Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna Colbain.
Hi Jenna, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story and how I got started? This gives me anxiety a bit. I am going to be really open with this. I am biting on the same spot on my lip that is trying to heal because when I am anxious or deep in thought I do not even realize that I’m gnawing away at it. My story? Not that I do not know my story or that I do not want to share it. It’s more so of not knowing where to start and where to stop. So in all my authenticity and transparency…I guess it’s best to start at the top. I was born on Sunday March 7, 1993 at Memorial Hermann Southwest here in Houston, Tx. With a thickly coated black veil covering my body. As the story goes my family was in the country shooting guns and it triggered my arrival into this world.
From a very young age I have been super emotionally in tune. An Empath. My mother describes me as a very stubborn and determined child and attached to the movie ‘Losing Isaiah.’ I would yell and scream until she would finally yell and scream at my siblings to put it on for me to watch. Why a baby wanted that type of movie as opposed to any other cartoon? I couldn’t tell you.
I was raised heavily in the church. Many different types of churches. I am the youngest child of my mother’s four children and one of the youngest of a blended marriage of collective children. There were a lot of us so our family has never been not knowing of the hustle and struggle. I come from project and section 8 living. Growing up predominantly around Southwest Houston in places like Sands Point, Club Creek, Fondren, W Bellfort, etc. Even lived in The Woodlands for a period of time. My family and I have faced evictions; moving from place to place. Living in what was The Motel 6 on Bissonnet and the Southwest Freeway for a few years. Everyone knows the stigma that plagues that part of Houston and even so I met amazing humans who were considered “women of the night.” I even recall a situation where my siblings and I were protected by a group of transgendered women who kept us safe from a sketchy group of men. They even played chicken with us in the hotel pool afterwards. Nonetheless, imagine a gang of children sleeping on the closet space floor of a hotel room for quite a few years. I can attest to that probably being the reason as to why I am a conditioned introvert and shut in. Still to this day it takes a great mustering of energy to get myself out of the front door of my home. After leaving the motel living, we settled permanent roots in Hiram Clarke, Tx. I attended Peterson Elementary, Dowling Middle School, and eventually graduated from Madison High School in 2011. I even moved to Austin, Tx with my grandmother in between those times and attended Fulmore Middle School (which is now Lively Middle School), Travis and Del Valle High School. I bounced around from place to place pretty much all of my life.
This is going to get really raw and vulnerable so any one who reads this…hold on a bit. Whether you can relate or not. I am an individual that has gone through my unfair share of trauma and hurt and at 28 I am no longer apprehensive to share it or speak it. I am not ashamed of my life and I believe it is important for trauma survivors to be courageous enough to speak up regardless of how any one may take it. I believe that it can help ones self and potentially any one else who may have endured the same. And I pray that the understanding of such things will help shift humanity in a way that can rid the continuance of these matters.
I have heavy throat chakra trauma and blockage. So finally speaking it aloud I feel empowered. By not holding on to the secrets of the generational curses that truthfully affect so many of us all in so many environments, cultures and backgrounds. Going back to the mentioning of The Black Veil; legend has it that a baby born with it will have supernatural abilities. The eyes to see the seen and the unseen and believe it or not I connect to those capabilities. At a young age I was taken out of bed by my biological father and molested by him at a car wash he drove me to.
During the ordeal I remember looking out of the window and I was able to see the blanket of stars coating the sky. I’m a big movie goer thanks to my grandmother and at the time Titanic was a huge hit. Looking up at the stars the song Rose (Kate Winslet) was singing on the floating headboard came to me. The ‘Up she goes’ song. I started singing it and I felt myself levitate away from the moment at hand and into another place. To this day people make fun of my car and say that I need to go to the car wash and vacuum it out. Not knowing that I still hold a trauma apprehension of not wanting to go for that very reason. Some time later my biological father came back around to my grandmother and grandfather’s house on Benchley St. asking if I wanted to spend the night at his house again. I can’t recall which one of my family members was carrying me on their hip but that’s how young I was; I was still being carried around. But even that young I could see the truth and deceit in his eyes and I knew why he was asking. My reflex reaction was to slap the dog shit out of him so I did. I slapped him so hard that his glasses flew off of his face and everyone was stunned asking why I had did such a thing. I had not revealed why at this point I had done such a thing. I never saw him again after that. In maybe I’d say my pre teen years I told one of my oldest sisters what he had done to me. She then told my mom. I believe my mother cried but nothing else was done about it. No reporting the events, no arrest, no therapy, no emotional consoling. I later found out that my biological father was a serial rapist. He had raped many women in my family and even outside of my family. To this day there is heavy tension and broken bonds from him doing so. Even with myself and my brother who are his seeds. Being treated differently by many family members. There were times when we would go to visit other family members and there was mistreatment, bullying, forced isolation, and intentional shunning. I remember once going to a family member’s house that my mother dropped us off at so that she could go to work to provide for her children. This woman would come up to me and pinch me for no reason. She would even sit me in the bath yet she refused to touch or bathe me. She’d lock me in the room to cry and allow my other siblings to watch movies and play freely…and I would sing. It worked before. It helped me to elevate out of my current circumstances before and it proved to be a trusted method even in those moments.
Growing up my entire family had a huge influence of inundating me with all types and genres of music. My grandfather who was a Vietnam War Hero. He turned down all his medals to be awarded to him because he never wanted to go to war. Yet he was drafted without a choice. He loved old school music like Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Otis Redding to name a few. My aunt and uncle would always play local Houston artists and music and even freestyle to them. Riding with my older cousin she would always be jamming Eve and the Rough Riders. My grandmother loved just about anything rock and alternative. My parents were a mixture of R&B and hardcore Hip Hop like Maxwell and Lil Kim. Even Country like Jessica Andrews, George Strait, Tim McGraw, and The Dixie Chicks and everything in between. My sisters always stayed in love with someone. So they would always be playing Keyshia Cole, Nivea, Rihanna, Christina Milian, and Cherish. The list goes on. I remember spending the night at one of my older sister’s friends house with her and in the car Ja Rule feat. Vita, Ashanti, and Charlie Baltimore’s “Down 4 U” came on and I was so excited! I rapped Charlie’s part with such intensity and no censoring that her mom wanted me to go home. It didn’t matter to me though. That was my song! I felt my best when I saw and heard a woman talking as rough as the men and holding their own without giving a fuck. My older siblings would have talent shows with us to keep us occupied and having fun and I would always pick a Missy Elliot song to rap. Of course I won.
As I started to get older I would enjoy burning cds with my older brother. He would help me search the internet for my favorite songs and put them on cd. I would grab my CD player and headphones and climb atop of the roof and be out there for hours until my mom came out yelling for me to come inside. I would even get yelled at for using too much printer ink because I’d be on AZ Lyrics printing out the lyrics to my favorite songs. Once I couldn’t do that anymore I would get notepads and start writing the lyrics down on paper instead. I come from a household that was heavily decorated in domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse. Illegal and prescription. My step father who was a heavy user and my mother would hit these massive depressive states where she’d be shut in her room for days because of the woes of life. That in conjunction with her prescribed medicine would put her in lethargic states. So my siblings and I would take care of each other. Using a hair dryer to keep warm in the winter, doing each others hair for school, cooking for each other, stealing school clothes and food. We would hit Foodarama and Pyburns to get chips and candy to sell at school. My siblings still laugh at me to this day about always coming home covered in kool-aid stains. I’d get packs of kool-aid mix them with sugar and sell them at school for a quarter to have enough to buy lunch because I knew it may be another night where there was no food to eat at home. We’d get into huge fights with our parents and run away quite often. There would be a tendency to pick fights when life wasn’t going the best. You mix that into the equation with drugs and alcohol and it was explosive. So I would often sneak out and go sleep at Peterson Park with my CD player just to look at the stars and escape the energy. I would sing and even scream and I’d feel so much better. Until the next time. And then I’d just keep singing. It became routine and then it became therapeutic. As I got older and so did my siblings they began to leave home. I was the only one left. To see and battle the same things I usually had my older siblings there to help with. I had so much pressure on my chest I started writing poems and songs. In high school I started dating my childhood friend Daniel who also has a great love for music. We introduced new music to each other and we’d do everything listening to music. Go to Southwest Crossing and play basketball. Ride around in his car, chill at his place and even an open field that was next to his now deceased grandmothers house on Buxley in Hiram Clarke. Childhood life and upbringing wasn’t the best for him either and we were able to bond with and console each other through mutual understanding and the healing of music. I grew up loving Nirvana and Kurt Cobain and I’d play a lot of that music genre. Daniel loved and introduced me to J.Cole and he’d play a lot of that; hence the name ‘Colbain.’
My mom gave me this really cool small pocket sized MP3 player that we would swap and load music onto for each other. If I was having a day I’d keep it overnight and listen to the new music Daniel had put on there and vice versa. Daniel knew I could write and do music yet I was too afraid to open my throat chakra at this point and do so. Fast forward some years later and I got into a relationship with the father of my child. The entrapment I felt; the mind games, abuse, and manipulation I endured being with him triggered me to start writing and singing my own music. He wasn’t as supportive as Daniel was and I was much older at this point and I didn’t really need it. I knew my writing and singing had gotten so much better once I started not being fearful to let it out. So I just kept writing and singing. From that point I decided that I wanted to record myself. My best friend at the time Chardia was dating a guy named J3 and he had a studio. My first time I recorded at J3’s studio on the Northside of Houston I was so nervous I couldn’t even sing. My throat would not open up. It was embarrassing to say the least but I wasn’t leaving there empty handed after driving from the Southside and paying for the studio time. So I did a rap I had wrote called ‘So Strange’ and the entire energy in the studio shifted. I was so pumped during it that I ran out of breath towards the end. I felt amazing! I felt alive! I felt like I could speak! I had no throat blockages. I felt like this gift of music really is what helps me feel better.
Being in that abusive relationship drained a lot of my energy. Learning life lessons and detaching from the karmic soul tie I had gotten myself into I would not go back to the studio again until after my daughter was born. Proudly, I had my daughter naturally with no medicine or epidural in record timing. Even the nurses and doctors were amazed. Even through trying to coerce and convince me that I would need it and have it on stand by, I didn’t. I was in labor with my daughter for about 7-8 hours. At that point in my life I realized just how powerful I am as a woman, a human being. I again felt supernatural to face, endure, and overcome immense pain and keep going. The doctors and nurses ordered me to rest yet I knew I was fine. They stated they had to wheel me to the room after giving birth for safety precautions and I let them. Once I got to the room I pumped milk for my miracle baby and was back by her side while she was in the NICU from respiratory failure. I say miracle because I’ve suffered three miscarriages prior to her and thought I was not capable of having children. After my last fight I decided to finally leave the father of my child. And I mean fist fight with him toe to toe like a man. I was pregnant with a pair of 6 inch heels in my hands he’d purchased for me. When he started punching me in my stomach I knew I had to fight and I fought hard. I wasn’t going to lose another baby and glory to God I didn’t. That in itself was a miracle for me because leaving that situation I was suicidal and God blessing me with her was His way of giving me hope to keep going. After having my daughter a fire to make it out of the life I was born into raged within me. To make the world better in every way including calling out these things that I’ve endured so that she can walk and talk and be and live freely as herself without fear. Inside of herself or projected from others. The fears that I thought I had truly done away with had resurfaced once I was blessed with her. So now I make it my mission not only for the betterment of myself and my daughter but for everyone. To not only pursue what I’ve been gifted with and truly love but to also continue the mission of Christ. Paired with all my authenticity. A lot of people feel that what I do is a controversial contradiction of God. To on one hand profess the truth of God and His word yet on the other write and rap and do music as I do. Yet God gave tremendous tasks to many who others felt were unqualified. God gave important missions to those from backgrounds others looked at as unworthy. And God doesn’t need any permission. Every knee will bow.
I release my feelings and all my truth in how I’m feeling in poem or song. If I’m feeling love or passion or sexual it’s much easier for me to express them through writing and song. Or if I’m upset, sad, or hurt I’d rather write and record it to release those feelings musically as oppose to resorting to past ways that may not have been so helpful or Christ like. Like over indulging in alcohol or fighting or yelling. I do my best to refrain from those low vibrational ways. So I release it in music and feel better. In a way it’s like clearing my energy. I believe in the world and that everyone inhibiting it should be as free as the many genres of music that coat it. I pray that all people would be as accepting of each other as such. Then true unity and healing can begin and overtake our planet. Heal our planet. But that’s just a little bit about me. I Am Jenna Colbain and my story is much more in depth than this and ever evolving and ever continuing. So if you have made it this far…thank you for your time and for listening!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Hell nah! No, road is ever smooth I believe but that’s real life. My struggles I’ve already previously identified. Life, life choices and decisions. Blockages from others who deliberately interfere to stop your ascension and growth. Abusive love, friend, and work relationships. Having to decide to put the priorities of life ahead of my music and going to the studio. Like making sure my daughter has food, clothes and a safe place to lay her head.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
You should know that I am a hard ass worker. No matter if it has been for shitty companies and people or my own writing and music. I have Capricorn and Virgo heavy in my natal chart so I pride myself on how hard of a worker God has blessed me to be. I have recently started training as a Store Manager with a company here in Houston but I would say I was most known for working at Amazon. I have parted ways with that company due to many and I mean too many underlying reasons.
Anyhow, I am most proud of me. Being a great mom and provider for my daughter and encouraging myself to stay at it when I feel down about one or the other. Like if I’m working I will often feel like I am not being a great mom because I should be with my daughter. And when I’m with my daughter I feel like I should be working to provide for her because who am I really if I can not take care of us. In return me sinking deeply into those thoughts actually takes away from the time I have with her. So it definitely gets real being a single mother and finding the balance of momming, working, and not cutting yourself down for having to carry the whole load yourself. To still strive to make a name for yourself somewhere while keeping the faith of fighting for your dreams. I am also proud of my ability to take the hard hits of life and the betrayals inflicted on me by others and keeping it pushing. To keep striving for a better life than the one I was born into. To keep getting better and letting God fight my battles. I believe that in itself sets me apart. My unwavering faith, hard work and making the choice to not be a deliberate asshole will always have me in a league of my own.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Individuals can work with, collaborate, and support me by being kind and true individuals. If they are not I do not accept the energy and I am a pretty great energy reader. So I accept all people and all things done with genuine, high vibrational and loving energy. Anything low vibrational I do not accept or need the “love, work, collaboration nor support.” So any individual who understands what I mean by this can definitely reach out to me through my:
Email : iamjennacolbainmusic@gmail.com
IG: @iamjennacolbainmusic
YouTube : Jenna Colbain
Soundcloud: Jenna Colbain
And send me an email, follow, like, comment, share, subscribe and listen. I’d greatly appreciate and love that!
*My city can also support me by circulating not only my name and music but each other’s. We’re all out here; yet so many of us are truly talented and yet still unknown and unsupported. And that’s trill shit no cap.*
Contact Info:
- Email: iamjennacolbainmusic@gmail.com
- Instagram: iamjennacolbainmusic
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/1q07tbWsllo
- SoundCloud: Jenna Colbain
