggedy Maestro’s music.
*This interview took place before the earthquake hit Japan.
