In conversation with the amiable blues singer and corporate consultant
Juwana Jenkins, a person that will make you feel it’s all alright.
- General overview
Monday through Wednesday I teach at the University of
New York in Prague. I teach Career Development as well as Introduction to
University Studies and I also teach the course to help students who would
almost be eligible to pass our entrance exam for English: to help them with the
final techniques, and skills critical thinking to be able to do so. Thursday to
Friday I do corporate training, corporate seminars or corporate Coaching – my
field is Communications so I work with multi-national companies to help them
improve their individual employee effectiveness or their inter-personal or team
communications. I also travel to do that; for example, I go down to Prostějov
and work with a Spanish company whose management team needs coaching. So that’s
what I do Monday through Friday, that’s my day job: teaching, training,
coaching, also facilitating and then
(measured pronunciation begins to loosen)
Sunday to Saturday I could be found singing, either in a club, for a private
event, a social event or a corporate event; also at a festival here in Czech or
abroad as well.
Where can we see you perform?
On June 16th and July 30th, I’ll
be singing at Reduta and on August 19th at JazzDock.
- Juwana’s story & Arrival to Prague
I’ve read that you travelled from America with 400 dollars in your
pocket; what motivated you to make such a step?
What motivated me was no.1 I always wanted to live
abroad. I always imagined myself living abroad. The second thing that motivated
me was that I got a Fulbright fellowship – so I got the well-known grant by the
US government to increase cultural understanding and awareness by sending our
scholars to other countries and inviting scholars from other countries to the
States. Those two things combined made me decide ‘I’m gonna do this.’ And when
I left, the only money I had was the savings that I had from my grandfather.
When I was a child he bought me bonds and so I said to my mom ‘Give me all my
bonds. I wanna cash them out’. And it only came to 400 dollars.
Better than nothing.
(Smiles)
It’s better than the 36 cents that Tina Turner left with.
What did you major in?
I majored in Journalism with minors in Women Studies,
Theatre and French.
When could you point the Czech Republic on a map?
(Laughs) When
I arrived.
Didn’t you go to South Korea first?
Well I went to South Korea first and then I knew I
wanted to travel to Central Europe and I knew that in Central Europe Prague was
known and Budapest was known but could I have pointed the Czech Republic out on
a map? I doubt it. (Laughs) I just
knew that I was going to Central Europe and Prague was in Central Europe and
that was all I knew... I expected the pilot to know that so that was all I
needed.
True that. What enchanted you about Prague? What made you settle down?
For me it’s all about contacts. Like I said, I wanted
to live abroad, I wanted to live in Western Europe; I’d lived for four years
and travelled for four years throughout Asia and I finally made it to Europe
and it was said that Prague was the Paris of the 90s. After four years of
living in Asia, particularly in the South Korea which is an over-crowded
peninsula and Seoul is a concrete jungle of skyscrapers – to come to Prague,
not just after Korea but I travelled for a month via Siberia. So I came from
Khabarovsk through Siberia to Moscow and St. Petersburg and after those
contrasts – those very stark contrasts – Prague was very charming for me. Very quaint, charming and it was love at
first sight and then after two months of being here, I just thought ‘This looks
like me. I could do this’.
Comparing it to Prague, what is the soul of Seoul?
Ah, the soul of Seoul is duty. It is duty above all else to family. It’s a Confucian society
and so it’s based on respect and there’s always respect for someone else. Often
someone feels that they have to give all this respect but where is their
respect from others? It’s a very rigid society and from time to time the lid
comes off the pot. And the thing about Prague is that it just wasn’t as rigid and
for me coming from Korea it was ‘Oh, the Czechs just aren’t that friendly,’ but
in comparison to Korea and its culture where if you smile, it’s a sign of
weakness or foolishness because you don’t look serious. So to come here, it
wasn’t so harsh, it wasn’t so stark a contrast as if I was coming straight from
Philadelphia. The soul of Prague for me is culture;
I’m very sensitive to the architecture. I’m sensitive to the fact that there is
an artistic performance every single night of the week and there’re at least
ten, at least. There’s this variety.
It’s vibrant.
Yes, exactly: the colours,
the variety of the architecture in terms of the styles. When I first got here I
was told on my orientation walk, ‘If you’re ever depressed in Prague, just look
up’. And it still holds that, there’re different layers to discover something.
- Music
I understand completely. Now music: what is the soul of Blues?
The soul of Blues for me is triumph. That’s what Blues is about.
Triumph over hardship?
Exactly. If the blues were so bad, I would just
experience them then crawl over and die.
So it’s this act of defiance?
(Triumphantly)
It’s cathartic expression! I cannot keep it bottled up inside me; I have to let
it out. And a girlfriend of mine stated that grief is held in the throat and
that when people go to funerals they wail and they moan to release the
pressure, to release the pain. And that’s what the soul of Blues is for me.
It’s the expression of internal pressure
that comes out—that needs to be expressed.
What is the gospel of Gospel?
The gospel of Gospel is like the gospel of Blues that
just because I’m here does not mean I cannot overcome my situation; just
because I’m in sin does not mean I’m affected by sin.
(Laughs) You said that so
rhythmically. It does come naturally I suppose.
(Laughs)
Yeah. (In bluesy phrasing) That’s the way I actually talk; the way I write songs is the way that I
talk, I just sometimes put music to it. (
Solemnly)
To get back, the gospel of Gospel is redemption: we think we may endure for a
night but joy comes in the morning so
you just need to hold on until the morning comes – that’s the gospel of Gospel.
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| photo credits: redutajazzclub.cz |
Well, I was raised in the church, the church is a part
of me yet I’m not in the church.
You have your own relation to God?
Exactly, well-understood; You learn something until
you internalise it till it’s a part of you till you forget it.
It becomes natural.
Exactly. So the gospel for me is a story of hope and
the joy that comes from hope in the
midst of whatever I am in. It’s a story of faith. Does that faith need to be in
God? Or is it the faith in that there’s more than I know of and if I keep
holding on I may not be comfortable today but (decisively) either my circumstance will change or I will change.
And because I change, my circumstance changes with it. So that’s the gospel of
Gospel.
When we met you mentioned Dinah Washington as one of your favourite
singers. I have here a quote about her, what do you think about it: (reads the quote) “Hers was a gritty,
salty, high-pitched voice, marked by absolute clarity of diction and clipped,
bluesy phrasing...” (Richard S. Ginell)
For me that’s such high praise because it means it’s
the best of both worlds. It’s dirty. It’s sultry. It’s unformed unshaped and
unconventional—unto itself—but yet it follows the necessary dictates of
technique. You know what the essentials are and you do them precisely but with
your own colour, your own flavour, your own tone. For me, that’s high praise.
She was creative where there’s a space but she was precise in the things that
matter.
Now, when somebody describes your attitude, your show—the impression you
exude—as “feel-good” – what does that mean to you?
Yeah. As I said that Blues was cathartic so there’s
the pain within but there’s the release of the joy of letting it go.
So you focus on the latter.
Yeah. When the
storm has passed over, it’s fresh. It’s light. It’s clean. You can breathe more
easily. With the storm it was oppressive, heavy—you had a headache and you just
couldn’t take it anymore, but that feel-good is the break. I have a song: Let
it All Hang Out. When you let it all hang out, you’re no longer repressed,
you’re no longer stressed; you’ve accepted the fact that you have earned the
right regardless of what is going on to have a good time.
Brilliant. You said that you write lyrics to your songs yourself and
that your writing process is basically just capturing what you’re thinking of.
(Laughs) And
make sure it rhymes.
Is it simple as that or do you just say that?
One of the songs that’s now going around my head... I
was literally walking down the street with my sister and I said to her: ‘Just
because you can, doesn’t mean you should’ and then, you know, I think: ‘Doesn’t
mean it’d do you any good.’ And then there’s the melody (making one).
(Laughs) I see. I see. It just
builds up.
Exactly. Until I was like, ‘I’ll just do that twice
give it a story that’s in this particular circumstance, just because you can
doesn’t mean you should resolve it, then... Ok what kind of an instrument to go
with it’ – ok, I’ve got a song.
So first there’s a phrase.
There’s a phrase. That’s right. There’s a repeated
refrain; there is a message that is clear and needs to be reinforced by
repetition. For example, on my last CD, there’s the song Last Night in Memphis
and it was literally the last night in Memphis, when we were there for the
International Blues challenge.
Such a bluesy name.
(Smiles)
“Last night in Memphis / And I ain’t got nothing, but the blues” and that’s the
truth.
How many CDs have you recorded?
CD’s that I have produced: 1. CDs that I have written
the texts and sung the lyrics: 2. And then, where I’ve recorded for other
people, tracks: 3-4 where my voice’s been used.
- Linguistics & Language acquisition
How did Czech strike you at first: convoluted, formidable?
Right, I came to Czech after having studied German,
raised on English, French, Italian and Korean so it was unlike anything else I
had ever encountered. I studied German in eighth grade so that study did not
prepare me for all the cases and declensions in Czech. I was used to
masculine/feminine from French and Italian but not neuter! How do you look at
something and you know that it’s neither one nor the other. So it was unlike
anything I’ve ever encountered and it was very frustrating, because I had determined
after four years in Korea on a one-year contract that if I had known I was
gonna be there for four years, I would have tried.
So when I came to Prague, I fell head over heels in
love with Prague and determined to live here – I really wanted to learn the language. And then, unbeknownst to me I was
really determined to learn one of the world’s most complicated, difficult
languages. It was really through blood, sweat and tears, because as a teacher I
got free lessons: I was studying Tuesday and Thursday for ninety minutes and
then I met the man who’d become my ex-husband and his family did not know
English so I went from studying during the week to studying and speaking on the
weekends and then within three years I was working in an office where there was
Czech spoken and I would try to speak Czech and I would call a supplier and
someone grabbed the phone and said ‘Somebody who speaks bad Czech is on the
phone!’ ‘Někdo tady blbě mluví česky.’
(Laughs) Poor Juwana.
Yeah. But I’m very stubborn and determined so I did
not let that deter me and I would say it took about five years to feel
comfortable speaking Czech with anybody; before that I was only comfortable
speaking Czech with my teacher and with my in-laws then with people at my
office then with the people I knew – not becoming tongue-tied while speaking to
a stranger in Czech.
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| photo credits: topvip.cz |
How long had you been studying Czech by the time you appeared on the
Kraus Show?
I appeared on Kraus in March 2012, I came here in 1998
and I started studying in 99. I stopped studying formally in 2001 and the rest
of my education was done by way of being around the members of my family at
that time, talking to my musicians. There were lot of people who thought that
if I made a mistake in Czech it was (with
disgust) cute so they just listened to me and smiled at me ‘Oh she’s a
cutie.’ My band leader would correct me because he knew it was important to me
to be able to articulate my ideas as an adult. That conversation helped me to
develop a great deal.
That’s Charlie Slavík?
Yes. Speaking with him about ideas in Czech every day
all the time was a major transition from speaking in a very limited sense to
really talking about important things.
Things that you are passionate about.
Yes, exactly, and really wanting to express myself
clearly!
So what is Czech to you now? Has it become your favourite?
Czech has become
my favourite language because I studied English as a native speaker, German for
a year, French all throughout high school, Italian for a summer abroad then Korean
for survival but Czech is special to me because I live here, it’s a second
language in which I operate on a day-to-day basis; I dream in Czech, I make
jokes in Czech.
You dream in Czech?
Oh yeah. I talk to myself in Czech, I think in Czech –
it’s not grammatically correct Czech but it’s my Czech.
Did you at first have to will yourself towards this? How much effort has
done into it?
When I was in the high school I studied French and so
I would walk around the house talking in French to practise–
Naming
things.
Exactly: ‘Où est mon peigne? Qu‘est ce
que je dois faire aujourd'hui?’ – just talking to myself in French. I knew that worked successfully, so I did that in Czech; I made it an
integrated part of my life. What makes it my favourite foreign language is that
there’s still something for me to discover. I’m not perfect in Czech, I’m not
automatic – I still have to be mindful
so it’s close but not there yet. There’s still something for me to learn if I
want to learn it – I’m not bored with the Czech language.
- Closing questions
Have you encountered racism in the Czech Republic?
I encountered something in 1998: I was on the Muzeum
metro platform reading Dickens and a man walked pass me holding what I presumed
was his girlfriend’s hand and he looked at me and said, you know, ‘Fuc*ing
nig*er.’ I’m reading Dickens, for goodness sake, minding my own business.
That’s the last thing you’d expect! So for me to equilibrize from that I could only feel pity for him. He was
walking down the street with a pretty girl and instead of flirting with her or
connecting with her, he chose to make eye contact with me and say something
denigrating so there had to be a great deal of pain inside to need to release it in that manner. So you know, I
knew it had nothing to do with me. This was all his burden that he was
carrying.
Wow.
I had something very recently happen. I don’t remember
what it was because I filter it in that regard. That it’s not about me: you
don’t know me.
Exactly.
It’s really that simple. If anything for every one
occasion of negative racism I’ve encountered 200 cases of positive racism:
something about chocolate, or exotic, you know the fantasies run wild and
suddenly I am attractive just because I am unusual and once again you still
don’t know me but it’s not in an overtly negative way. It’s still limited but
it’s not something that’s offensive to me; that’s the more charming way
Cute racism.
(Laughs)
Very last question: what are your plans for the future?
To take the sound forward; we recorded the CD in 2012
and there were things that didn’t make it onto the CD and I’ve grown since
we’ve done the CD and I realised that I missed Gospel, I missed Soul and there
are things that I wanted to do with the band that are blues-influenced but are
not strictly old-school blues like what we did before. The goal of the last CD
(The Blues Keeps You Alive) was: the
Czech Republic is familiar with a certain type of Blues, Bluesberry, Crowsberry but there is more than just the standard
twelve-bar – that’s Blues so there is a rainbow of other things. Well if that
rainbow of other things are Blues here’s a continuation of that. The last song of the Blues
Keeps You Alive CD is Last Night in Memphis which has a soulful sound and
so to continue the exploration of Blues and Soul, Blues and Gospel, Blues and
Country – didn’t really get there but the process of doing the Blues Keeps You Alive created the interest.
You’re on your way.
Yeah exactly.
Jaromír Lelek
Find updates about
Juwana and her gig dates over at
And watch her
performances at the following links
