Introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you & how you connected with Amber & CultureHype.

My name is Hailey Good & I am a singer/songwriter from Dallas, TX. I started singing when I was basically able to talk & I currently make music with my boyfriend/producer/sound engineer Bradley Rudolph.

I got connected with Amber & CultureHype through a post I saw her tagged in on Instagram. It was a fellow (amazing) musician, M3CCA. I looked her up, liked what I saw & messaged her through the CultureHype website.

What is currently bringing you joy & why?

I try to find joy through the little things each day, but one of the most recent things is my new kitten I got! Her name is Scout & she is the most cuddly kitten in the whole world & I love her so much. She climbs up my leg while I work from home & I feel so loved.

My cat, Kitty (it's a real name I promise!) & my dog, Olive also bring me so much joy & I just love all animals in general!

I've picked up film photography recently because a friend of mine gave me a Nikon FM2 last year & like everyone else, I have had nothing but time to learn & have fun with it. 

 I've also really been enjoying the creative process for my new single (Single Title TBD), from the harmonies all the way to the visuals & music video. It's such a different vibe that Brad & I have created & we are super excited to showcase it to the world!

How did you discover your thing that is bringing you joy? Was there something or someone that inspired you?

My little neighbor kids were playing & found Scout & brought her to us one day to see if we would keep her & it was love at first sight!

As I mentioned before, a friend who is a great photographer (@thflwrgrl) gave me the camera and it was so sweet. She was the one who inspired me & told me if I wanted to really learn photography to learn the basics with analog photography first to make me better.

As far as the single, Brad produced the composition first & after I listened to it, the vulnerability in it inspired me so much that I cried when I heard it & I immediately wrote to it. We've really taken our time with it though & we’re still recording in the harmonies, so I can't wait to see what the ending product sounds like!

How has your thing impacted your daily life or just your life in general?

Analog photography has grown my patience because you have to manually get the exposure correct & sometimes it can get difficult but I love forgetting what I took & then having the film processed & getting happy all over again weeks later. Cutting the film & getting everything scanned in is really meditative.

As much as I am excited about the new single, I am kind of stressed because I am a perfectionist, but thankfully I have God & I have Brad & all of my friends & family's support! 

Putting your mind to something/getting it done & mixing that with something you absolutely love is the best feeling in the world.  

Like many of us during quarantine, I reignited my love for reading & have absolutely enjoyed exploring different writers, genres & themes! Each month I hope to share a few of my favorites with you. Whether you are an experienced bookie or a new reader, I hope you find the coziest spot in your space, grab a book, settle in & read with me!

My first pick is Julia Alvarez’s “Afterlife.” This novel will, without a doubt, pull on your heartstrings as it explores themes of complex familial devotion, tragedy, crisis & the struggle to maintain hope, compassion & love when everything seems to be going to sh*t. The narrator, Antonia Vega, is a widow who lost her husband in a car accident. The novel opens up with Antonia’s struggle to, “…comprehend how someone she loved…can be nothing but dust / unread emails, fragments, unpaid bills, memories.” In an attempt to navigate retirement & the death of her husband, Antonia takes up poetry citation to try & find purpose in her new, seemingly empty life. As her birthday approaches, Antonia is still drowning with grief & does not want to celebrate. Until, that is, her three sisters - Tilly, Izzy & Mona - show up and stir the pot, causing gripping drama & introducing complex familial dynamics.

Antonia & the inner workings of her family drama cast no shadow on Mario, an undocumented immigrant working at the farm next door. Mario’s girlfriend, Estela, is traveling north from Mexico with the help of a coyote who demands a financial price neither her nor Mario can provide. Antonia has the means to help, she just isn’t sure if she should involve herself. Through this moral dilemma, Antonia & readers analyze who we consider to be our neighbor & worthy of our help.

In “Afterlife,” Alvarez explores the complex workings of moral dilemmas & private decisions that mirror the workings of today’s society, which is inherently structured to oppress minorities & people of color.

My second pick is Brit Bennett’s novel “The Vanishing Half.” This novel is a multigenerational family tale that discusses issues such as racial identity, bigotry & the keeping of secrets. Covering almost half a century (the 1940s to the 1990s), the novel follows twin sisters Desiree & Stella Vignes. The two were raised in Mallard, Louisiana, a fictional small town founded by their great-great-great grandfather as a place for light-skinned blacks such as he. Bennett describes Mallard, “…like a cup of coffee steadily diluted with cream.” The twins themselves have cream-colored skin, wavy hair & hazel eyes. But just because the twins & their family are fair-skinned does not mean they are free from racism. Desiree and Stella’s father was lynched by a gang of white men & their mother cleans for rich, white families in a neighboring town. Similarly, being light-skinned will not save Desiree & Stella from similar acts of racial violence & injustice. At 16, the twins ran away to New Orleans, but as time goes on, “…their lives split as evenly as their shared egg.”

Looking beyond the themes of race, “The Vanishing Half” explores how someone’s past can shape their decisions & desires, & navigates why people feel compelled to live a life completely separate from their upbringing.

Lastly, for a refreshing, light-hearted rom-com, I recommend reading “Get a Life, Chloe Brown” by Talia Hibbert. WARNING: steam alert! This story is witty, fun & utterly hilarious. Chloe is a woman tired of being boring, so she recruits her super sexy neighbor to help her experience new things. Chloe is chronically ill & after almost dying, she constructs a list of seven items to help her “get a life.” These seven items? Move out of her family’s mansion, enjoy a drunken night out, ride a motorcycle, go camping, have meaningless but enjoyable sex, travel the world & do something…bad.

However, for Chloe, it’s not easy letting loose, hence her need for a teacher, aka her sexy neighbor Redford ‘Red’ Morgan. Red is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle & copious amounts of sex appeal. He’s also an artist, but he never shows his work. The only reason Chloe knows he’s an artist by night is because she spies on him - just a wee bit. When she seeks Red’s help in her mission to get a life, she learns things about him she never would’ve just by the occasional spy sesh…like what he’s really hiding behind his rough exterior.

I loved Chloe’s feisty, independent nature & her ability to navigate through her fears while also tackling tough issues like chronic pain and insecurity.

That’s all for this month. Thank you for reading with me!

Here at CultureHype, we love celebrating little victories & anything that brings us joy. We created the “What’s Bringing Me Joy” series to bring you items we really love in hopes to inspire you to revel in the little things that make you smile from ear to ear. Whether you are looking for a new book to read, TV show to binge on the weekend or a new hobby, we guarantee you will find inspiration here! As a diverse staff, our team has interests spanning far and wide from veganism to sustainable fashion to music and much much more.

This is your reminder to do what makes YOU happy. In this time of uncertainty, the one thing you can rely on is yourself, so you might as well find time to do the things you enjoy!

Amber: Nail art inspo! I’m trying new things & learning how to paint my nails/do nail art with my left hand. I obsessively read Who What Wear UK & have been loving all of the new quarantine nail art inspo they post! Another great account I follow for colorful, quirky fashion inspo & nail art ideas is Marianne Theodorsen - she is the queen of color.

Wendy: Spending time with my weenie dog, reading, listening to music & celebrating my friends and their newfound creative projects!

Perla: Supporting vintage & sustainable shops! I’ve been trying to be more conscious about my consumerism. Finding shops that focus on vintage items & shops that ensure ethical production (slow fashion) items.

Kathryn: A print of London that I just ordered! It brings me joy since I can’t travel there right now. London is special to me because I studied abroad there in college & reminds me of such good memories. I ordered the prints from Paper and Cities.

Sola: Slight plug for the Instagram page my closest friends & I started during quarantine. @elucidate.co has brought me a lot of joy because of the content we’re putting out & the feedback I’ve been getting from the people I love. 

Avery: Listening to podcasts. My favorites are career-focused & crime podcasts! I’m loving playing around with nail art too!

Janae: New roller blades that my two best friends surprised me with for my birthday (they spent five hours spray painting them for me). We are all planning to go to a park & skate together!! 

Victoria: Rewatching early 2000’s TV shows like The O.C., Laguna Beach & One Tree Hill (been feeling super nostalgic lately). Also, I interned for the Cowboys last year so I’m super excited that NFL season is back!!

Paige: Checking out books from my local library (the Millennium series has single handedly pulled me from my reading slump), rewatching Game of Thrones with my boyfriend & making pumpkin lattes with my new Nespresso machine!

What’s bringing YOU joy?