How important is it to be open?
Once you’ve taken your clothes off, you’ve opened your world to something new.
For all of us, what are you encouraging us to do?
Be yourself, whatever that is. Be as weird or as crazy as you want to be. Be as loving as you want to be or eccentric. Be that to the 10th power.
Who gives you the inspiration?
Life. Stevie Wonder … and I say that because to have no sight and write as visually as he does, it just makes me know that it’s not judged. It’s completely emotionally based. I’ve never seen music the way I have seen his. Whether it’s “Ribbon in the Sky” or “Where Were you When I Needed You?” he paints the picture. I don’t know anyone in the world that can make me feel visually the way Stevie Wonder does.
I’m so glad to have that conversation [with him]. Actually our first time meeting was me getting off stage with Gerald Levert, God rest his soul, and who I had done a duet with to honor Smokey Robinson. I get off stage and I hear Stevie Wonder calling my name saying “where’s that ‘Butterflies’ girl?” He yells “Marsha, come over here.” I was thankful for that experience. I thank the Lord every day. I called my parents the other day to share a magical moment.
What’s the relationship like with your parents?
I know where I’m from. I’ve been raised in a way that’s allowed me the creative freedom to love the world. Which is why I felt easy telling my parents that I was going to leave home, I’m going to Philadelphia and I feel like I might be pursuing a dream and I feel like it might work out. I don’t feel like I would’ve come knowing that I didn’t have that backdrop to fall back on.
When you call home and you’re uncertain, what do you get?
Just encouragement, love, “keep going,” “this is the dream that you’ve really dreamed.” I never thought that I would actually be living it … I’m living it.
