Thirteen's Mama (aka Rapper Haviah Mighty)

0:00When I found out I was going to be a parent, I immediately felt a lot of anxiety and worry. So I went on to BetterHelp to try to look for a therapist to help me with that. My relationship with my family and with my boyfriend and with myself were suffering. I really needed help. I was ruminating a lot. Really getting those thoughts out to a therapist and getting feedback was just life-changing. Discover what BetterHelp Online Therapy can do for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today.

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1:04Haviah Mighty: Learn more by visiting ACAST.com slash advertise.

1:12And I also started feeling like, am I cat racist? Am I actually going to choose a cat based on their coat over the connection? No, I actually, right. Right. Because that's what I was doing because I put the money on Martin. And then me and Martin had zero bond. And two days before I was supposed to pick Martin up, I called them. And I was like, hey, is there any chance that Buster is still there? And like, they were like, yeah. I'm Jen Moroz, and this is Furball Confidential.

1:43I love all of the conversations I get to have on this show. Just how different each one is. And this one with Havaya Mighty, one of Canada's hottest rappers, is just so deep and thoughtful and revealing, a lot like Havaya's music. Havaya's known for her powerful lyrics. She tackles big issues like race, identity, and empowerment, and she's really made her mark. In 2022, she became the first woman to win the Juno for Best Rap Album, but even before that, Havaya became the first rapper and first Black woman to win the coveted Polaris Prize for her debut album, 13th Floor. If I was taller, you would run for me, huh?

2:23If I wasn't ballin', I couldn't be a cup of tea, huh? I mean, what if I wasn't somebody, huh? Since rappin' makes you so uncomfortable, huh? You never actually fuck with me, huh? Okay, so the album is called 13th Floor. There are 13 songs on it. One of them is called 13. Havaya has a tattoo of the number 13. And 13 is also the name of her cat. Havaya will tell you why the number 13 means so much to her and how her cat became a part of the story.

2:56I just always known of black cats to be like adopted less. When I was doing my research, it seemed like that. Yeah. It seemed like that was still true at that time. And so I had this vision where it's like, I want to, I want to save a black cat. I want to save a cat that's like less likely to be saved. Yeah. I had this, of course, parallel at that time of feeling like I kind of had a little bit of an underdog experience of maybe not feeling very seen in growing up, not feeling very like recognized for inherent value, like outside of my family home. Luckily I did feel like I got that there, but just at school and in society and just like in friendship and all of that, I didn't really feel like I existed very much.

3:42And so I think the transition between my lived experience when I was young and my music career starting to take off and affording me a house that I could live in that even allows me to think of getting a pet because it's my kind of environment. Yeah. That kind of made me feel like I'd gone from the underdog experience to like a reality I couldn't fathom where, you know, I am able to have inherent value and I am able to make decisions and all of these adult things. Right. So I wanted to bring a cat that was seemingly in their other underdog experience into this like castle, so to speak, because I get the right animal, like there's just a lot for them here.

4:25Like there will be a lot for them here. This was my logic. Yeah. And also mirroring your own sort of, your own sort of path. That's so neat. I definitely felt like, um, I wanted us to have an energetic bond, kind of like a fundamentally energetic bond. So I think that led to me thinking, okay, I want to get a black cat. So Havaya started looking around at cat rescues and she found a little black cat with green eyes named Petey, who she thought would be the perfect fit. When I went to go see him, the foster people, they explained to me that he like, the environment that he came from and how he developed like this swatting problem where like whenever you're going to feed him, you put your hand out and he would just kind of swat it out of your hands.

5:17He would not retract his claws. He didn't like understand, like how to not harm you in that process because that was like his learned experience in kitten hood, I guess you could say. Anyway, he like still had that problem. So like you just couldn't feed him and he just like, and he would just not know how to not swipe you. And they were saying, you know, we've had him for two, three months and we have not been able to train this out of him as yet. And because of that, they don't recommend him for a first time cat owner. And I was so sad. I was like, what do you mean? Like, how bad is it really?

5:52But then I couldn't pet him. And he was also like, not very welcoming. And so there was just like no bond with me and Petey. Yeah. And I was like, okay. Like I was kind of scared of him. So I was like, all right, I probably can't take him home because I won't even know how to feed him. So when that happened, I started looking around the room and I just instinctively started looking for other black cats. And there was one more. And he was like, he was a bigger cat, more like my cat in size. And he was like, I don't know, perceivably not as cute to me in that moment because I had my heart set on Petey.

6:28His name was Martin. but Martin didn't I don't even know if Martin liked people like he wasn't even he wasn't even not gentle he was quite gentle but he just didn't have any interest in me whereas PD he was like he kind of did but he didn't know what to do with it so he was just kind of like wild Martin was just like actively walking in the opposite direction every time I approached him when I did touch him he was like like he just didn't but I was like yeah but you're a black cat and that's what I wanted. So I'm going to put a deposit on you. And I did. And it was interesting because Petey, the cat I wanted, and then Martin, the cat that I took, but I didn't initially want, they had some sort of bond.

7:07They were grooming each other at some point. And I was just kind of like, how do I get what I want out of this situation? And the foster people, they were saying, Hey, we've got this other cute little cat. He's in a room over there. His name is Buster. and like the like the rabbit i guess and so they showed me this cat and he's like the opposite of peety this cat was big and white and not at all what habaya thought she was looking for and he was in a room all by himself and he was isolated and then they started kind of explaining to me oh you know he's in this room because for whatever reason all the other cats ganged up on him so they had to put him in uh the separate room he was like sitting like this oh i literally have a video i zoom in and he was literally just like this and there was like 15 cats in the other room that i'm in with pd martin there's all these other cute cats um that sometimes i think about to this day because they were all so cute um but at that point it's a slippery slope when you get one yeah because i saw a guy come in he was picking up his cat and then he found out the cat had a sister and he left with both.

8:18Like it's just that easy. And so like, but they, they showed me Buster. So I go in the room and like, he let me pet his belly. He let me feed him. He let me pet his head. Um, no, none of the other cats let me do that. Um, so quickly. And they were kind of saying like, he's got a really good temperament for a first time cat owner. And I just kind of felt like they were trying to like make me take a different cat because he wasn't available. and I was like well why don't I just go back to the drawing board to find what I want like that's kind of where I overtake Martin like I I was just not ready to break my vision right getting the underdog black cat right yeah I'm the underdog black girl we're like we gotta do this right right but I pet I pet Buster and I saw him and then I put my money on Martin and I went home And I was supposed to pick Martin up in a week because I think I had some travel.

9:14So I was like, let me pick him up when I'm like home and present. I started having like a crisis, emotional crisis over that week, thinking about if I did the right thing, thinking about like, did I not try hard enough on Petey? And also thinking like, Martin wasn't the right choice. Why would I like take this other cat away and unbond him from the other cat that didn't work out? and then I just started thinking about Buster a lot a lot a lot a lot I was like who's gonna rescue him like I just started thinking about like the guy that came in and rescued the two other cats and how they were like so little in kitten mode and how like 13 well at the time Buster he's like big and he's like clearly not kitten mode he's not like interacting like a kitten and he kind of won't get picked by like an excitable kid because he's just kind of like like he's not doing all the kitten things and he's not like being crazy, hanging upside down.

10:08And, you know, he's not tiny and he's not like a specific coat. Like I was just like feeling like. He's an underdog. Sorry. Like, like he's an underdog is what you're almost describing. Right. I started literally feeling like he is the underdog representation that I was looking for, like by proxy of his environment. And I also started feeling like, am I cat racist? am I actually going to choose a cat based on their coat over the connection? No, I actually, right. Right. Because that's what I was doing because I put the money on Martin and me and Martin had zero bond. And yeah, I think like two days before I was supposed to pick Martin up, I called them and I was like, Hey, is there any chance that Buster is still there?

10:51And like, they were like, yeah, which I should have known because again, like not that he wouldn't have been rescued, but I just, when people look for cats, there's, there's these little markers. I think same with dogs, there's these markers that people look for. And if you don't fall within those markers, it's a lot less likely to find the home. And I just was like, I don't need those markers. And in fact, if you take Martin, you're going to break up a nice black cat home, a nice black cat family, which is also bad and contributes to the underdog because he's bonded with Petey, the other cat.

11:23Like you're going to break up this cat family to have what you want. And then not take the cat that needs to be in your home because it's not what you want. I just had a big dilemma with it and I changed everything. I feel like I made the right decision. They were like, we think you made the right decision. And I went to get Buster. And over that time, I realized he's the real underdog. He is the cat that is less likely to be taken home. He is the cat that is not accepted in this environment. He's the cat that every day is not feeling good in this environment. The other cats are fine here. They're all bonded with each other.

11:59They're chilling 15, 16 in a room. And then he's over there like banished, like cast away. And I was like, because of that, they were like, you know, he doesn't, we don't know if he's going to get along with other cats. And I was like, perfect. I don't know if I'm ever going to get another cat. And that was like that. All of these reasons made me realize this is the cat for my house.

12:21Tell me about the name 13. Cause 13 is a number I feel like has come up in your music quite a bit. And I'd love to know, cause 13 started as Buster and is now 13. Where did that, where did that come from? Great question. Yeah. It's a, yeah, I actually have a tattoo right here as well. Oh, let's see. Why can't you really, you can sort of, it's a bit odd. There you go. Oh yeah. I can see it now. On your wrist. Yeah. Yeah, so 13 became like probably my favorite number around the time that I created my debut album, which is called 13th Floor. When I wrote that project, I noticed that aside from there being 13 songs on the record, the themes of a lot of the songs were like my underdog experience in Canada as a young black woman.

13:14And just kind of talking about some of these experiences, like generational trauma ingrained in behaviors, in reception of people that look like me, in, you know, race politics. A lot of these concepts were coming up in my music. um and i think there was a there's a reoccurring narrative especially around subtle racism and subtle prejudice of the young black narratives of a of a woman in canada being like kind of ignored and dismissed and not really validated as a real experience and i grew up a lot with that you know kids in school telling me that racism is not real because i'm not american and we don't have racism in Canada type thing.

13:59Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or just like the willingness to ignore the impact of subtle racism, which sometimes can be worse than overt racism. I guess it's just on who you are and how it impacts you. Right. But at bare minimum, it's likely just as bad. And the project was heavily nuanced around these themes and these topics. But because I'd grown up in an environment where I was kind of discouraged from thinking like that. I was kind of trying, like, I feel like I was almost gaslit by people who just can't or are unwilling to validate my experience. Like make me think, hmm, are you sure that's your experience?

14:38Are you sure that's how they were treating you? And that kind of worked its way into the theme of the album as well, because it's like, it was even hard to make an album talking about that and feeling valid when, you know, there's been so many like outer and external forces trying to convince me that that's not even what it is. And so that led to the title of the album becoming 13th floor because of the parallels with, I don't know how this happened. I don't know how this like conception happens, but the elevators that we have, there's like this omen thing that we have around the number 13. And so in an elevator in North America, so Canada and the US, the 13th floor is often removed and we regard it as the 14th floor.

15:24So if you're on the 12th floor, there will not even be a 13th floor button. It will be like 14, but it's obviously physically, tangibly, logically the 13th floor. It's there. And so like I took that concept to emulate the parallels of experiences that I'm having in Canada that are so often dismissed and ignored as if it isn't there. And it's actually become a societal trope that it isn't there, but tangibly, physically, logically it is. And that, yeah, that became the theme of that album. Before I realized I wanted to call the cat or my cat 13, I think I knew that that experience of 13th Floor had a parallel with cats in general.

16:07Just when I was looking into cats and seeing how like so many of them are not rescued and how many cats get put down because they're not saved. I just kind of felt like cats are underdogs in general, you know, like learning about them being kind of like the scavengers and just, they just kind of are. And at a time, like who was taking care of them and they just kind of felt like an underdog in their essence. Um, and so before I realized the parallels with my album and, you know, my real world experience of wanting a cat, um, there was already like this likeness of uh underdogness that I think came from the curation of my album yeah why it's not surprising that in the end I ended up calling my cat 13 but it's cool how it came together because it was really like it just snapped into place as opposed to like I almost feel like naming my cat was similar to naming my album right like it it came together through like these life experiences as opposed to me just coming up with a name um I'm curious Just because like I know you've also been in terms of the number 13, you've also been deeply interested in the notion of the 13th Amendment.

17:16And I wonder if that fits in to the abolishment of slavery in the U.S. A hundred percent. That's that that. OK, so that I mean, there were like tentacles with the 13th floor album. and the underdog experience was like that main tentacle the 13th floor the specific title of the album and like the parallels of like a thing that exists but doesn't that was like the main crux but then there was also the aspect of the 13th amendment being infused into the album i have a song called 13 on that album which is really just kind of like a historical aspect of the underdog experience. It is, as per my research, the, some of the reasons why the experience of being a young black person in Canada or the U.S., although I can't speak to that specifically, like why that feels like a dismissed narrative.

18:10And, you know, that does come from the history. Then came the 13th Amendment, written in 1865. It says, Slavery is over, accepted, it's paid for doing crime. And then the things that they made illegal are things you associate with people who now education isn't equal. And they getting paid enough to eat, so we have so much work to do. What was really cool about the album 13th Floor was that like through that process, I was able to take a concept and I was able to reverse it. And I was able to pull positivity out of something that I think, you know, society says. you know, 13 is superstitious. That's why there's no 13th floor in the building.

18:53It's like, because there's something wrong about it. That's the exact same thing that I think leads to the underdog experience. I think that's the exact same thing that leads to my lived experience when I was younger. And it's like, people don't look at me the same as my friends in a store. Or when I grew up, my family was treated more fairly than all the other families. And how come they throw bricks through our window and how come they egg our house and how come they do all of these things? And it's like, yeah, because something's not right about you guys. Like, right. That was what the young me understood.

19:26And it's like, I didn't know why or what it was tied to. It's just, I just knew that I was affiliated with something that like, wasn't fully okay to the majority of people or like to the essence of things. Like that was just like, that's the way it is. Right. So I grew up in that. And I feel like my trauma is tied to that. I feel like my antisocial aspects are tied to self-protection because of the young understanding. And yeah, I think there's a lot of trauma associated with that. For Havaya, adopting 13 was part of the path to healing some of her trauma, but it wasn't automatic and it wasn't immediate.

20:04it. He came in my environment and he was like, I don't trust you. I don't know. I don't trust you. I don't know you. Yeah. For a month, you know, and, and the patience that I needed to have, the unconditional love that I needed to have, the understanding that I had to have for him outside of like language. Um, I think that was a really big part of my healing because sitting in discomfort was a thing that I kept telling myself I needed to learn to do, but I was only doing it in very specific settings and it was uncomfortable getting a cat and then having the cat literally treat me like I was like abusive or something like I was like what is happening why are you like acting like I bring you a bowl of food and you're like like it was just like it was kind of it it was like it it tilted my mind at first because I was like he was almost making me feel like the opposite of the things that I want my cat to make me feel right like I I was feeling like, am I not good to you?

21:06And what I had to learn through that was like, no, it has nothing to do with you. This cat has its own experience. He came from an environment where he was definitely not treated very well. It's obvious in his mannerisms and the foster people told me, you know, he was thrown from a moving car when they found him. Oh, he knows what the full story is, but you can tell by his temperament and even just the end of his journey with whoever those people were, you know, he, he didn't get the opportunity to be able to just like easily trust people. To feel safe. Yeah. Like even if I travel and come back, he's still like, are you still safe?

21:45And that's fine. I feel like learning how to navigate that temperament has made me a more patient individual as well, which also makes me more patient with other people through their own traumas and experiences. Yeah, I feel like it's just made me a more well and continues to make me a more well-loved individual. Yeah, and a more loved individual. I think we can get really reactive sometimes with other humans because we assume that their intent, like they have ill will or their meaning to hurt us or whatever, even if they're not. But with a pet, like with a cat or a dog, you kind of know, like, unless they're being a total jerk, they're not meaning to, you know, they're not meaning to make you feel bad by hiding under the bed.

22:32Like it's something that they're going through, right? Exactly. I think that actually you said that perfectly. When you're going through healing, it's hard to like separate that human factor. And sometimes it can be hard to trust if you've been through scenarios where people have lied to you or been dishonest with you. You know, humans have the capacity to lie. Yes. So sometimes it's like you can over contextualize scenarios and you don't necessarily know. It's great to get to a place where you don't have to know where someone's coming from and you could still be able to navigate it. But in that earlier part of my healing, I think the understanding that a cat doesn't operate like a human helped me sit with that discomfort.

23:15because like it was triggering. It was highly triggering to like get an animal and do all this research and save an animal and then have, have be uncertain if the animal will ever love you back. Um, especially because I didn't have an animal before I was like, right. He acts very different from other cats. I was told he acts like a dog. Like what if he actually is not going to be like other cats? What if he never likes me? What if he will always be weird with me and, uh, sitting through that process and being patient through that definitely made me a more rounded individual with humans like that.

23:50I can now take that energy back to humans and have more grace for and space and room for our temperaments just by giving my cat the space that he, you know, deserved and understanding that it wasn't, you know, like filtered by like human expression. And you know what, being able to deal with it when it isn't allows me to be able to deal with it better when it is. Like even if that person is being a little odd because they're a human and now they can, you know, infuse lying or saving themselves or whatever into the dynamic, the ability to sit with discomfort, it still gives me more patience with that, or it still gives me more grace with that.

24:30Not to accept or tolerate things that I don't deserve, but to be able to make the right decision and not like crash out or lose my mind or, you know what I mean? Yes. I feel like he's helped a lot with just making me a more patient, loving, affectionate individual. Safe to say 13 has taught Havai a lot about herself. And that journey of learning new things continues. She was recently diagnosed with ADHD. I should have always known, but you know, they do say women are harder than women. Yeah. We're least likely to be a diagnosed. And I think black women, it's even more of a niche to be diagnosed.

25:15So it makes sense that I, that I wasn't, but I'm, I'm rapid. My brain moves very quickly and I operate in high anxiety and high stress. I didn't really realize this until moving out. right? Because when you move out, you can see yourself in ways that I literally could not. And I had four siblings, mom and dad in the house, chaotic, right? I didn't see myself. And so in moving out, I started to see, oh wow, like I am, I don't know how to slow down sometimes. And you know who really showed me I don't know how to slow down was my cat. 13's temperament is like cortisol central. Like it's just Zen gardens, right?

25:58And he doesn't have another mode. The level of gentle that he is, is like shocking for me. Um, because I, I, what I realized is like, I'm the type that if I think a thought, I stand up quick and it startles him. right? Or if I go up the stairs, I kind of make my way up the stairs quickly. Um, I've had instances in the past where like, you know, I wake up quick. Like I have, I remember a previous partner of mine was like, I dislike how you wake up. And it was like, what do you mean? And then you just pick up your phone and then you just start doing stuff. It's very anxiety provoking for people.

26:37Right. Oh, wow. I didn't know. I'm just very like, ah, ah, ah, ah. And 32 years of life, I've just been like that. I don't know if it's a survival mode. I don't know if it's, I think there's an aspect of, you know, again, being really antisocial and maybe not seeing how that would be perceived, but also just like a survival mode of like, I just got to get stuff done. Got to be very quick. and gentle just wasn't in my wheelhouse, I guess. There wasn't a lot of, you know, like my parents didn't have the capacity to be very gentle because they were being very protective, right? So it's like their focus is more on making sure the environment itself, like where we live, like getting the money to get us out than having seven extra hours or even three extra hours in the evening to be like, okay, let's do our positive affirmations, look in the mirror and say, I love myself.

27:36Like there was none of that happening because there was no room for it. Right. Right. So I didn't have these like gentle temperament things from anywhere. And then, you know, my parents worked really hard and they're just always breaking their back. And I just think that's where that high anxiety baseline came from. And I didn't realize how much that was like hurting me. But I think the first, like the first ripple of it was getting 13 and he started to not be under the bed anymore. He started to come out and I would learn that unless I was in his range of gentle, if I went out of that, I would scare him away.

28:17And that was, I like, I didn't even have to be doing anything to him specifically. If I stood up too quick or like, if I was too loud or if I like came down the stairs too fast, I could see that that was too startling for him. I just started to realize, oh, he, his cortisol levels, like his stress levels are so easily triggered. And I was like, oh wow, you could like blare a horn in my face. And I'd be like, oh, that was kind of loud. And I realized what that implicated about my anxiety levels, what that implicated about like where I'm operating and why I might feel so stressed so often. I'm still on that journey of healing because, you know, there's a lot of majority of my life I have been functioning up here.

29:01But now I'm actively and with his help and he's a constant reminder because he still requires gentleness, able to infuse practices into my life. Some of them being intentional breathing throughout the day, meditation at random times, not just when I feel stressed, yoga and practices that allow me to feel my body, like feel what I'm feeling through 13 and his like his ability to feel and observe and take his time with things. and even like how like observant he is when I'm around versus like what he'll do when I'm not. And that like, you know, that obviously implicates for him. Oh, when a human is around, I have to implement a different aspect of careful, just seeing how he like navigates life and his level of awareness, I think just really helped me implement a higher level of awareness in my own life.

30:05and also recognize that like that stress it does your cat doesn't like it yeah your friends don't like it your family doesn't like it just because they won't say it I think like 13 showed me and I was like okay well if he doesn't like it what sentient being would right like what living and breathing being whether they could tell me or not would want me to be like this like nobody's gonna unless we're at Halloween haunt at Wonderland, who's going to, who's going to. And it also made me realize that nobody else wants that. Do I want that? So he helped me find a better baseline for myself.

30:51Listen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about 13 and so much else in this conversation of course yeah this is so fun i wonder if i can get him to say hi before yeah could you i'm gonna try okay hi 13 he might not be in the mood that's okay just even getting a glimpse hi 13 oh look at that beauty he's potentially looking not at anyone that's okay Listen, we'll take whatever we can get. Yeah. Oh, he's so cute. He's gone. He's out of here. He's out of here. He's like, I've made my appearance. I'm gone.

31:37Thanks so much to Havaya Mighty for introducing us to 13 and his incredible origin story. You should definitely check out Havaya's music if you haven't already. Her latest full-length album is called Crying Crystals. You can keep up with everything she's doing on Insta at Havaya Mighty or at HavayaMighty.ca. Before we left, we asked Vaya if there was a pet-related cause she wanted to shout out. And she said, check out your local cat rescue. I just think that's like such a beautiful thing that there are people that are dedicated to like the livelihood, the gentle and loving livelihood of cats, whether it's their home or bringing these cats to other homes.

32:21That's it for this episode of Furball Confidential. If you like what you heard, tell your pet-loving friends, tell your vet, tell your pet store, heck, tell everyone. And make sure you give us a follow so you don't miss any episodes.

32:36Furball Confidential is created and hosted by me, Jen Morose. Our producer is Talia Schlanger. She and David Travers-Smith co-created our theme music with Brian Kobayakawa on bass. Video and sound design and editing are all done by Reza Daya. Danny Stover does our social media. Our show artwork is by Adrian Foro. And on audience development, we have Marina Hanna. And thanks, as always, to the original inspiration for this podcast, Clutch. I'm Jen Moroz. See you next time on Furball Confidential.

33:16When I found out I was going to be a parent, I immediately felt a lot of anxiety and worry. So I went on to BetterHelp to try to look for a therapist to help me with that. My relationship with my family and with my boyfriend and with myself were suffering. I really needed help. I was ruminating a lot. Really getting those thoughts out to a therapist and getting feedback was just life-changing. Discover what BetterHelp Online Therapy can do for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today.

34:10We'll see you next time.