"For me, I needed to feel comfortable in my own skin for so many reasons—I was such a shy kid, I felt lost, in the shadows, in the cracks, and never seen. I found my light at Spelman because I was able to join the glee club and just be. I was able to thrive in that and I built up a lot of confidence in that experience, and I don't think I would have built the same amount of confidence if I had been at a predominately white school in a predominately white program...My voice is not silky, boys choir soprano. I have a huskiness, a richness, a thickness that comes into my voice and I didn't have to explain that or be something else at Spelman. It was embraced and I could lean into it."
We talk with The Lion King and Kiss Me, Kate star Adrienne Walker about studying vocal performance at Spelman College, fighting assumptions as a Black soprano, and launching her multimedia series 32 Bar Cut.
Recommendation: Sci-Fi writers N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler
Shout out: Bradley Gibson