Narrator> This podcast is made possible through listener contributions to the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (record switches) (hip hop instrumental) ♪ Courtney> Welcome to the "Auxdacity".

I'm Courtney here with Kennedy, and today we're exploring how culture shapes the soundtrack of our lives.

From rhythms carried across oceans to the genres born right here at home, music tells stories of identity, struggle, celebration, and legacy.

Kennedy> Throughout this episode, we'll unpack how history lives inside melody and how sound connects generations.

Courtney> And helping us weave those sounds together is SheJay T.O.

curating the vibe in real time.

Kennedy> Yeah, we just had an amazing opening performance of my man, S'way.

S'way, welcome to the show.

And we got another amazing guest with us today, Ms Natalie.

Gullah Gullah Island is in the building.

How are you guys doing?

S'way> I'm doing great.

Courtney> Excellent, Kennedy> Man, that's awesome.

And to get this thing started, for those that might not know who you guys are, I want you guys to take a second to kind of just introduce yourself.

I'm going to start with you, S'way.

S'way> Hey.

I'm S'way.

I'm a Columbia native.

I've lived here all my life, and, currently, I'm a singer/songwriter.

Okay.

And, I play gigs around town.

I play gigs around South Carolina, and, And, that's about all I got going on right now when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Courtney> And that's a lot.

Kennedy> That's a lot.

Man, you out here getting it.

S'way> It's a good bit.

Courtney> Yeah.

Kennedy> You was nice on the, on the guitar, man.

S'way> I appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

Kennedy> You do lessons?

S'way> No.

<No?> I'm retired from teaching.

Kennedy> Retired?

<Oh, yeah> You're old enough to retire?

S'way> Oh.

Probably not.

Kennedy> Okay.

(All laugh) S'way> But that's just what I tell people.

Kennedy> Okay.

Courtney> That's fair.

Let's hear from you Mrs.

Natalie.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Natalie Daise> I'm Natalie Daise.

I'm a storyteller.

I'm an artist.

I like to consider myself a creative catalyst.

A lot of folks saw me dancing with the frog in their youth.

(All laugh) I did Gullah Gullah Island with my husband and our two children.

It was a whole family affair.

But I have been living a creative life for the last 40 some odd years.

Courtney> Well, let's just jump right into it.

I love to know a little bit about how you brought part of your culture into Gullah Gullah Island, because the purpose of this show is talking a little bit about how culture starts from maybe historical music, and then how it's brought into the present day.

So we're talking about how we weave those things together.

So tell us, what... tell us about the Gullah Geechee people.

Natalie> The Gullah Geechee people, are the descendants of West Africans brought here very specifically for cash crops.

And we like to say particularly rice, which was the thing that made South Carolina wealthy.

As a matter of fact, South Carolina at one point was the biggest rice exporter in the world.

<Kennedy> Wow!

Natalie> And that was done by hand, by labor, by millions of West Africans who came from rice producing countries on the coast.

And of course, you know, I like to say that our ancestors brought everything with them in their memory.

It's not like they had anything to put to pocket.

They didn't have a suitcase.

They all came here.

It came here.

And even though they came from various West African countries and communities, they brought with them enough of their own to pass it down, <Yeah.> as an oral, you know, in an oral way and through their actions, through their music, through the melody of their voices.

And Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of those amazing people who survived.

Kennedy> In the 90s, Nickelodeon, like, we were poor, so we didn't have Nickelodeon.

I was a PBS kid, so I was.

Yeah.

"Magic School Bus" is what I had.

But I used to hear about "Gullah Gullah Island" and all the amazing things.

How are you guys able to get from, from Charleston, South Carolina to Nickelodeon, mainstream America?

Natalie> I say grace, and it did start with music.

And actually not Charleston, we're talking Saint Helena Island talking about Beaufort Courtney> A sea island.

>> My husband is a proud sea islander.

Natalie> Yeah.

He will tell you, it was because we were already doing performances around the country of old music, coming from the Gullah Geechee heritage.

We started doing that full time in 1986.

My husband had written a book, where he, he interviewed elders.

And as part of that, he recorded songs.

And we're talking about traditional songs, and we don't know who wrote them.

We don't know where the melody came from.

And so, he and I began to travel, telling the stories that the elders had told him and singing the songs.

And this is a honestly, a once upon a time kind of moment.

There was a writer.

Her name was Gloria Naylor, who had written a book based on the Sea Islands, based on Saint Helena Island called Mama Day, and she was having that book made into a movie at the time.

She had a contact.

And she brought down the director and the executive producer.

And I was sitting there eating cold chicken back on the island.

I am very pregnant, and we're talking about TV.

And the executive producer had been trying to sell a show to Nick and hadn't gotten through with anything.

And then she said, "Gloria said that y'all sing.

"Maybe we can do a show about y'all, like a magical island.

"I've been trying to do one..." She was from Puerto Rico.

"I've been trying to do one,- an island, "a story about Puerto Rico, "but maybe we can do it about this."

And we were like, "Yeah, okay."

(All laugh) That, that... Courtney> And then came.

Natalie> No agent.

No manager.

No, let's do TV.

<Yeah.> And this is back in the day of cassettes.

Right?

So we would sing songs for her.

You know, we talking traditional Gullah Geechee work songs and praise songs and celebration songs.

We would sing these songs and mail the cassette in the US mail Kennedy> Yeah.

Natalie> To New York.

And, they would work with their songwriters to like, update and create things.

And that's how that happened.

Complete grace.

We were not out there knocking on doors.

The door just said... (swoosh sound) T.O.> It was meant for you.

<Yeah> The doors flew wide open and you changed the culture for it.

And we grew up on it.

Natalie> We did.

We did.

And we had no idea that that's what was happening.

We had no idea that.

that's what was happening.

T.O.> So what is something that people get wrong about the Gullah Geechee culture?

What's the misconception?

Natalie> They have a tendency, there's a tendency to be very simplistic, about, well, that means that it's limited to... you eat rice, right?

Natalie> Which...Yes T.O.> We do eat a lot of rice.

Natalie> We do eat a lot of rice.

I buy the 20 pound bags.

...a little bag of rice.

(laughing) That we just.

We should eat rice and sing slave songs and, and, and sort of that.

That's the limit of who we are when we are everything.

One thing that used to amuse my husband.

Not to...tickle us, but, you know, ...we would, first we would travel, They would say, "Are y'all from Saint Helena?"

"Isn't that where Dr.

Buzzard is?"

So they also thought we all knew how to do roots.

T.O.> Like witchcraft.

Natalie> Uh huh.

Hoodoo.

Kennedy> I had no idea who Dr.

Buzzard was... T.O.> Really?

Kennedy> I still don't T.O.> That's a South Carolina legend.

Courtney> We'll talk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Natalie> Update you later.

Kennedy> Yeah.

Natalie> So some of that is, is sort of a simplistic... the idea that Gullah... Gullah Geechee culture is frozen in time, that when you talk about Gullah Geechee, you talk about one's culture, you're talking about one step out of enslavement.

You're talking about Reconstruction as opposed to 2026.

<Yeah.> You know, as opposed to like any culture, it evolves and continues to evolve in a lot of amazing ways.

Kennedy> What's the lady's name from Puerto Rico?

Natalie> The producer's name was Maria Perez Kennedy> Maria.

She said, she heard y'all sing?

Natalie> She heard that we did.

Yeah, because Gloria Naylor told her that we did.

<Okay.> And Gloria had seen us doing, like old songs.

We're talking... <Yeah.> where did this song come from?

We don't know.

Kennedy> Right.

Right.

The amazing thing about S'way, because, I mean, not only does he play the guitar, but he's a very soulful singer.

And so I'm like, kind of curious, like, how did you get into or when did the music kind of find you or choose you.

S'way> In finding me, I didn't have a choice.

<Okay.> (laughing) At all.

I, I don't come from a family of musicians.

It's actually kind of funny.

In each family there is a guitar player and I'm the one in mine.

My dad's... It was actually my brother because I used to play trumpet.

<Okay> I was a...I actually went to school for trumpet originally and then fell out of love with music and had a crisis for a couple of years where I kind of didn't play anything at all.

Then I picked up the guitar and started singing and but my mom, my uncle on my dad's side, he is, he's the guitar player in his family and my uncle on my mom's side.

He's a guitar player in his family, and he plays jazz.

And then my own uncle plays bluegrass.

So they kind of come from two different... <Okay.> >> traditions of mine.

Courtney> And you met in the middle?

<Yeah.> S'way> Kind of.

Kind of.

I do a lot of different stuff.

I don't know if they really vibe with much of what I play anymore or if they even listen to anything past 1978.

<Oh> you know, the older guys So, I mean, yeah.

Natalie> Good music in 78.

S'way> It is great music.

There's great music there, but I don't know anything about the 90s or, you know, the early 2000 stuff I grew up with because of my brother and sister.

<Okay.> But music was constant in the house.

It's constant in the car.

We were big.

We drove a lot.

I was always in the car with somebody, because I was the baby.

Brother and sister were just a little older, So, no babysitters.

<Yeah.> I was always on the road with everybody.

<Okay> So if my sister drove me somewhere, I was listening to her music, which was like Broadway and country and kind of far out for what I was used to as a little kid.

But my dad, always had, either the Beatles or anything from Motown playing.

So that kind of music really, really was stuck in my head at an early age.

So if it wasn't Stevie Wonder, it was, you know, the Jacksons, the Jackson Five, before it was Michael Jackson.

And if it wasn't Stevie Wonder, it was James Brown or Aretha Franklin or the Supremes or, you know, what we call beach music, which is really just soul music, but just kind of marketed to, southern white folk.

(all laugh) Courtney> Okay, tell the truth.

Tell the truth, S'way.

S'way> Yeah.

And so, like, General Johnson and the Chairman of the Board, I grew up with those guys.

Kennedy> So that's like Carolina Girls.

S'way> Carolina Girls.

Everything's Tuesday, Everything's Tuesday was one of my favorite songs of all time, you know, you could categorize it as beach music or this music or this, but I grew up listening to a lot of, a lot of black music, and I would consider the majority of what I listened to falls under that umbrella.

<Okay.> And that tradition.

T.O.> I would say I could hear it in your voice, like, before you even sung a word, like I could hear, I just, I, I don't know, you have a soulful vibe and soulful voice, so I could I could tell that you didn't grow up on, you know, the rock and roll or country.

I knew it was a little Michael Jackson.

Yeah.

I wish I could sing more Michael Jackson.

I can't.

I, I top out at about the chorus on, Rock With You and that's about as much Michael Jackson as I can get.

Kennedy> Back to the 70s.

S'way> Yeah, right back to it.

<The 70s.> S'way> One of the greatest albums of all time.

So it's, Yeah, I was really lucky to grow up on that music and not really having any choice on what I got to listen to as a little kid, because they wouldn't let me touch the radio.

By the time I touched the CDs or you know, go through those big old CD folders we used to have, Kennedy> I just found one the other day and I had to, like, dust it off, It was like, mold on it.

I had to get... Kennedy> Mold?

(laughing) S'way> It was, I didn't have a choice on what I got to listen to, so I was really lucky to find that the music I was listening to was came from such a great tradition.

And then, by the time my brother started driving.

He was, a huge, like, hip hop nerd.

He was like that one funny white kid who could tell you everything about every artist.

You know, he was telling me why, Biggie was talking about this, why someone was beefing with the other person.

Kennedy> Oh!

One of those guys.

S'way> Tell you the difference between, like, East Coast and West Coast and everything up in the West, East coast.

So, like why this southern guy sounded that way, why the northern guy sounded the way, why, you know, Middle Atlantic sounded that way.

T.O.> So if you had to say now, like, what's an artist that influenced you or your creative process, who would you say, now, influenced you, influences you?

S'way> I've said it before.

Definitely.

I say this all the time.

My friends are definitely tired of hearing about it, but, my, my all time biggest influences is D'Angelo.

I found his music.

His music found me when I was 20.

And, you know, I'd heard his music before and, like, and isolated cases of hang out friends, not really being able to catch it and hear it, but there's one day, I was walking through the library at USC looking for some books and Brown Sugar came on, and it just.

Courtney> Changed your life.

S'way> It was, it was the only thing I wanted to listen to for the next week.

I listened to the rest of the album, and I found his other albums, and then, just learning about his process and everything, it not only appealed to me, it made sense.

So the way I write now, it's very akin to not exactly how he did it, because I can't, no one can touch what he did.

Courtney> A lot of what I heard in our earlier conversation was about how the music was able to travel through time, and I actually heard that from S'way, too.

So from those cassettes in the car, to what he's playing right now.

So I'd love to hear from you.

How have you worked to make sure that, that music not just survives, but it changes with the time?

Natalie> I think it is just sort of happens by osmosis.

You know, back in the early days when my husband and I were traveling, we used to travel with people like Janie Hunter, who was, from Johns Island and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, who were from Saint Simons Island.

And we were the youngsters.

Right?

We were the youngsters traveling up underneath Drink Smalls.

And these folk who were singing these old, old songs.

And then we would sing these old songs, but they were different because we had we were born in a different time because we approached harmonics differently, because we've had a different experience.

So for a while we traveled around with them and we were sort of like the thing that tied their work to what was then current.

We would say, you know, this is the history of this music.

This is the story of this music.

This is what you should listen for.

So we did that, and now, you know, I listen to other people who are doing that with the music that we used to sing, but they're doing it from the place where they where they stand.

And, I think as long as that happens, it continues to evolve.

So it's not as though I'm saying now, this is what we must do.

Is that I say... and I made sure folk heard, we heard, you heard us sing, and then others like S'way, heard the song and picked it up and internalized it and did what they do with it.

T.O.> So, you know, so in music, you know, samples are a big thing, right?

Like somebody is influenced by somebody and recreates it.

How does that make you feel with what you might have created or been, and then, like you said in what they're, where they are, it may be like, this is not what I envisioned for this, and it made me so.... like how do some of the samples- Natalie> -I, for the most part, I love it.

For the most part I love it.

This is evolution.

This is growth.

We don't want stagnation.

Just like I say.

You know, Gullah Geechee culture isn't something that's frozen in amber, nor is our music.

So when I sing a song and I sing the old songs, even the way I sing it and the way I bring it, it is not what the ancestors are doing with it.

Kennedy> Yeah.

This is what I did with it.

This is what I felt, and this is what I shared.

And someone picks that up and, and takes it somewhere.

That means it's alive.

Courtney> I want to give S'way an opportunity because you, like, lit up when she said Drink Small.

So I got to give you a second.

S'way> Yeah, I just he's a, just a legend.

I've only heard so much about him, like, before I played guitar and before I was saying, I heard these little snippets of kind of his, his person and, he's still around, he's still singing.

And I can see somebody on Facebook that I'm friends with, hangs out with him and jams with them.

And, I only get to see him through these videos now, and just watching him still play at his, his age.

And it's there's still something so very, very powerful in the way he plays the guitar and sings and it's, it's, it's still everything is still so very much alive with him.

He's, it's just great.

So I just thought it was <Yeah> just really great hearing about him.

Natalie> In that for you in that, he's that legend.

In that for me it was like well he's that guy who's on stage.

(laughing) T.O.> He was like the opener act for you.

Natalie> No.

We were, we were kind of like opening act.

Right.

And then we introduced him and I remember being in like some little festival in some little backwater town somewhere.

And the ladies had come out for the festival and they had, you know their hair just a shade less and blue, and they're sitting there and then Drink comes up and, you know, Drink's not like, politically correct.

Kennedy> Hmmm.

(All laugh) Drink was singing this song about climbing your lemon tree and squeezing your lemons.

And I looked at these ladies and they were like (laughs) but he was so himself.

And so, you know, for us we were, we were just lucky.

We were just lucky.

T.O.> Those would be the songs that like, as kids, we would be singing and not, know, have no clue.

Kennedy> What's the name of the song?

I ought to go listen to it.

Natalie> I don't even remember.

I just remember flying.

And I remember those women on the front row in the park and their reaction.

And my husband and I was so tickled.

We were like... Okay, Drink going to sing now y'all.

So I don't know what y'all were expecting.

Kennedy> Mrs.

Natalie, You know one of my... to kind of shift gears a little, one of my favorite things when you were talking about, Geechee Gullah culture and, you know, You talked about the farming practices and things of that nature, One of the things that most that pops into most people's mind is like the accents and the dialects.

One of my favorite things to see happen is when someone who, has the, you know, that Geechee accent, dialect, when they meet somebody from the Caribbean and especially when they meet somebody from Jamaica to kind of see that kind of interaction, when, when those interactions happen, like, does it feel like almost like distant cousins or like relatives or...?

Natalie> Well, first, I grew up in central New York.

I didn't have it that accent., Kennedy> Oh, okay.

Natalie> But my husband very much does.

And he talks about when he first went to college and he went to Hampton University.

It was Hampton Institute at the time, and he's in the cafeteria, and he hears some folk talking.

He says, "I didn't know other folks from home were here."

<Yeah.> Natalie> And he turned around, saying "Where are you from?"

'Saint Thomas, Saint Vincent, he said, "Saint Helena."

And you know, those were his people.

<Yeah.> And it happens all the time.

It is like homecoming.

Don't let us be in a cabin at the time, ....in New York.

<Yeah.> And it's just like, "Brother, where are you from?

<Yeah.> So it's very much a sense of, of "cousin-ness", when through the sound, through the voice.

It's very much a sense of.

Hey, cousin.

Kennedy> Yeah.

<Yeah.> I could feel that.

So, like, for those that don't know, I'm a teacher high school teacher, and, one of my good friends, he's from Jamaica, and, he met one of my friends, Giovanna Brown from Charleston.

She's a storyteller.

And when they met the first time, and she started doing her thing, and he started doing his thing, and they were...oh, man, it was just like we were at a cookout or something, right.

T.O.> It got to the point where you couldn't understand anymore?

Kennedy> I didn't understand a word that was going on I was just smiling, as... Natalie> A friend of ours used to say, same ship, different port.

Courtney> When I feel that cousin moment... I grew up in the Baptist church, and I learned that like that Geechee triple clap from a woman who...grew up in the Charleston area.

And so whenever I hear that, even just that, like, little like triple beat, I'm like, "Oh!

", I'm activated.

I know exactly where it comes from.

And I, I want to know a little bit about some of those little small moments in music that you can, like, identify, like, I know where that came from Does that, do you have that feeling at some point...?

S'way> Oh, yeah.

I'm lucky enough to play with a lot of really fantastic musicians.

I actually just got to... a little plug if I can.

Courtney> Absolutely.

S'way> I got to play with a good, friend of mine.

His name's Christian Robinson.

I think I gave him the name Big Country.

So he, I call him Big Country.

He has a group called 843 Symphony, and it's a collection of musicians from the Columbia area, like myself.

And then people from Florence and down to the coast of Charleston.

And he's, he's brought a lot of great musicians together to create kind of a modern symphony where we play classic soul and R and B joints.

And then he'll make, an instrumental arrangement that feels like it came from another planet.

He's just a he's a really fantastic musician.

I love the guy.

But he, he, along with a lot of other musicians I get to play with, all grew up and, you know, in the Southern Baptist Church or southern black churches, and came from that tradition of music.

I would hear these little notes and they'd pick up on each other, and I'm like, something else is happening, and I'm, I'm clearly missing out.

But, I got to, I got to keep doing my thing so I don't sound stupid trying to get what they're doing, and then started listening to stuff they grew up on.

And playing in churches, filling in for other guitar players.

Or just or getting offers.

Just come sit in a church for them Sunday and then really being in the moment and hearing that music going, "Oh my gosh!

", this is, yeah, this is all these guys have been playing for so long and they're so deep in it, they don't have to think twice about it.

And it's just like anything, you know, I, you know, when I used to play trumpet back in the day, I could pick, you know, classical excerpts out of thin air and whatnot, which is not as cool in my, my opinion as a bunch of guys on stage playing a song and going into a drive or, picking up lyrics and whatnot that they've been playing since they're kids.

It's just the coolest thing.

And there's this really crazy moment of synergy, and when you get to be a part of it, being in it and respecting it is a big part of it.

<Appreciation> Appreciating it.

I play, you know, I'm one of, you know, 50 white guitar players in South Carolina It's really important.

And I'm lucky to be, around such great musicians who have the patience and time to sit with me and work on that stuff with me.

T.O.> Mrs Natalie said, you are originally from New York?

Your husband's roots is the Gullah Geechee culture.

So of course, you know... you married into it?

<Yeah.> So what did you grow up listening to in New York, though?

Natalie> But okay.

My parents were Southerners.

We're first gener... I was born in New York.

We were the first generation born there.

But honestly, I grew up.

We were very, we were very churchy.

<Oh, yes.> We were churchy.

We were like.

My mama would say when the church door was open, daddy was through it.

(laughing) So most of the music that I grew up with came from the church, <Yeah.> from gospel to hymns.

And, and also old ones, because I also, we had a multi-generational household.

My great grandmother lived with us, so I knew old, old songs and I knew the gospel of the time.

<Yeah.> You know, precursor to like, there used to be the Hawkins brothers Courtney> Who?

Natalie> And so, like, Walter and Edwin, so, you know, we knew that and you knew Tramaine and you knew, Andrae Crouch <Who?> Also, I mean, we were listening to the contemporary music too, you know?

So, yes, we listened to the Jacksons.

That was my music.

That was my music.

And when I came here, thinking I was only going to be here for two weeks, and that was 44 years ago.

<Oh, boy.> I, um... Kennedy> That was a long two weeks.

Natalie> It was a long two weeks... Is it time after.... <Okay.> But, when I met Ron, what I loved is that he knew these old songs, and I knew these old songs.

And the first time I ever met him, he was singing.

He was in church singing.

There was this guy standing there, and he opened his mouth and I said, "Oh" T.O.> Is that where you guys connected and...?

Natalie> That day, That day, He was singing with my cousin, and, they would practice at my, my aunt's house, and I lived there, and, I was one day I was like, "Oh, wait.

I hear this other harmony."

And it was really tight harmony.

So we had like a baritone.

We had a tenor.

And then I would come in and I would find my way in their second tenor or whatever, and we had this really tight, discordant sometimes, you know, right on top.

And it was very cool.

And so that's what that's how it started.

T.O.> Music brought you guys together.

<It did> Brought them up together and then they brought us Gullah Geechee, "Gullah Gullah Island".

Natalie> We sang at our wedding.

We sang at our wedding.

Kennedy> You sang at your own wedding?

Natalie> He sang me up the aisle till I got to a certain point and then it was a duet.

<Oh!> Kennedy> Oh.

I like it.

I like it.

I like it.

Courtney> Once we wrap, we're going to have to line a hymn together <Okay.> I need.

I need to hear that.

Kennedy> This has been a great conversation.

I appreciate both of you guys for being here.

Man... give it up.

We got S'way.

We got Mrs.

Natalie.

Man, thank you all for being here.

This has been awesome.

And I want you guys to know that music is more than entertainment.

It's heritage.

It's movement.

It's memory.

So, thank you guys once again to our guests and thank our Shejay, DJ T.O.

for guiding us through the cultural layers.

that shape what we hear and who we are.

And if you loved the music featured in today's conversation we created this Spotify playlist inspired by this episode.

So search the "Auxdacity" to keep the vibe going.

I'm Kennedy and this has been the "Auxdacity."

So keep listening, keep learning and keep the music playing.

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