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A Conversation with Rhonda Ross

Jason A. Michael

"No one's going be a better Diana Ross than she is. But no one else can be Rhonda Ross, and no one else can be a better Rhonda Ross than me."
– Rhonda Ross
A rare artist in today's musical landscape, Ross uses her music to examine the society she lives in – from racism to sexism to homophobia to the need for self-love and spirituality.

She is the daughter of two musical luminaries – legendary singer Diana Ross and Motown Records founder and music mogul Berry Gordy – and yet she has forged an identity and found a voice all her own as a singer and recording artist. Rhonda Ross will open for her mother at Chene Park July 30, and entertain with her own special brand of "social music."
"I've been singing all my life," Ross said. "All the way through my childhood – elementary school, high school, college – and then at the end of my college years I became a professional singer."
Finding her own voice, Ross said, was not as challenging as many might imagine.
"I don't think it was challenging and I don't think it was difficult but I do think it was necessary," Ross said. "My mother raised me to believe that my spirit, as each human spirit is, is unique. And my perspective is unique and my experience is unique and that any art that comes out of me is unique. It doesn't have to live in her shadow. It doesn't have to be cowed by her shadow no matter how big of a shadow she casts – and she casts a really big shadow."
Ross said her mother made sure that each of her five children had their own individual identities.
"She gave that to each of her children, so I knew that all of my life," Ross recalled. "I never felt hidden by her. And I don't know how she did it, truthfully, because she is so magnificent and she is so huge. Not just in her legacy and her history but in her personality, who she is. It's just so huge. I can't find a better word for it. So I don't know how it was that she allowed her children to have our own in the midst of that but she did.
When Ross first started singing, music industry bigwigs approached her, eager to turn her into Diana Ross, Jr.
"Producers were coming to me excited that I could carry a tune and be Diana Ross's daughter at the same time," Ross said with a laugh. "They were wanting to try to find some kind of pop persona for me. But I resisted that because I knew that whatever I did artistically – though I didn't know at that time what that was going to necessarily be – it had to be authentic to me. It had to be something that I was willing to work at and practice for the rest of my life, organically and truthfully and honestly.
"I'm not out here trying to be the next Diana Ross," Ross continued. "There is no next Diana Ross. She has done it fairly well. Nobody's going to be the next Diana Ross after her. No one's going to be a better Diana Ross than she is. But no one else can be Rhonda Ross, and no one else can be a better Rhonda Ross than me."
After college, Ross initially began performing with a jazz trio and sang mostly standards. That is until she met her husband, pianist Rodney Kendrick, who was at the time musical director for jazz great Abbey Lincoln.
"He and Abbey said to me, 'you are truly a storyteller and your perspective is interesting and you have an interesting voice and you should focus more on your creation of songs as opposed to interpretation of songs,' which was also something that I loved. So that's what I started to do around the mid-90s. I started really focusing on my writing and I did that for about 20 years, mostly with my husband. The two of us made a lot of music that I'm very, very proud of."
At age 38, Ross took time off to start a family.
"Then, by the time I turned 40 I just felt as if my perspective and my way of expressing myself had expanded," Ross said. "Instead of being more traditional jazz, I was doing music that could work in smaller, more intimate venues. I started to explore other genres. Funk entered in the picture; rock entered into the picture; and gospel entered into the picture and all of a sudden the music changed. And when my mother started to hear the change of music she thought it might be a nice complement to what she does. She thought it might be nice to incorporate it into her show. It's a different music than what she brings but it is complementary. My lyrics tend to be more social than what hers are."
A rare artist in today's musical landscape, Ross uses her music to examine the society she lives in – from racism to sexism to homophobia to the need for self-love and spirituality.
"I speak to those things in my music but I also speak to the personal journey of transcending despair and transcending hatred if and when possible," Ross explained. "So my music tends to be social in that way. Hers doesn't tend to be social in that way. My mother's being is social, just who she is and who she has been has a social component. Her music has always been uplifting and inspirational and encouraging and mine is also that. So there is a nice correspondence between the two."
Ross calls what she does having a conversation with the audience.
"I like seeing their eyes and their expressions and we have a conversation," she said. "We have a conversation about these shootings and killings that are happening. We have a conversation about Orlando. We have a conversation about equal rights and all the ways we're looking for them. We have a conversation about spirituality, about aligning with our source and what are the pitfalls on the way to that and what are the benefits to doing that. We have a conversation musically speaking. And I can see their eyes and I can see when we are connected on the same plane or when I've lost them.
Recent events, Ross said, have given her a great deal to talk about.
"Yesterday, we were in Livermore, California, an audience of about 2,000 and in one of my songs I mentioned Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and some of the other names," she said. "I mentioned them in one of my songs called 'Drumbeat of Life' … We had this conversation about what on earth is happening. I added a piece of Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' into the song and it was powerful, truthfully.
"After the show when I was at the merchandise desk, people came to me – white and black – and looked me in my eye," Ross continued. "They said, 'Thank you for what you said tonight because it needed to be said. And we needed it. We wanted some acknowledgement of the despicableness that is happening in this country, the war that feels like it's breaking out. We don't know what to do, how to digest it, how to feel through it. And we're all looking for those touchstones and that was a moment for that.'"

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