You Are Not Alone

When I spoke with Lauren Barth she was north of L.A. at the end of a summer trip to her native home. Hailing from California gives Barth no easy way to get home she tells me as she is relaxing in her new tent, set up on her living room floor.

Lauren was enjoying an imagination trip of climate-less camping forever, a break in her preparation for her actual camping road-trip back to her chosen home, Tulsa.

” I am actually (in the tent) looking at a Sunset Magazine of people glamping in their campers,”

Barth’s first album, Forager, is described as “Atmospheric rock n roll from the neon American dreamscape.”

Lauren agrees with this description of the sound of her album, but calls her writing style harder to pin down.

“When you are writing a song and singing, you are not alone….You Are tapping into this thing… that is as old as anything that communicates.”

Musing on her writing style Barth states, ” (I consider) myself Folk, I like being called a Folk singer, because that is what I do. I write poetry and play acoustic guitar…”

While Barth values her ability to be a soloist, she has fun creating band arrangements.

“The style of a song is determined by the band playing it.” says Barth, ” I love being in the studio… You can make your dreams come true with just a little song.”

When we discussed Barth’s upcoming performance at MisFest we shared a really deep discussion about the gender dynamics of our society within the framework of the music industry.

MisFest, Barth believes, makes a “…really important statement, to see a festival bill with no male artists.” Likewise “The Concept of an all female lineup is important,” but the ultimate goal is an industry and society the is saturated in equality and inclusion.

You can see Lauren Barth along with the rest of the artists at MisFest on Saturday, September 15.

Literary Editor

Casey McLerran is the Literary Editor at the Black Wall Street Times. She is a Sooner State transplant from Forest Hills, NY. McLerran arrived in Oklahoma at the age of three shortly after gentrification displaced her and her family out of their home in New York. At first glance, many think they have McLerran figured out. To be frank, she’s a biracial American young woman that unapologetically embraces her half-African identity — a feminist-womanist she is. Her pen operates as her voice as well as her sword. Her accolades include the 2018 Rural Oklahoma Poetry Museum’s Oklahoma Poem Award, a business management degree, and her three beautiful children. Her objective with the Black Wall Street Times is to elevate and amplify the literary art of modern black American culture, pay tribute to African-American literary trailblazers, all while simultaneously linking and introducing children to the world of colorful American writers.