Tell Her She's Dead

By Jasmine Kara

Jasmine Kara has walked a long hard road to reach the pinnacle of her dreams; becoming a recognised singer. In her autobiography, ‘Tell Her She’s Dead’, we follow her Cinderella story, a gripping journey from the darkest abyss all the way to the stars.

After a happy childhood with loving parents in a small town in Sweden, Kara’s life goes seriously awry when she meets the love of her life and drops straight into hell. The meeting becomes the beginning of a dark reality, with daily threats, abuse and a dwindling sense of self-confidence. She dulls the pain with razor blades and tries to take her own life several times. The dream about becoming an artist seems very distant and far from the thick walls of the youth hospital’s
psychiatric ward.

Since her debut album in 2010 Jasmine has toured in Sweden, England, the USA, and Japan. Her second album, ‘Unbreakable’, has just been released by her own label, Karasmatic Music. With it comes her first book, ‘Tell Her She’s Dead’, in a new edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karasmatic Music
• Release date: Feb 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9789198206067

Book preview

dream.

Jasmine Kara

The Way to My Dream

Please don’t do it!

Shut up, you fucking cunt. I do whatever the hell I want with my life.

But I didn’t mean it like that, I love you and I don’t want to see you like this. It is all my fault.

Look at yourself and your face. You are so fucking ugly! You look like a fucking crack whore, you do. Of course it’s your fault. And because you didn’t listen to me I am gonna fucking cut myself to pieces with this.

He is holding a triangular piece of glass from a broken bottle against his leg.

No... Please don’t do it!

I cry hysterically. He throws the glass bit down and lights a smoke.

And what the fuck are you howling for, you pussy?

Ok, I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet.

We sit there. We’re quiet for a few moments.

Lost your tongue? Fucking say something. EH?

He grabs my chin and shakes my head aggressively. I pull myself out of his grip and attempt to walk away. Feel a hard slap across my neck. I look at him, shocked, and with tears in my eyes.

Where the hell are you going?

I can’t do this anymore.

Oh, can’t you? Well, fuck off then, you fucking whore. Get the fuck out of here and don’t you dare come back!

He begins to gather his things and walks off in the other direction.

No! I’m sorry. Okay? I won’t complain anymore.

I put my arms around him but he pushes me away.

This is the last time. If I have to listen to your fucking nagging me one more time...

1

My name is Jasmine Kara and I am 26 years old. I was born Karolina Khatib-Nia in Örebro, Sweden the 23rd of June 1988, and thus my parents Birgitta and Massoud had their second child. My mum, Birgitta, was born in the happy fifties in Örebro, when there wasn’t a single immigrant in town. Her Dad, Nils Nisse Wallentin was a blond, handsome Swedish man who everyone knew as The Singing Bus Driver, as he was always singing happily on the job in his bus. My maternal grandmother, Karin Wallentin, was a tall brunette with curly hair and glasses. She collected egg cups. My Mum grew up in the perfect family, a family who never argued or had any problems, but who laughed together every day, read fairy tales to one another, played music, thought of fun things to do and went on days out as often as there was a chance to do so. My mum was a real adventurer and went on her own on Interrail and cycling holidays, happily travelling alone. She always felt free within herself to do what she wanted.

My Dad, Massoud Khatib-Nia, was born and grew up in Tehran, the capital of Iran. He had a difficult time as a youngster as his family was very poor and his father wasn’t around at times. And even when he was he didn’t support the family. My paternal grandmother, was often ill and in those times my uncle Homayon had to step up and act as both mum and dad for all his siblings as there was no other grown up around. My grandfather was a short, grey-haired (even when he was young), stylish bloke with mint green eyes. That was very special in Iran. He had a smile more charming that Leonardo DiCaprio’s. My grandfather was probably seeing other women here and there, but no one dared say anything about it. His temper was a force to be reckoned with and he always took it out on the family.

My grandmother, was a short, beautiful Iranian woman. She had hazel brown eyes and loved everything and everybody for who and what they were. But more important than anybody in Dad’s big family was Homayon. He was an independent spirit even from childhood and was not only Dad’s role model but the idol of the entire family. He looked like a Hollywood actor and didn’t have one single pimple as a teenager. Many envied my dad because of his brother.

The family had difficulties making ends meet and Dad told me that sometimes they wouldn’t have any hot water or heating, so in the winter my grandmother would have to wash the little clothes they owned in freezing cold water. Dad often had holes in his shoes and he would try to fill them out with newspaper.

Dad arrived in Sweden in 1975 as a student. He had been sent away by his parents. He thought he was going to Switzerland but arrived in Sweden. He intended to return to Iran later on, but the Iranian Revolution led by Khomeini happened in 1979 and Iran became an Islamic republic. So he decided to stay a little longer.

In 1982 he met my mother. They met at my mum’s sister’s house. My aunt Annika, had just given birth to my first cousin Mariam Wallentin. Annika’s husband, funnily enough also an Iranian, was friends with my dad.

Mariam and my sister and I enjoyed the fact that the three of us all had an Iranian dad. Mariam’s dad and ours were best friends. Dad picked up a guitar and sang ‘Love Me Tender’ for Mum as well as he could and it was love at first sight for both of them. One year later they married. In spite of my parents coming from very different circumstances and cultural backgrounds there was fireworks between them. The sparkle is still there today.

I had a very good childhood and grew up with a wonderful family. People viewed us as the happy, crazy, entertaining family who always had a full house and weird and wonderful things going on. A dad who would suddenly do a ballet in the kitchen in the middle of the day, a mum who would dress up and sing and play the Hokey Cokey for everybody at her work and a sister who would play the drums so loudly that she would wake up the entire neighbourhood. I myself would dress up as Santa and hand out presents in the middle of the summer.

My sister Emilia and I loved one another more than anything else in the world and hardly ever fought. We would defend each other with our lives. My sister loved school work right from the beginning, had a lot of friends and was generally popular.

She wore glasses and had long, thick, shiny hair, which she used to crimp on the final day of the school year and other formal events, and on her school photograph she wore a jumper that said ‘Svingelskogen’. She was given it because my cousin Mariam had been in that show and Mariam was our idol and the star of the family. She even lived with us for a bit and Emilia and I were off our heads with happiness when she was with us.

We considered Mariam, who was six years older than me, to be the coolest person in the world. She always wore colorful, striped, checked and other patterned unique clothes and had new projects going on every time we saw her.

Everyone we showed her off to would say ‘Wow, what a fit chick and what big boobs she has! Is she a singer as well?’ We would be pleased and nod and we often boasted about our beautiful cousin.

Once there was a guy in Emilia’s class, who she fancied, who called her ‘four-eyes’. I grew wild as a tigress, attacked and was planning on wrestling him to the ground. But I wasn’t as big and strong as I thought and he just held me at arm’s length and laughed as I wriggled and tried to punch him in the stomach. As far as I was concerned only I was allowed to tease my sister and if anybody else did, they’d have to deal with me.

I remember my first real encounter with music very clearly, the moment I realised that music was going to be my life. My mum sat in the front room in the brown, floral 70’s sofa and played children’s songs for me and my sister on our fine acoustic guitar. I was so fascinated and wanted to learn immediately. So I learned my first two chords on the guitar. Later I learnt to play a song called ‘If You Have An Apple’.

Shortly after that my sister had the idea that she wanted to learn to play the drums. We eventually found a really cheap drum kit in the paper and it had to be picked up in Hallsberg. I still remember that evening. All of us, including Mum and Dad, were so keen to have a go at playing the drums. After that it was all over for our neighbours. Emilia and I played the kit every single day and after a while we even borrowed a trashy, red electric guitar from our uncle that we plugged in. We pretended that we were a famous rock band, playing a big arena. Life was perfect.

Whatever else was going on my parents were always listening to music. James Brown, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix mixed with Persian music was constantly on the vinyl player. I remember when we had our first CD player and our first family CD. I was six and often watched the TV programme ‘Reach for the Stars’. Emilia and I used to dream about performing on that programme, but only adults could partake. ‘Reach for the Stars Vol. 1’ was the first CD in our home. It was later followed by a long series of Mr. Music Hits CD’s, Bob Marley, Eros Ramazotti and Frank Sinatra.

My biggest dream when I was little was to go to New York. I remember sitting myself down in an umbrella, pretending that I was going to America. I said, Mum, are you coming? I am going to America when I was 4 years old. She was surprised that I even knew what America was, me being so young. But I was always able to imagine what it looked like, the people, the music, even the smells.

In the early years of my life I refused to accept that I was a girl. I dressed like a boy, wore my hair short and preferred playing with boys. ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ was the best thing ever and I wanted to be like them and like all other male heroes. Me and my cousin, Payam, who I looked up to, used to play with water pistols and go to where Emilia and Mozhdeh, ‘the chicks’, were playing, wage war with the pistols and tease them for being so girlish and for playing with Barbies. The Barbie dolls themselves were our worst enemies and we used to pinch them off our sisters and torture them in secret.

We lived in the countryside from when I was two till I was eight and it felt like a lot of people thought our family was quite odd. The entire family would dance around to Persian music and my dad spoke his funny Swedish. He would happily mix Persian, Swedish and English and because of that there weren’t many people who really understood him. Of course we knew his unique language and didn’t think much about it. Instead of saying ‘Birgitta, shall we park the car on the other side of the street?’ to my mum he might say ‘Birri, kan do parketion pa the other sider affar?’ Or speak with a typical Persian lilt; ‘I am going to Estockholm. Do you like to come? Orr nawt?’

I was embarrassed about his accent when he would pick me up from school as nobody else had a foreign parent. Today I love his accent and I am really proud of him.

2

My best friend while living in the country was called Moa and we played every day. Moa belongs to my best childhood memories. We were always as crazy as each other when we played. We would capture creepy crawlies and let them out in her bathroom and scare the life out of her mum. We cut each other’s hair off the day before the school photo so our mums had a crisis meeting and urgently called my uncle who was a hairdresser to save the situation. We would dress up and lip sync to Ace of Base in the front room. We would argue every day as in a stormy relationship but would make up just as quickly. Moa and I loved each other as sisters even though we never said it out loud.

We told each other absolutely everything. One day when Moa and I were walking from school to the child minder we took a bit more time than usual. Enough time that the minder, who was the kindest person in the world, called the police out of fear. We had been meandering, philosophising:

I think I am going to be a smoker when I grow up. I said with