Sharon Williams Nyree - Williams, Sharon Nyree : Humanity

I made an album. It's hard to believe. To be honest when I said, I was going to make an album. I didn't have a clue on what to do, nevertheless where to start. The crazy part is I now realize that the process started well before I even thought about making an album. I volunteer as the entertainment coordinator/performer for the Annual Urban Poverty Forum and a couple of years ago we decided to focus on youth and mothers. From the moment we selected our focus I knew the performance had to include poetry. It also gave me an opportunity to spend time with the great people of the Sanctuary Art Center. They work with homeless youth in creating a safe place for them to create art during the day. They trusted me enough to open up and tell me their stories and on this album I did my best in trying to share them in the most respectful manner. After we selected the focus of the forum, I was fortunate enough to be selected to go on a Mexican Immersion trip with my then employer Seattle University. This experience changed my life. I was exposed to the beauty of people trying to help the less fortunate. I saw the struggles of the poor and the hope for the future. The only writing I had planned to do on the trip was to journal. But to my surprise I was inspired to write poetry. I ended up writing poetry that would stem from my experiences in Seattle at the Sanctuary Art Center and the Mexican Immersion trip. What do you do when you have all of this work just sitting on your computer? You make the decision to put it all on an album. But how... You spend a year searching for the right producer. You send samples of your work to them and they say they want to work with you, but they're just too busy. You get friends to recommend producers they have worked with and/or they give you recommendations from people who should be interested in the project. These people just don't return your call. You don't give up; you just keep searching for the perfect producer. Then a year later you go and volunteer at a woman's prison and your job is to help them with poem and some movement for their upcoming performance. The women inspire you, so by the time you get home you've decided you have to do something creative. You realize the time had come to 'man up' and just get it done. So what you don't have a producer. Just do it!! The next day you call a recording studio and you book time to go and record your vocals. You are determined to get started and so you just go for it. Then you realize what you've done in reserving the space and you know it's time to get ready. So you stop looking for a producer, you begin looking for your team. The team, that would believe in you and your work, and a team that will tell you when your good and bad. Soon you would find a composer for one track, then a few months later another composer for another track, and before you knew it you are the executive producer. You've assembled a track by track composer team and the project is on it's way. It's still hard to believe there are eight different composers on this project. Genres stretching from hip hop, to classical, to acapella, etc. You come to realize that this little project has become much bigger than you expected. There are a dozen or more people who helped shaped this project. These people kept me grounded and the project moving. Poetry plus music plus a couple of stories thrown in, is more than an album. It's a life changing experience. It's HUMANITY!

1) Introduction
2) I've Learned
3) You and I
4) This Is My Story
5) Reality Isn't Poetry
6) Freedom
7) Sanctuary
8) Sisters Got Soul
9) Through Someone Else's Eyes
10) Prayer
11) Coca Cola
12) Just a Paycheck Away
13) The Story
14) In My Dreams
15) The American Dream
16) Dr Maya Angelou
17) Closing