We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shawney Rainne a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shawney , thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Creative Film Series Exploring the nuanced relationship between light and dark while highlighting the transformative power of embracing all aspects of the self. Season 1 & 2 Coming Spring/Summer 2024

Music Releases: rebranding myself as an artist and brand. Officially launching in April 2024

Creative events: Curating unique experiences (events) centered around music releases

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I baptized myself in 2020 in Percy Priest as a way to symbolically be reborn. My trauma had created a mental cage and I was tired of feeling like I wanted to be someone else. After this point, I have dedicated myself to a spiritual journey and claiming my purpose and really stepping into my power. This hasnt been easy, but it has been the most impactful moment of my life.

STORY TIME
I have a very unconventional but definitely unique story that I will try my best to include as much detail as I can without taking up too much of your time. I’d really like for you to understand my journey, so in order to paint that picture I have to start at the beginning so bear with me.

I was born in Chicago IL and due to gang retaliation my biological mother was murdered when I was 3 years old. My brother, sister, and I were immediately put into foster care due to the poor living conditions of our immediate family members…Not only were the living conditions terrible, but we experienced some pretty traumatic child abuse. Not long after we were put into foster care, we were fostered by a large white family that lived on a farm about an hour outside of the city. There were three other girls and a boy…so with us, there were 7 kids. They eventually adopted us, and I guess this is where my story begins.

Life on the farm wasn’t exactly easy, and it wasn’t because of the many chores and the summers spent baling hay. My siblings were extremely unkind towards us as well as my adoptive mother developed a very strong dislike for me in particular, and made it her mission to destroy me in every way…physically and mentally. Any self confidence or any self love that I may have possessed for myself as a kid was shattered. I wasn’t allowed to have friends (mainly bc we were expected to work on the farm and didnt have time for extra activities), although I was able to compete in track and field after my gym teacher begged my parents to let me join the team after I ran a 5:50 mile time in 5th grade.

We were raised out in the country so I spent most of my time in my imagination on my own. My parents were also very strangely against anything they considered “worldly” or “anti-god” and as a result we did not have tvs or computers in our house. The only time I was exposed to music was on the bus…even though I went to a Lutheran School (I was homeschooled first), we shared a bus system with the public school because our school and town were so small.

Most of my childhood life I felt very detached from the world and very alone. My adoptive dad didn’t share the same feelings towards me as my mother did, but he did very little to intercede her obvious fixation on me.

Without anyone else to turn to, I turned to poetry. Unable to process what I was experiencing, I started writing. Although the farm was beautiful and my family was definitely well off, my brother, sister, and I had to deal with being raised by a conservative white family that was unaware of their own racism, as well as we were forced to exist in a small town that was blatantly racist…without a single soul that looked like us. Most of this trauma I didn’t even understand until I started on my journey of self discovery and love.

I received a scholarship to compete at Missouri State University as a track and field athlete. I also received several academic scholarships which allowed me to attend school free of cost…while at Missouri State I started dating someone that reflected my parents same principles and morals. Creature of habit I guess, it was familiar. I had also been secretly writing songs now at this point for years, but never told anyone. Fast forward to my junior year of college, and all I wanted to do was to explore what it meant to be a singer-songwriter. I dropped out of college and decided to move to Nashville, and my first ever boyfriend that resembled my parents decided he wanted to come with me. I hadn’t told a single soul that i wrote music let alone wanted to be a singer..it was something I had hidden for years…and would only explore my creative side when no one was around….and I had suppressed a lot of creativity that I can elaborate on more later when we connect…I’m trying my best to keep this brief….

Anyway, when I moved to Nashville I didn’t tell anyone I wanted to be an artist…and didn’t know where to start. One day, out of the blue, I met my first mentor…his name is Mike Natchigal. A little background on Mike, he was the tour manager for so many great artists including Usher, Aretha Franklin, Journey, etc. He approached me at panera and said “something tells me you’re an artist”…the rest of that conversation is history. He became my mentor and eventually… he became family. He introduced me to Taj George who is with the girl group SWV, and she also has become not only a mentor but a friend. I spend Thanksgiving and other holidays with them. She is the reason I was able to be on MTV.

Okay, so here’s why I mentioned my ex. After being with him for 7 years, I realized our differences…and that I had never allowed myself to live the life I wanted. I wasn’t able to do that with him and I had never allowed my true self to surface…i didn’t even know who she was. I ended our engagement and set on a path to find myself. I set out to find my inner child and LIGHT.

I moved back to Nashville and for the first time in my life, I was truly on my own and my spirit began to shine. After years of not believing in myself because of my childhood trauma, I realized that I was surrounded by incredible people that believed in me while I was unable to believe in myself. My transformation from who I was to who I am is honestly something I have a hard time putting into words. Now I am bold, beautiful, sensual and feminine, powerful…but most importantly full of LIght and Love. My journey isn’t just starting but I can finally see the path clearly.

I’ve had a bit of an emotional hiccup this year that forced me to take a step back for a few months to reevaluate (another story in itself but I am trying really hard to be brief).

I’m sure you’re wondering about my family…we are not really on speaking terms. As a prat of my healing journey I had to set some necessary boundaries for my growth…also, I’m about to drop a song called Daddy Issues… I know for certain they wont approve lol

THE MISSION
Burn everything to the ground so you can start the journey of self discovery

Leaning into myself as an artist, a singer and a dancer: An outlet for self-expression that is natural and empowering for me; leaned into the concept of I’m going to do it anyway. Going to create music that is healing, empowering, inspiring – going to connect with the part of you that you haven’t always given yourself permission to be. Empowering listeners to apply that self-acceptance and expression in a way that makes sense to them. Empowering you to set boundaries, lean into a more feminine side without questioning. Claiming yourself fully – and it can show up in anything.

Part of it is living vicariously through me in a beginning stage, but because you’re a part of this community, it will inspire you to step into your own power and do the things you’ve wanted to do, without inhibition. Breaking past the conditioning. Taking steps away from the fears that rule us – including the early steps and the imperfect parts.

Fashion: Similar to the music side of things – so much of fashion identity. People dress how the feel and what they’re comfortable with. I want to encourage people to be true to that and not conform with what they think won’t raise eyebrows or draw attention. Be comfortable and owning that fully – leaning into, “I like this, this makes me feel good. Because of that, I’m going to do it anyway.”

Somebody might see this on me and thing x, y, and z. It’s all hypothetical – at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how they feel. It matters how you feel. I want to encourage people to feel confident enough to own their expression through what they’re wearing, versus what they feel they “have to” wear.

It goes back to childhood – feeling like I had to cover myself up, but I didn’t necessarily want to. Giving myself permission to do what I wanted, I had to unlearn those mental blocks that I had, as far as how society would see me (promiscuous/attention seeking). I feel really good when I wear crop tops, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to wear it? Unlearning those limitations that you were forced to abide by and releasing that.

95% of the unlearning happens by doing, if not more. I spent a lot of time listening to different audio books and different things. It’s great to listen, reflect, and absorb the information. Nothing happens until I take action. Until I say affirmations in the mirror, I’m not going to believe it. I can hear someone talk about their experiences, but until I seek out my own, nothing is going to happen.

Radical self-acceptance: The biggest element of my story is that I was not allowed to be myself. That created a lot of fear and anxiety around the things I wanted to do, but the only antidote to that was deciding to just do it anyway. I needed to take the steps to unlearn.

When I first started this journey, I adopted the phrase, “I do what I want.” It wasn’t to challenge the authority, but because I needed to vocalize giving myself permission to be who I wanted to be. I can actually do what I want. Because I’m an adult, I have no restrictions. Actions have consequences, but I get to choose what actions I want to take.

4 Hour Workweek: The people who succeed are either having more uncomfortable conversations, or they are actively doing what they fear. Usually shows up in the form of anxiety. I’ve been challenging myself to do that; I still have a lot of silly anxiety. I’m aware of that now, and I’m aware that there are things I shouldn’t be afraid to do.

My whole brand is doing what I’ve been afraid to do since I was a kid.
It’s been within their reach the entire time – the hardest part is taking that first step. You don’t know where to start because you don’t trust yourself. You’ve never allowed yourself to fail and learn from that failure. My biggest hurdle was learning that I have to fail, and fail hard.

The first step is unstable and uncharted. You just don’t know, so you stay in the comfort zone. However, the comfort zone is the biggest enemy. It’s a lot more rewarding to go through the ` of being uncomfortable

I was so embarrassed when I failed the first time, because I didn’t understand that I was going to fail.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2021 I started a creative platform, called EBCM (Everything But Country Music). The intention of this was to create a platform of opportunity for creatives in Music City outside of the country music scene. This quickly took over all my time and effort. At first, the events were very successful, but then after trying to wear all the hats in this business endeavour, I continuously burned out and eventually that burnout lead to depression. The final EBCM event I had organized I realized through my exhaustion something thing that I hadn’t considered until this point…I had left myself out. I was pouring into everyone else with an empty cup and never had anything left for myself…which in hindsight I believe that this was the root of my depression at this point I left Nashville for a few months to really reflect on what it was I wanted. I realized that even though I was good at planning events, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. This was a hard adjustment to make, because my tendancy is to be a people pleaser, a “yes” person.
This time, I wanted to bet on myself. When I came back to Nashville (in August) I decided to put EBCM on a shelf, and develop a plan for myself and my brand. The last 6 months have been nothing but development and preparation. As a result, I am rolling into the most exciting and empowering time of my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: @shawneyrainne
• Facebook: @ShawneyRainne
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXHz_5Vfq3pnnBI7u9TXByw
• Other: I am officially launching the re-brand in April and a lot of that promotional content will start rolling out at the end of March. Most of these pages (especially YouTube) will have a strong brand presence.

Image Credits
Joey Steadman Dan Hill