A new hip-hop CD by a Winnipeg spoken-word artist explores a different side of sex one wouldn't find in popular hip-hop — a highly personal side fraught with abuse and secrets, but also hope.
 
This week, Ingrid D. Johnson is releasing Black Butterfly, an independently-produced CD of her poetry against a backdrop of hip-hop and reggae beats.

The album follows the 2005 release of Little Black Butterfly in Iridescent Sunlight, her collection of poetry. The book made the bestseller list at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg poet Ingrid D. Johnson appears on the cover of Little Black Butterfly in Iridescent Sunlight, her 2005 collection of poetry.
(CBC)

Much of the material in Johnson's book and CD documents her experiences with sexual abuse. She said she was molested by a babysitter from the time she was nine years old.

She said it was more of a nightmare because she was coerced not to tell anyone of the abuse.

"I felt like my voice was somehow suffocated and I didn't have a voice," Johnson said.

At 12, Johnson got the courage to speak out — but she said it worsened her situation as her stepfather began molesting her six months later.

Eventually, Johnson said, the abuse resulted in her stepfather being sent to jail, while she went into foster care.
 
"I didn't feel like I was very lovable. I felt like I was dirty because of it," Johnson recalled.

"So I grew up with low self-esteem issues and people used to tell me that I just looked sad all the time."
 
Now 30, Johnson said she's putting her experiences to music — and producing an accompanying independent music video — to offer an alternative to what she called a lack of messages in mainstream music.

"I decided to do that, take it to the music industry, because I watch how the music industry basically now is about manufacturing the same song over and over again, and a lot of those songs don't have messages," she said.

"And if they do have messages, it's negative ones. You know, It's 'be loose' or 'be sexual' and it doesn't matter what your music has to say.

"It doesn't have to have substance to it and lot of children are suffering because of that," she added.
 
Johnson said she is confident that if she makes her voice heard, others will raise their voices as well.

Her CD release party will be held Sunday at Winnipeg's Empire Cabaret. Proceeds from the event will be donated to Klinic, a local non-profit organization that, among other services, offers counselling to victims of sexual assault.