The Music- I am a song writer with versatility. While many artists coin themselves “Gospel,” “Christian Contemporary”, or “Pop” artists, I choose not to label myself. I remain open to the sound I’m given. My goal is to create music that reaches vast audiences and crosses culturess, religion and race, without bias; music that just makes people feel good and touches the world differently, impacting listeners uniquely. I write inspirational music, and cross various musical styles including ballads, crossover R & B, prophetic worship and spoken word.
As much as I (or any artist) would like to take credit for the gifts we have, I know the sound, message and melody I share with the world is spirit-inspired and not earth-born. (ex. Ideas for music that come to me in night visions). Some of my music has a prophetic edge, forthtelling better days, while my others songs simply uplift and fill the soul and spirit with hope.
In 2021, an opportunity of a lifetime surfaced and into the pool I jumped. I joined Dulaneyland music, a game changing online music agency. The production company is the vision of recording artist Todd Dulaney. Through this innovative platform new artists like myself have been given voice, stage, access to endless possibility. It is shifting the music industry. Dulaneyland has a vision that is futuristic, that resets the artists to have control of their own assets and gifts, and created a wave of change that I believe will completely transform the way music is made and produced in days to come…forever.

Adopted:  Rachel to Ruthie to Rachel - My adoptive parents were very forthcoming in telling me that I was adopted. It was helpful that they were very honest, yet it left me with a host of questions and concerns. It left me void of the knowledge of who am I. It left me with a hole in my heart and a constant ache in my stomach. I reflect compassionately for anyone who has encountered anything remotely similar:How do we get past that? How do we live the best life possible? How do we learn to love ourselves, even though we feel rejection at the very basic level of where love comes from, our birth parents?
My life-long fight has been to overcome the rejection in my soul. I knew that I couldn’t give up. I would keep looking no matter how long it took, determined to some-day find my family. It began with the search for my birth mother. It was a painstaking journey to find her, but I knew I needed answers for my personal well-being and closure. 
Days turned to months; months that became dormant years. Two steps forward, three steps back. I wrestled with the need to know. I questioned if I’d regret the pursuit later. I’d lived my entire life as an adopted only-child who was lost and void of identity. That was the life I knew. Did I really know what lie beyond the horizon of knowledge? Was I ready to find out the truth? 
I acknowledged that I was not ready and never would be. But I had to find her.

Her Name is Beautifully Sharon: Finding Mom-After what seemed like an endless wait, tons of phone calls with case workers, court filings, paperwork, mailings to blood relatives, hoping against hope that someone would respond…a distant cousin answered! The court intermediary communicated via letter and directed me to names of family members.
I was 48 years old when I found mom on social media. When I saw her face, my heart sank in my chest, beads of sweat formed on my brow. My stomach got queasy. I felt like I would faint. I reached out to mom online to no avail for a couple of days. I scrolled through pictures for hours. I saw those who I’d come to know as my siblings. Then one day she wrote back “hi” with an emoji. My life changed dramatically from that day forward. 
We met two months later in person along with my siblings who, until 2018, didn’t know I existed. We cried for 45 minutes in the foyer of the La Carreta Mexican restaurant in Merrillville, Indiana. Mom said it over and over “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you”. All I could do was hold and console her. I was in shock and on some level, still am.
I recognized during this process that rejection breeds rejection. My mom and I share a similar story of rejection.  She was raised by her grandparents and held a secret. 
Mom understood rejection. My birth mother (her name is Sharon) would later find that her “sister” (Lynn) was her actually her biological mother, a devastating and shocking truth that only brought mom more questions than answers. She wondered why that secret was kept from her  for such a long time and why her own mother never claimed her as a daughter.
Through her childhood and adolescent years, she thought her older sister was off making a career in show business and often asked, “why didn’t she take me with her?” And even after the secret was revealed, throughout my mother’s adult life, she carried felt wounded because she came to the realization that Lynn never wanted to be called her mom or travel with her daughter by her side. 
One day while we were talking during our five months together we gained more clarity. “Mom, don’t you see what happened? What she did to you…you did to me?” She was silent for a moment and then with a sigh said “Yes, you’re right. I didn’t realize it but yes. She rejected me and I rejected you. Different scenario but the feeling of being unwanted is the same.” 
Within the same time frame of us re-connecting, mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. I was deluged with not only feelings of extreme jubilation during this time, but the greatest recognition of grief would soon accompany this life altering experience of meeting my mom. I found her and was losing her, again. 
Our visits turned into family gatherings, meet-ups, oncology appointments, chemo treatments and second opinions. Mom became increasingly more frail. We admitted her into the hospital twice during this process. The second and last week of mom’s stay, I spent the night but neither of us went to sleep. 
Mom and I were planning to tell our stories together, we milled around the idea of a book or documentary about the journeys we’d traveled, lives that were lived separate and now reunited. She told me that throughout her life, many people told her that she should tell her story, growing up as the only blood daughter of Lynn Hamilton. Little did they know that Mom's story would include hiding a twin pregnancy in a hotel, making the difficult  decision to give the living child up and choice to live with that secret for life. She never saw me at birth, not even once; never held me in her arms, until 48 years later. But she did give me my name…..Rachel Michelle. Sadly, the illness moved aggressively through mom's body over the summer of 2018. The only thing we as a family made priority from then on, was efforts to ensure mom’s remaining days were as comfortable as possible...though we did so unsuccessfully, as her body begin to be ravaged with pain. The day was November 2, 2018, while driving to work, my cell phone rang…
My mom is and remains in my heart, a beautiful woman. This is the woman whose womb I came from. It explains why all my life I loved fashion, make-up, modeling, music and dancing. It was all embodied in the woman I saw before me. My mother, who I’d only known for less than six months, lay dying right before my very eyes. Everything I’d ever wanted was right in front of me… all the unanswered questions in my life, the answers buried within the broken, battered, cancer-stricken woman laying before me. 
As I gazed through the hospital windows, I could hear her breathe and recanted the questions. The moments of life flash before my eyes. The mother I longed for, I finally met! She was as beautiful as I had imagined, as loving as I had hoped for, and as accepting as I desired.

A story to tell: Discovering Lynn Hamilton - One of the most pleasant surprises to finding my mother, was coming to the realization an actress I grew up watching is actually my maternal grandmother!
Back in the early 40s at Bloom High School Lynn Hamilton had goals and aspirations to go to college and be someday. Attracted to the arts, she loved dancing, fashion, and modeling. However, one day she decided she wanted to be an actress and that became her life’s ambition. But before her stardom would be born she came to a crossroads. 
Prior to college, she met my late grandfather, the beau of her dreams (at least she thought at the time) but that would soon change too. She didn’t have time to settle or get into a serious relationship., She had a mind for advancement in her career and a future to look forward to. Her focus led to the success she became known for. She was one of the most renown African American Hollywood actresses of the ‘70s. Never in a million years would I imagine this great actress was my grandmother. 
After the first meeting with mom and siblings, Mom set up a date and time to meet other family members at her home during summer of 2018. When I walked in the door I was greeted with hugs and tears from family. Everyone had just learned of my existence within the month.  While greeting with family, an elderly woman came down the stairs, and looked around unaware of the circumstances. One look and I knew it was her, my grandmother, the woman from all those shows, Fred’s girlfriend “Donna” from Sanford & Son... Lynn. My heart raced as I spoke to her.
Lynn Hamilton was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, to Nancy  and Louis Hamilton and moved to Chicago Heights, Illinois, She studied acting at Goodman Theatre.[4] Hamilton began her career in community theatre in Chicago and debuted on Broadway in Only in America in 1959.[5] She appeared in three other Broadway plays, many Off-Broadway plays and spent three years with the New York Shakespeare Festival.[4]  In addition to Hamilton's role on Sanford and Son, she also had a recurring role as Verdie Grant Foster on The Waltons,[6] and made numerous appearances in television sitcoms, soap operas and miniseries such as Good Times, 227, Dangerous Women, Generations, Port Charles, The Golden Girls, Gunsmoke (guest starring as ”Mother Tabitha” in the 1969 episode “The Sisters” (S15E14), and Roots: The Next Generations. Hamilton also appeared in the show Barnaby Jones, playing a character named Laura Padget, in episode titled "Sunday: Doomsday" on February 4, 1973. Hamilton also had a recurring role as Judge Fulton on The Practice. (Excerpt Taken from Early Life and Career Wikipedia.)Her professional career includes a list of over 60 television shows and iconic movie roles.
During her time in Hollywood, my grandmother was married to poet and playwright Frank Jenkins for 49 years, from November 1964 until his death in August 2014. Together they traveled and performed some of his career work on tour.
After meeting both my birth mom and grandmother, I don’t have words to explain all my feelings except to say the journey I’ve been on has been shell-shocking. At our first meeting, she came down the stairs, spoke my name and followed up with “your hair is beautiful” and a barrage of compliments I heard but was too stunned to reply to. The evening was the epitome of healing! 
The evening I met my grandmother, Lynn Hamilton, we all had so much to talk about. Most importantly, the evening gave Mom a sense of peace. She later told me she and grandmother were closer that night than they’d ever been her entire life. This was a point of closure. I had found…myself.  Even as I stare at their pictures every day, I feel a sense of being home…finally.
I’m convinced that my life’s journey is nothing short of a miracle. I understand my history and I have identity. Now I can be who I was born to be. Now I can share a part of that healing and belonging with you through music. 
Thank you for going down this path of discovery with me. Enjoy the music that has been created as we continue on this journey called “Life” together.
Lovingly, Rachel Michelle Hamilton