Impact Magazine, June 2011 issue with Sunshine Anderson

Cover Story Sunshine Anderson Be Inspired R. Shamar IMPACTful Culture “Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hard!” Djenaba Figueroa Fashion Showcase Jaesyn Burke Couture Cat’s Eye Handmade Do you have what it take to push through to encompass your best life! In life, you have to be insistent in order to make things happen. Even when things look as if they are not going to happen, we have to continue to move forward to see it through to the end. In order for things to come to fruition in our lives, we have to have perseverance! Perseverance has to do with striving to do and be the best! We have to have the resolve to surround ourselves with images of people who are doing what we love to do and who are successful doing it. Success cannot be measured by anyone’s definition but your own because money is not the end all to show you that you are a success. Pushing through life to have the best life takes determination and the will to see it through. I never paid much attention to Oprah Winfrey before! Yes…she is African American woman. Yes…she is a billionaire. Yes…she does have the top rated show on daytime television but I did not look at her the way I view her now. Oprah grew up in a poor remote town, was sexually abused by male members in her family, abandoned by her mother and later raised by a domineering father! WOW…that is the true example of perseverance! A no matter what spirit! No matter what the past brought, no matter who was there or who wasn’t, and no matter what she did not stop evolving and being; she is grabbing everything life has had for her! I view her in a different light now and have taken the resolve of NO MATTER WHAT! In this issue of IMPACT Magazine, we speak to the wonderful Sunshine Anderson. Sunshine was at her all time high when she was pulled to the side to say that she was going to be shelved for two years. Being shelved in the industry for two years after a hit song is not a good look! From that moment on, Sunshine has fought with determination for her career. Read on to hear how she has persevered through the times. In our Be Inspired section, we are highlighting R. Shamar – The Minister of Motivation. We have a fashion showcase from the hottest designers, Cat Belle of Cat’s Eye Handmade and Jaesyn Burke of Jaesyn Burke Couture. In addition, we have our monthly spectacular spotlight, IMPACTful Culture by Djenaba Figueroa. Djenaba speaks about what truly matters in the article entitled, “Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, and Hard!” Let’s take upon ourselves the notion that we are not going to just exist. We are all here for a reason! We have to be determined to be the best we can be. We have to push through all obstacles in order to have that shiny thing at the end that is waiting for us in this life. Whatever the shiny thing may be isn’t it worth fighting for? It is….now let’s go! Tunisha C. Brown Editor-In Chief We all know who Sunshine Anderson is…”Heard It All Before”! Ok! Well, what we don’t know is the story behind the story! How she has been determined to make her music career happen! Not allowing her gift to be put on the shelf, Sunshine continues to push beyond all the limits. On a fateful day while a student at North Carolina Central University (where she earned a degree in Criminal Justice), Sunshine was overheard singing Lalah Hathaway’s “Baby Don’t Cry” walking through the cafeteria line by a friend of the burgeoning producer Mike City. After a successful audition, Sunshine and City began working together which eventually led her to signing with Atlantic Records imprint Soulife (where City had become head of A&R). Nine years later, “Heard It All Before” is released and literally sweeps urban radio in America and internationally, immediately thrusting Sunshine into the then unfamiliar world of promotional appearances, radio and television interviews and multi-city shows. Her new circumstances consumed her “without warning or preparation”. “I was overwhelmed,” she remembers. “I was not a kid, but I was young. I just knew it could only get better from there. You never think that it is going to end. So, when it did, that’s why it was so hard to accept.” The ending Sunshine is referring to is being placed on the shelf when Atlantic Records and Warner Bros merged while she was recording her second album. With the merger happening, it placed her at the absolute end of a long line of female artists on the roster. With artists such as Missy Elliott, Brandy, Lil Kim and Tamia taking precedence, the label informed her that it would be almost two years before they would release her sophomore album. With “Heard It All Before” reaching #3 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart and the album Your Woman debuted at #5 on the Top 200 Albums chart and reached near platinum status selling over 800,000 copies; Sunshine could not understand why she was being shelved for two years. Not long after, Sunshine asked to be released from the label and it was granted. After returning back home to Charlotte, Sunshine felt defeated and most of all embarrassed. She fell into a period of deep depression, which included alcohol and drug abuse. “When you are shown the possibilities and have had everything at your fingertips, home can be really hard on you.” After regrouping and moving to Seattle with her now estranged husband, a professional athlete, she flew to New York and signed with Mathew Knowles Music World Entertainment label. After another extended wait, the label released her album Sunshine After Midnight (with some production by Raphael Saadiq) to little fan fare. “It was three years old before it came out. I am proud of it, but it was not the album that I really wanted to make.” During the promotion of the album, she became pregnant with her daughter, Skyy, who subsequently kept Sunshine from launching into yet another downward spiral. “Motherhood changed me in every way possible. Before, I lived for myself every day. Now, my life had an order that I never thought possible. It’s amazing.” Returning back to her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina her current space is equally as wonderful. “I am surrounded with the right people now,” says Sunshine, who has reunited with longtime producer and friend Mike City. “I was scared because he’s a great listener. We had some heavy conversations about my life and he incorporated them into these incredible records. It was hard for me to record them, because they brought back all the drama and hurt. I had tucked it all away in a box under the bed and I really wanted that box out of my house. So, having this new album take me back there is hard. But it’s worth it.” Released on Mike City’s label UnSung/Verve Forecast, The Sun Shines Again on which Sunshine wrote/co-wrote three songs is aggressive and emotional, with lyrics of love, yearning, mistrust and desire, all atop soulful, melodic grooves. “I love this record!” says Sunshine Anderson of her single, “Lie to Kick It”. Although known for her trademark rebukes of men on the opposite side of right, the album is representative of a new direction. “Because of what I have gone through, I want to give inspiration. I want my fans to know that they are worth more and are better than anything they are settling for.” And right now, Sunshine is only accepting the best. “God took me to zero. I have come full circle and I am on the upside of life. I have the peace of mind that I never had.” “I am so ready this time around. I now have an appreciation for things, people and life that I have never possessed before.” It’s an appreciation that was hard earned. Virtually all body functions require water: digestion, absorption, circulation, detox, sweating, transportation of nutrition, building of body tissues and maintaining body temperature. These functions would be impossible without water. Water is your secret weapon in your fight against fat. A common mistake we make is that we think we need to avoid drinking lots of fluids during weight loss especially when we are retaining fluids. WRONG! Water actually helps your body metabolize stored fat faster and removes it quickly. Water also helps keep the skin healthy and resilient, which helps to prevent the sagging of skin that usually follows weight loss. For more information about natural approaches to good health, contact: Dr. Stephen Tates 180 Allen Road Atlanta, GA 30342 1-866-206-1018 Water is also our body’s most abundant ingredient. Water accounts for 60% of our total body weight. The average adult uses about three quarts of water a day through the normal body process. Drinking enough water is the best treatment for fluid retention. When the body does not get enough water it interprets this as a threat to survival and begins to hold on to every drop, storing it in the cells, which causes the swelling and bloating that so many overweight individuals complain of. If you give your body enough water, then the stored water will be released. Hint: You need to drink at least ½ of your total body weight in ounces – DAILY!!! Example: you weigh 150 pounds – divide by 2 = 75 pounds. You should drink 75 ounces of water daily. Continue to hydrate your body in order to maintain maximum health! Most days I awake thinking of all the tasks I must complete before sundown. In five minutes, I can compile a list that spills over onto page two and almost reaches a third. Our lives are filled with daily activities that wear us out and leave us constantly longing for a vacation. When did we all get so busy? How do you find time to enjoy life when it seems there is so much to do? We spend half of our days working, or getting there; the other half we spend trying to create a life that’s fun, eventful and that somehow possesses meaning. At the start of each day before I finally turn off my alarm, I’ve calculated the time it will take to prepare breakfast; what time I need to leave to beat traffic; how long it will take to walk the dog and the list goes on. While I’m on the highway, I’m pondering what to prepare for dinner, or sadly what I should have left in the fridge for thawing. I’m sure your day is like this also. We swing from work to school, to baseball games and meetings, all without the thought of why this all matters. Why is this everyday hustle so important? Of course we know the obvious reasons. We must pay the bills, and tuition; fix the car, buy the food, nurture our child’s cultural enrichment, and on occasion “help a brother (or sista) out”. We convince ourselves that our daily tasks are important and that “EVERYTHING” must be accomplished! Are we fooling ourselves into believing that these small tasks truly matter? If we don’t do it all, will the world come to end? In American culture we find ourselves so immersed in life, that unfortunately many of us rarely take time to stop and smell the flowers. We miss out on the great moments of life; while eating, driving and texting simultaneously. We live in a world of fast cars, fast money, fast food and fast relationships. Our relationships start quick and end even quicker. We see exercise as a chore; and instead of walking to the store a block away, we will drive, waste the gas, and kill the environment. We do this, day in and day out, because it’s faster, and to be frank, we are lazy. “Lazy Americans, we want everything our way, right now!” I heard someone say that the other day, it shocked me, but as I listened on I couldn’t help but wonder if it was true. I believe as our culture evolves we are finding more ways to do more things faster. However, the hard truth is that faster doesn’t always mean better. We are bombarded by commercials; magazine and internet advertisements all urging us to spend, spend, spend, quick, quick, quick! Most of the items we are lured into purchasing are bad for our health, our families, our spiritual wellbeing and often “our pockets”. We buy fast food because we live fast lives. We no longer have the time to prepare home cooked meals, when one child has baseball practice and the other has dance lessons. But I remember the good ole days. Back in the 80’s and 90’s life was very different, and families were stronger. In most homes you could find a man and woman living happily together with children and with every need met. I remember when my step-father picked me up from school, while my mother went to work. When I arrived home, a full course meal was prepared and when mom got home we ate dinner like a family. After dinner, my parents kissed us good night and my step father went to work. Every Saturday we had a family picnic or enjoyed family trips, movies, and sometimes when the money was right, we went roller skating. Every night we drank a glass of milk, brushed our teeth, got tucked in for a story, said our prayers, and by 8pm we were out. Today, many parents are still driving home at 8pm, and some children don’t even get dinner until after that time. When I was a young girl we always had family time. While my sister and I played in our rooms, my mother often sang away, completing her chores, while my step father was out fishing with my brother. We had nap time, and we most certainly did our homework right after school. What has happened to our culture? Are we doing too much? Are we moving too fast? What will happen to our children? What will the future be like? As a parent, I try hard to reconnect to those moments that I remember having as a young girl. When life gets busy, I remember to cook larger meals so we don’t need to stop at Boston Market. When there are practices, sometimes we leave a little early to get the homework in. When my job needs me to go the extra mile, I ponder the needs of my son, before I say yes. We can all make small changes to ensure that our families, our health and our finances are not neglected. A home cooked meal is healthier, more affordable and a great way to spend time with our children and spouse. A walk to the store, is perfect for sharing laughs, and protects our environment from unnecessary emissions. One day spent at home playing board games, listening to music or watching movies keeps things in prospective and gives everyone a much needed “time out”. We must remember that faster, is not better; and that the best things in life, happen we have the time to enjoy them. It is my hope that we step into each new day remembering the things that are truly important; our families, our blessings, ourselves. Enjoy your life….today! Prepared by MagCloud for IMPACT Magazine. Get more at impact-magazine.magcloud.com.