Interviews on the spot: Richelle Brown for Examiner

One thing I've began to enjoy is catching an artist fresh off the stage. They're guard is slightly up because they know all eyes (and investigative ears) are on them, they have prepared answers for the press - before their self-proclaimed wicked performance and they're still on cloud 9 after said-wicked performance.

This got the same result.

After her performance for one of SMKA's Through The Rabbit Hole concert series, I interviewed Richelle Brown AKA Cornbread for my Get To Know Q&A series for Examiner.com. We talked about how she got her name, her influences and her upcoming projects. Here is an excerpt from our discussion where we talked about her nickname, which became her pen name - Cornbread.

... I call my music electro-funk because it’s electronically done and we summon up the funk gods. It’s funky, it’s gonna make you stank, it’s gonna make you dance, it’s gonna make you sing, it’s gonna make you wanna love somebody, and ain’t nothing better than love! And funk. Love and funk!

Let me ask you this, if it’s along those lines. You’re nickname is Cornbread. Where did that come from?

Oh gosh, that name. When I was in high school, there was this new guy that came to school and he was so cute. All the girls liked him because he was super thugged-out. As I was walking down the hallway, and all the girls were looking at him, he looked up at me and was like “What’s up Cornbread?” I was like “First of all, my name is Richelle, it is not Cornbread, and don’t you ever call me that again.” I had to let him know but then every time he sees me in the hallway, he’d yell “Cornbread!” and I yell back “That’s not my name!” I started asking people why does he keep calling me that, and come to find out he was calling me Cornbread because I was thick and was not a skinny girl. They said that people who eat a lot of bread get thick or whatever. Fast-forward to college, I was in my first class and the teacher was asking an icebreaker question like “What’s the weirdest pick-up line you ever had?” I was 17, and I couldn’t think of any weird pick-up lines except for that because I wasn’t able to date. I told the story, and when I told them that they started calling me Cornbread because they liked that name. When I got my first job, or any time somebody from my school would see me somewhere, they call me Cornbread. Then other people hear it, and they wanna call me that too because it’s easy for people to remember. With my brand, Space Age Hippie, it fit.

That’s really cool how it stuck with you and grew on you...

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