LIFE IS ART.

Remember Goldie Records was built on more than a love for music. It was built on a legacy.

Leata Goldie St. James was my great-grandmother, born October 25, 1918, in Sparta, Illinois. She came of age during the Great Depression, in an era when life demanded extraordinary strength and resilience, particularly for Black women.

And strength was something she never lacked.

She was elegance. She was class personified. A strong, independent woman who carried herself with dignity, stood firmly on her principles, and never compromised the values she believed in.

Goldie had a presence about her. She was a woman of confidence and grace, someone who naturally commanded attention. One of our family's favorite stories involves Sidney Poitier taking an interest in her while filming In the Heat of the Night in her hometown of Sparta, Illinois. It's a story passed down through our family that still brings a smile, and one that speaks to the elegance and personality of the woman we knew.

She had two children, my grandmother and my great-uncle, but her influence reached far beyond them. She helped raise my mother, my brother, and me. She was the matriarch of our family, the foundation that held generations together.

What I remember most wasn't just her strength. It was her mind, her character, and the standards she lived by.

Every day, she read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from cover to cover. She worked through the crossword puzzles, kept herself informed, and stayed connected to the world and the culture around her. Even in her later years, she remained sharp, curious, and aware of the changing times.

She never stopped learning, never stopped thinking, and never stopped being herself.

She taught us that class wasn't about what you owned. It was about how you carried yourself, how you treated people, and the principles you stood on.

She didn't bend. She didn't break. And she remained true to herself until the very end.

In her later years, she would often say something to me that I never forgot.

"Never forget me."

And I would always respond, "Grandmother, how could I ever forget you?"

At the time, it seemed like such a simple conversation. I couldn't imagine a world where I wouldn't remember the woman who had helped shape so much of my life.

On August 9, 2004, we lost our family's matriarch. But the lessons she taught us, the standards she established, and the values she passed down remained.

As the years went by, those words stayed with me.

"Never forget me."

And I haven't.

Remember Goldie Records is one of the ways I'm keeping that promise.

It's a tribute to the woman who helped raise generations of our family and an opportunity to carry forward the principles she lived by. Strength. Integrity. Independence. Dignity. Family. Class.

The music we create may reach people who never knew Leata Goldie St. James. But the values behind this label began with her.

Music is the vehicle. Legacy is the purpose.

Remember Goldie Records.

More than music. A legacy continued.