Speaker 1: A lot of times when you hear about our story,
Speaker 1: you don't really get what we went through or how
Speaker 1: we were impacted by it. A lot of things that
Speaker 1: were shown on TV was the negative, right because the
Speaker 1: negative is definitely what sells, you know. But me and
Speaker 1: my sister and my brother, there were no complaints with
Speaker 1: our childhood. We had the best time of our lives.
Speaker 1: When we lived in Washington State with our parents. We
Speaker 1: got everything that we wanted. We were never without um stability,
Speaker 1: emotional stability. We we have friends, we have family night.
Speaker 1: My my mom. She would record so much home videos.
Speaker 1: Even if we don't even remember, we have videos where
Speaker 1: it shows that we had a great bond with each
Speaker 1: other and that we were loved, We were comforted. He
Speaker 1: was like great dad, goofy. There were silly times, and
Speaker 1: even in the silly times, there was still loving it
Speaker 1: and hope you know everything, beautiful lady An. I'm Tony
Speaker 1: Harris on this bonus episode of Monster d C Sniper
Speaker 1: my conversation with Selena and Taliba, the daughters of John
Speaker 1: and Mildria Mohammed. Selena and Taliba both live in Maryland
Speaker 1: outside d C. I spoke with him over zoom I
Speaker 1: want to take a half a step back, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to have each of you introduce yourself, right, I
Speaker 1: want you to tell me your name, and then just
Speaker 1: describe yourself and your own words. I'm Taliva. I would
Speaker 1: say that I'm bubbily, I'm goofy, but also enjoy being
Speaker 1: very stubborn and also um lively. I am Selena, and
Speaker 1: I am very direct. What you see is what you get.
Speaker 1: I am the type of person that does not like
Speaker 1: to judge the other person, and it's very open to
Speaker 1: helping anybody that I can. Selena and Taliba, along with
Speaker 1: their older brother, John Jr. Were born in the early
Speaker 1: nineties while their father was still serving in the army.
Speaker 1: Selena is the middle child. She's now eight, Taliba is six.
Speaker 1: They spent most of their early childhood in Washington State.
Speaker 1: So I've got two kids that I I love, you know,
Speaker 1: to the ends of the earth. And you know I'm
Speaker 1: not with their mom, who is an amazing woman. Right.
Speaker 1: I want to understand from your perspective how you would
Speaker 1: describe life in the Williams slash Mohammed household growing up. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was a ball. We had the time of our
Speaker 1: lives when we were young. I mean like sight seeing
Speaker 1: the carnival Um. It was great. Yeah. We also with
Speaker 1: our neighborhood friends too. Don't let us snow we're having
Speaker 1: snow fights or having we're building snowman. It was he was.
Speaker 1: He was everything that you could picture a father to
Speaker 1: be with. What are dad was to us. He was
Speaker 1: not some monster. He was not anything that the media portrays.
Speaker 1: He couldn't feel the load that he had for his
Speaker 1: children when you saw him. Even when he was disciplining us,
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't negative towards uh, like the next
Speaker 1: week or so like. He would counter it with positivity
Speaker 1: and fun and just a lesson to be learned. They
Speaker 1: never suspected anything was wrong in March of two thousand,
Speaker 1: when John picked them up from their elementary school, drove
Speaker 1: them to the airport and flew them to Antigua. Selena
Speaker 1: was ten and Taliba was eight. They still don't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable speaking publicly about this period of their life, about
Speaker 1: what happened in Antigua or their relationship with Lee Boyd Malvo,
Speaker 1: But in August two thousand one, authorities found them living
Speaker 1: with their father and a homeless shelter in Bellingham, Washington.
Speaker 1: They were then reunited with their mother, Mildred, who brought
Speaker 1: them to Maryland, where they once again started a new life.
Speaker 1: Despite this instability in their childhood, Selena and Taliba say
Speaker 1: that most of the memories they had of their father
Speaker 1: were positive. Mildred had sheltered them from John's frightening behaviors,
Speaker 1: and they were too young to realize how unusual their
Speaker 1: situation was. But the turbulence wasn't over. A little over
Speaker 1: a year later, when Taliba was ten and Selena was twelve,
Speaker 1: the d C sniper attacks began in Maryland. I remember
Speaker 1: a time where I was walking home from school and
Speaker 1: I was looking for the white box jut and I
Speaker 1: was looking around and I just remember just booking it.
Speaker 1: I just remember just taking off ning straight to home
Speaker 1: because that scared t acting was also in us too,
Speaker 1: and their lives were flipped upside down again when their
Speaker 1: father and Lee Boyd Melville were arrested and named the
Speaker 1: DC Snipers. When we found out that our dad was
Speaker 1: the one that was gonna be named the sniper, and
Speaker 1: we cried from the time FBI knock on our door
Speaker 1: and told us to the time that they showed it
Speaker 1: on the news. We were moving that entire time, like hours.
Speaker 1: We were We packed stuff, we got in a car,
Speaker 1: we got driven to a hotel. We had to figure
Speaker 1: everything out. Taliba and Selena were shocked by their father's arrest,
Speaker 1: but before they could even process the situation, their family
Speaker 1: was thrust into the spotlight. We had to get put
Speaker 1: out of school. Media was starting to show up at
Speaker 1: our middle school and we couldn't get in the building.
Speaker 1: So and just and just for our our safety, um,
Speaker 1: and that time, thankfully, our principal at the time completely
Speaker 1: understood and my mom, Um, I'm not too sure the interaction,
Speaker 1: but they were it was a mutual understanding, quick understanding
Speaker 1: of just taking us out. Eventually, reporters stopped showing up
Speaker 1: to their middle school and the girls returned and trying
Speaker 1: to get back to some sense of normalcy. Life at
Speaker 1: that age can be challenging at the best of times,
Speaker 1: let alone with your father as public enemy number one.
Speaker 1: With our interactions in school during the time, we've lost
Speaker 1: a lot of friends. There was a lot of um
Speaker 1: speculations that we were gonna do what he did, or
Speaker 1: we're going to finish the job, to finish the job,
Speaker 1: or or um or we're gonna be a duo at it,
Speaker 1: or you know, just extremely negative feedback that that we
Speaker 1: don't need to hear at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: But they didn't care because, you know, children will be
Speaker 1: children and we were just in that age group. So
Speaker 1: their mother, Mildred, said, she struggled to find a therapist
Speaker 1: they could afford who wasn't just trying to cash in
Speaker 1: on the publicity and sell the children's story to the press.
Speaker 1: So Mildred went to the library and picked up a
Speaker 1: book on counseling. She started helping the children herself. Selena
Speaker 1: and to Leiva credit their mother with helping to get
Speaker 1: them through that rough patch. One of her main tools
Speaker 1: in her life is optimism, and that's what really helped
Speaker 1: us in our healing. The fact that there is always
Speaker 1: and no matter what type of negativity that comes up,
Speaker 1: there's always a positive aspect that you're not thinking about,
Speaker 1: that you're not focusing your mind on, and the sooner
Speaker 1: you do, the better off you'll be serious no way
Speaker 1: around that. So she was pivotal for our personal growth,
Speaker 1: our emotional stability, our spiritual development. My mom is amazing
Speaker 1: a lot of that appreciation for our mom is for
Speaker 1: her pushing us to make sure that we don't get
Speaker 1: swallowed up by the media, by negative energy that people
Speaker 1: tell us, by other things that happened throughout our life
Speaker 1: that could potentially be that last thing that an average
Speaker 1: person would need to go through to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm over this life, like I'm just not gonna do
Speaker 1: it anymore. We didn't have that opportunity, and because we
Speaker 1: didn't have that opportunity, we only see up. We don't
Speaker 1: see down, we don't see the past. We see up,
Speaker 1: like how far can we go? Regardless of our situation,
Speaker 1: Because regardless of the things that me, my sister, and
Speaker 1: my brother have been through, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people out here who have gone through something much worse
Speaker 1: or much less, and it is their choice, and it
Speaker 1: is our choice to decide whether we want to let
Speaker 1: this specific situation dictate and outline the rest of our life,
Speaker 1: or do we want to address the situation, conquer all
Speaker 1: of the feelings that we have, and develop that and
Speaker 1: restructure that into doing something positive for our life, And
Speaker 1: we choose positivity always. Have you thought about the question
Speaker 1: of why you two clearly strong, clearly well spoken women.
Speaker 1: Have you given any thought to why you too, as sisters,
Speaker 1: as individuals have been placed in this story. Hm Um.
Speaker 1: We are God fearing women period, and there is nothing
Speaker 1: that we cannot handle or anything that is too big
Speaker 1: for our lives. If we were not supposed to be
Speaker 1: in the place that we were put in, God would
Speaker 1: have never put us there, And it is that simple.
Speaker 1: He would have never given our family the opportunity to
Speaker 1: show him that we can come out of is stronger
Speaker 1: than the way that we went in. So it was
Speaker 1: not by coincidence. It was already written. We just didn't
Speaker 1: know it. It was already written. All of our lives
Speaker 1: are already written the way that they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: There is no questioning God. We've never questioned him before
Speaker 1: and we're not going to start now that there There
Speaker 1: is no why us, Why did you put us in
Speaker 1: this situation? Because you have to understand that it's beyond us.
Speaker 1: It is it's always beyond us. God saw us fit
Speaker 1: to go through what he wanted us to go through,
Speaker 1: to be better people, right to be stronger vessels, to
Speaker 1: be better vessels, So why not use us? What are
Speaker 1: we here for in the first place? If it's not
Speaker 1: to be used by God. All right, I get all
Speaker 1: of that, but there is no denying that you went
Speaker 1: through some difficult days. And it feels to me that
Speaker 1: in the moments that you're able to really communicate with
Speaker 1: God higher power. One of the ways we generally do
Speaker 1: that is we go through a really difficult patch and
Speaker 1: we say something along the lines of God, I really
Speaker 1: need you now. And I wonder about a day, a
Speaker 1: moment that you think about in this journey that represents
Speaker 1: a really difficult day, when you maybe say to God,
Speaker 1: thank you for getting me through that. I would say
Speaker 1: that those definitely do pop up in our heads, and
Speaker 1: it will be wrong for me to say that they don't.
Speaker 1: The night of the execution that pops up in my
Speaker 1: head periodically and thinking on my future self, how he
Speaker 1: he won't be walking me down the aisle, and how
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to be able to see my prom dress,
Speaker 1: how he wasn't a part of the goodbye team when
Speaker 1: I went away to college. Those times pop up for
Speaker 1: me periodically, so I am I am going to have
Speaker 1: negative days where I'm just like Nope, I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk to nobody, and and those those definitely do exist. Example,
Speaker 1: his birthday or my birthday. As Selena and Taliba grew up,
Speaker 1: they struggled and still struggled to reconcile the happy memories
Speaker 1: of their father from childhood with the horrific crimes he committed.
Speaker 1: Unlike their mother, Mildred, who was an adult at the
Speaker 1: time and who had seen the start of John's descent,
Speaker 1: Selena and Taliba had been separated from their father during
Speaker 1: the period of childhood when most of us still idealize
Speaker 1: our parents. So when they learned their father was the
Speaker 1: d C Sniper, they were completely blindsided. When you're coming
Speaker 1: from a position of being a child, right, when you're
Speaker 1: coming from a position of being nine years old, and
Speaker 1: all you've known is my dad adds this type of
Speaker 1: way because I'm a child, that when you see him
Speaker 1: on TV, it's like, well, my that's that's I don't
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about, because my dad was consistent,
Speaker 1: consistent in system of right and was doing all of
Speaker 1: the things that he was supposed to be doing. They
Speaker 1: don't try to justify or excuse their father's crimes, but
Speaker 1: they do chafe against what they consider inaccurate portrayals of
Speaker 1: their father in the media. We don't resent our father.
Speaker 1: The way that he was portrayed on the news is
Speaker 1: not the man that we grew up with, and for
Speaker 1: us to resent him would mean that we would dismiss
Speaker 1: our childhood with him, and that's not something that we're
Speaker 1: willing to do or something that we want to do.
Speaker 1: You know, there is a there is a media representation
Speaker 1: of your your family story, right what is the narrative
Speaker 1: first of all? And then for you too, what's the
Speaker 1: most egregious part of that narrative? So I believe that
Speaker 1: the narrative right now is the fact that he was
Speaker 1: a monster, the fact that he didn't have a loving life.
Speaker 1: You later, he didn't have any motive. He was just
Speaker 1: shooting people. He just went crazy. It has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with anything like that. My dad was smart and
Speaker 1: the actions that he took. He knew what the outcomes
Speaker 1: were going to be. Now, that does not necessarily say
Speaker 1: that he is a monster, because he's not. These characteristics
Speaker 1: that people have labeled my father to be are from
Speaker 1: the outside looking in and not actually knowing who my
Speaker 1: dad was and actually knowing the type of person that
Speaker 1: he was. Selena's words echo to sentiment we heard from
Speaker 1: criminologist Anthony Meoli that as a society, we want to
Speaker 1: call these killers monsters. We want to separate them from
Speaker 1: the rest of humanity. Just labeled them it's purely evil,
Speaker 1: but the truth is often more complicated. Selena and Taliba
Speaker 1: say that although their father was capable of these attacks,
Speaker 1: capable of terrorizing their mother, he was also capable of
Speaker 1: being a loving father. We want to be able to
Speaker 1: shift the narrative to where we can express that our
Speaker 1: dad wasn't amazing, that him as a man individually is
Speaker 1: different than who we experienced. You know how in a
Speaker 1: when you're going through a hard relationship with somebody or
Speaker 1: a significant other and it's a it's just a bad time,
Speaker 1: and all that you could think about is the bad,
Speaker 1: how they're hurting me, why did they yell in a
Speaker 1: certain way, or they didn't have to hang up like that? Right?
Speaker 1: And then when all that is done, when you have
Speaker 1: broken up or when you've separated, all you can think
Speaker 1: about is the good. And I feel that is where
Speaker 1: our thought process is not necessarily saying that we think
Speaker 1: about the bad, but they're still good balance that we
Speaker 1: can counter that with, because of our childhood, because of
Speaker 1: our own experiences that we've had with him, So it
Speaker 1: will be wrong to say that we don't miss him,
Speaker 1: because we miss him so much. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we accept why he isn't here, we accept where we
Speaker 1: are in that time, and it's a blessing that we
Speaker 1: are so close as a family. My mom also instilled
Speaker 1: in us to not feel like we are obligated to
Speaker 1: give an apology for his actions, because his actions are
Speaker 1: his actions. Um at the same time, we never stop
Speaker 1: praying for the victims and the survivors and the families.
Speaker 1: We have full empathy for everything that that has taken
Speaker 1: place in that time, and we're not insensitive as far
Speaker 1: as what their journey is now even after. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, taking ownership that would not be appropriate.
Speaker 1: What we can say that we will continue to pray
Speaker 1: for the victims of the survivors and that they have
Speaker 1: a special place in our hearts. For sure, Selena and
Speaker 1: Taliba feel that they have been portrayed inaccurately by the
Speaker 1: media as well, with coverage forgetting how young they were
Speaker 1: when all this happened, or treating them like irreparably damaged
Speaker 1: goods about of reshaping our narrative is to redefine who
Speaker 1: his children was. There were so many unrealistic mindsets about
Speaker 1: how we were coping through it, and by taking a
Speaker 1: step back and understanding the time that it happened, and
Speaker 1: then matching the ages and the mentality mentality in that
Speaker 1: era and then saying, oh, okay, well, they were under
Speaker 1: ten years old, so I kind of don't really know
Speaker 1: a lot of what happened. So it's important that that's spoken,
Speaker 1: that that that we were youth and at the same time,
Speaker 1: my mom didn't shield anything away from us because she
Speaker 1: wanted us to live a life of truth. We want
Speaker 1: to shift that we are empowered, that were loved, that
Speaker 1: we are stable, that we are okay, and that not
Speaker 1: only are we okay, but we work hard. We don't
Speaker 1: use that situation as an excuse for progression. We choose
Speaker 1: to to not to make this the crutch for us
Speaker 1: to not be better women. We don't use it for
Speaker 1: anything outside of explaining our life story. And also it
Speaker 1: helps us to be inspired musically. Throughout the whole ordeal,
Speaker 1: Selena and Taliba found solace in music, listening to it,
Speaker 1: performing it, even writing their own songs. What's helped us
Speaker 1: is talking it out, writing it out, singing it out,
Speaker 1: looking up songs that lyrically tie into those struggles. Those
Speaker 1: songs and those lyrics help for our outlet. Music really
Speaker 1: has helped us. When no human can say words, chords
Speaker 1: can really do it, or instrument can really do it,
Speaker 1: or Kenny G can really do it. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to be verbally, can be non vocal. But
Speaker 1: we wanted to change the narrative for ourselves musically. So
Speaker 1: now let me ask this question. Tell me why you
Speaker 1: wrote scramble. Did you write this or did I write this?
Speaker 1: I wrote scramble. Make mistakes. I'm ben't making two. It's
Speaker 1: a part of the game. But who's ready to lose web?
Speaker 1: We're we're moving what we're doing. We gotta get back
Speaker 1: to the first stage. But thanks for reading on the
Speaker 1: first page. Well we're going, Hi, we're moving what we're doing.
Speaker 1: When you push me back, I can't ignore. I'll be
Speaker 1: relationship is on the floor. Poo's will then to pick
Speaker 1: it up. I'm tooling. Thanks for you, so I take
Speaker 1: care of you. Nothing never turn miss me with that
Speaker 1: bullshit about you called your side one ain't stupid. I'm
Speaker 1: taking out my gun. Okay, So we have this thing
Speaker 1: where Talibo will start us all and then like a
Speaker 1: week later she'll call me and she'll say, can you
Speaker 1: help me write the second birse? So I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: what did you have in the first place? And so
Speaker 1: she'll sing it and I'm like, all right, give me
Speaker 1: like five minutes figure nothing out. Where my head was.
Speaker 1: I was in a relationship and it was very confusing
Speaker 1: as far as his intentions and where I wanted it
Speaker 1: to go, and I just was fed up. So I
Speaker 1: got those lyrics out. I journal. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to confront those emotions head on. I also think
Speaker 1: that the song gives the listener of the opportunity to
Speaker 1: not be afraid to ask those questions where are we going?
Speaker 1: What are we doing? Those There are questions that a
Speaker 1: lot of people shy away from because they don't want
Speaker 1: to hear the answer, And so Scramble was made for
Speaker 1: the listener to put your pants on, evaluate your situation
Speaker 1: and actually questions, because if you don't, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: be step in our relationship where you're not happy. And
Speaker 1: this life you only get to live at once, and
Speaker 1: you don't want to waste five, ten, fifteen, years of
Speaker 1: your life in a marriage, in a relationship is not healthy,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's how Scramble came to the world.
Speaker 1: What we do, We gotta get back to the first
Speaker 1: but the first path. But Scramble has darker undertones as well,
Speaker 1: like its reference to an affair and getting a gun.
Speaker 1: So the verse escalated from the observation to me being
Speaker 1: completely fed up. So now I'm violent like the air
Speaker 1: level their level. But that's real because in real relationships,
Speaker 1: in those defining moments, in those relationships, your mind can
Speaker 1: get there, your mind can scramble in that way. It's
Speaker 1: easy to imagine how their family story has influenced the
Speaker 1: song's themes, with its lyrics about how love can scramble
Speaker 1: our brain and even make us violent, and about the
Speaker 1: fear of getting stuck in an unhappy and unhealthy relationship
Speaker 1: for years. Tell me about when you had to decide
Speaker 1: how much of your journey together you were willing to
Speaker 1: share in your music. It's a very good question for
Speaker 1: me and my sister. The things that we've been through
Speaker 1: and the things that we've gone through have shaped the
Speaker 1: way that we see the world. But we are still
Speaker 1: picking and choosing what we want to put into our music.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of emotions and a lot of time
Speaker 1: and a lot of thinking that we put into our
Speaker 1: songwriting when it comes to the things that we've been through.
Speaker 1: When did this desire to play to sing? When did
Speaker 1: music become a part of your life? It became a
Speaker 1: part of our lives when we were little, um, when
Speaker 1: like six seven, mom heard something in us and we
Speaker 1: always found it to be a hobby. But she's like,
Speaker 1: not a hobby. So she just plugged us in two
Speaker 1: choirs and then the choir directors were like, they can
Speaker 1: take this seriously. Then plugged us into perform at art schools.
Speaker 1: That's where we both went, and then just transitioned from
Speaker 1: there to gaining scholarships to take it to college, so
Speaker 1: we have degrees and voice performance. You mentioned that your
Speaker 1: mom at some point said it's not hobby, right, it's
Speaker 1: a thing, It's not hobby. So I guess what does
Speaker 1: that say about your mom? What kind of a person
Speaker 1: is your mom? How do you destroy her? I wish
Speaker 1: folks could see the video right now, and we're recording
Speaker 1: as we're a podcast, but I wish they could see
Speaker 1: your faces and how broad these smiles are. To the beast,
Speaker 1: that beautiful stallion spirit. She's a beast. She she goes
Speaker 1: above and beyond for her children, which brings tears to
Speaker 1: my eyes. But we're just gonna We're gonna keep pushing
Speaker 1: through my mom um. My mom is amazing and and
Speaker 1: she is a role model to how I want to
Speaker 1: be as a woman and a mother. She has turned
Speaker 1: out so many opportunities. She's she's made extra time to
Speaker 1: where that we are all individually okay, and then collectively.
Speaker 1: She's a one. She's never stopped. She's just never stopped.
Speaker 1: She never stopped. So it's it's a blessing. It's a
Speaker 1: blessing every single day that we still have her and
Speaker 1: that we can embrace her. Now in their late twenties,
Speaker 1: Selena and Taliba have had some time to look back
Speaker 1: and reflect on their experience. Although this is a part
Speaker 1: of our story, this is not our story, and it's
Speaker 1: important that there are other purposes, there are other stories
Speaker 1: that we will be a part of. This was just
Speaker 1: one that started off the endless of the stories that
Speaker 1: are going to come in the future, So it's imperative
Speaker 1: that we keep pushing forward and reflect of course too,
Speaker 1: because there was so much going on while we were
Speaker 1: still in school, while we were still trying to establish
Speaker 1: friendships and maintain our grades at the same time, it
Speaker 1: was a lot trusting in the unknown. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: And UM, in that time, it was a lot of confusion.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of tension and anxiety. But I
Speaker 1: would tell my younger self to not be afraid of
Speaker 1: where my life is going to go. This is not
Speaker 1: the end, this is only the beginning. This is only
Speaker 1: um what's going to make us stronger. And also UM,
Speaker 1: I would tell my younger self to lean all my
Speaker 1: sister a little more before college. We were we were
Speaker 1: at differences, so I would say Selena her more. Like
Speaker 1: many siblings, the two sisters fought as children, but discovered
Speaker 1: a close bond later in life. In their case, when
Speaker 1: they were both going to college in Cleveland. I was
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to have my sister thirty minutes away from me,
Speaker 1: and I was going through so much and just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what am I doing and how how
Speaker 1: can I operate in the city alone. And I was
Speaker 1: crying and being my dramatic self as I am. And
Speaker 1: she's very compassionate, and that's one thing that I really
Speaker 1: love about our sisterhood, specifically Selena is because I can
Speaker 1: be so in my head, especially in that time where
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was doing, and she would
Speaker 1: know when it's time to give me tough love, and
Speaker 1: she would know when it's time for me to just vent,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't have to say anything because I'm that dramatic,
Speaker 1: and she just knows those different switches for when it's
Speaker 1: time to be a sister, when it's time to be
Speaker 1: a friend, when it's time to be a music partner,
Speaker 1: when it's time to be my second mom, especially with
Speaker 1: me being the youngest, so that that that also is
Speaker 1: a very important element and sister YouTube your sisterhood. I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine the levels at which you connect as
Speaker 1: sisters who have shared an incomprehensible journey together. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you respecting our boundaries and really appreciating where we
Speaker 1: are now and taking that time and giving us this
Speaker 1: platform to to just have a conversation about it and
Speaker 1: to give us the opportunity to just speak the way
Speaker 1: that we want to with freedom, with freedom, and even
Speaker 1: if we don't feel like talking about something that you
Speaker 1: guys don't shun us, right that it's like, Okay, it's fine,
Speaker 1: we do move on. That's something that a lot of
Speaker 1: people that record shows don't have or don't give UM
Speaker 1: because because they always have it they do. It's a
Speaker 1: if they give it or not. And so we want
Speaker 1: to take this time out to say thank you guys
Speaker 1: for UM including us in this special and for giving
Speaker 1: us this platform to speak. That's it for this bonus episode.
Speaker 1: I wanted to text Mildred immediately after the interview to
Speaker 1: tell her how much I enjoyed my conversation with her daughters,
Speaker 1: but I gave myself a data process everything i'd heard.
Speaker 1: Taliba and Selena are both sides of the Mildred Mohammed coin.
Speaker 1: Taliba reflects Mildred's easy smile and sense of humor. Selena
Speaker 1: reflects Mildred's toughness and sheer strang Together, these two women
Speaker 1: have a lot to say about overcoming life's difficulties, and
Speaker 1: through their music, they demonstrate the importance of finding a
Speaker 1: way to express yourself and exactly the way you want
Speaker 1: to do it. Judgment be damned. When I finally texted Mildred,
Speaker 1: I wrote, Wow, your girls are amazing. She responded with yes,
Speaker 1: they are Thank you. If you'd like to hear more
Speaker 1: of Selena and Taliba's music, search for two music that's
Speaker 1: t O and then music. The songs Scramble that we
Speaker 1: played in this episode is from their two thousand eighteen
Speaker 1: album To Who, Thanks for listening.