Chaundrise very well lives up to her proclaimed charm. A true royalty, Chaundrise has the presence of a queen and commands attention like a true trend setter. Everything she does has a some sort of elegance to it, even if it's not intentional. She has a certain grace about her that makes her appear elite and unapproachable but once you get to know her, it's quite the opposite. She's a very a nonchalant individual with a unique sense of humor. She's sees the good in virtually everything and isn't one to give up on people, even if they've wronged her. She's incredibly forgiving, very easy to talk to, and isn't known to lash out at people.
Chaundrise is quite quick with the tongue, however. When she's up for it or when she's writing verses, she can spit straight fire. Her humor is also full of lots of banter. She typically makes jokes at the expense of others out of good fun and makes sure her jokes are never harmful . When she's angry or in a bad mood, her banter may get a bit darker than intended and she bites like a snake rather than like a mosquito. Sometimes, she comes off a little strong at first, but really that's just her passionate nature. She's very eccentric and outspoken so her hyperactivity is less of her being a dominating force and more of her just being an extroverted figure.
Despite her eccentrics, she's not typical a over the top cheerful, hyper type person. She's really calm and chill actually. A lot of the time, she goes with the flow and likes to see what the world will throw at her. Unless she's dead set on a goal, she's not incredibly stubborn and is willing to make compromises for pretty much anything. She's often the one that initiates compromises in a situation. She meditates avidly to keep herself in a calm and open-minded state, as well as clear her head.
Chaundrise has a very confident air around her that she maintains by just believing in herself overall. She's worked hard to build a very strong self-image of herself to prevent her from going to the dark place she had been in in her last two years of Ilvermorny. She's a very hard worker and when she's determined to do something, she almost always accomplishes it. She's not one to give up easily and is very persistent with her goals. She supports the uplifting of others and it's not in her nature to put other people down deliberately (unless it's banter). She has a lot of pride in her culture, where she comes from and the small things that make her up as a person. For one, she's founded in her religion and personally believes she has a strong relationship with God.
Big parts in her world include her music, fashion, and makeup. Music's always been a gigantic part in her life and while fashion and makeup have been recent things in her life that have become increasingly important to her, she still cherishes them a lot. Chaundrise has always been a lover, whether it be of animals, plants or people. She finds it difficult to hold grudges or get angry at people unless they really do deserve it, and even then finds it long to maintain this anger. She's a lover of children and animals and likes caring for things.
Footage of an African-American neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Camera swoops over the streets and shows children playing on the yard and neighbors talking to other neighbors. The camera stops on a small yellow house. Voice over begins.
Chaundrise: When you come from the hood, there were two talks your parents gave you. The Bird and the Bees and the Talk. Everybody knows what the Bird and Bees was, don't matter who your Momma or your Daddy were. White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, as long as you was a little kid growing up, you got the talk. Unless your parents forgot or you knew already.
The second talk was only given to a select number of kids. These was the kids who grew up fearing the people who said they were supposed to protect us. These was the kids who learned through their Momma and Daddy who learned from their Momma and Daddy what to do when the police pulled you over and started accusing you of sh*t you didn't do.
There's specific sh*t they tell you. When the cops pull you over, put your hands on the dashboard where they can see them. Cops get real nervous when they can't see our hands. Cops get real nervous in our neighborhood regardless. Answer all their questions. Don't ask questions. Don't argue with them. Follow their instructions. Basically, don't give them more of a reason to shoot you. And when I say more of a reason, I mean when you black and you living in our America, that's already a reason to get shot.
Interviewer: Can you take us back to where it began?
Chaundrise: Where what began?
Interviewer: Some people like to call it magic. [Interviewer chuckles] Most people call it love.
Chaundrise: Yeah, sure.
Chaundrise: My Momma and Daddy the sweetest couple you ever met. They met in college. And not one of them community colleges, they went to University. Lived the big life. They sat next to each other in a class and sparks flew. Who knew what would've happened if they hadn't sat right next to each other? I might not be here. They bantered a little, traded notes, got each other's numbers, texted, called, falled in love. And it was real love. Real, real love. The type of love that you would die for, you feel me?
Now my Momma came from an immigrant family. She was proud of heritage, proud of her family, proud of herself. She was just as Ghanaian as she was black. She's the one who taught me my voice, taught me to speak for more than one person to hear. She's the reason behind my middle name. When my parents named me, they put a little bit of their background into me too. Afia means Friday, the day I was born on. In Ghana, a lot of parents nickname their children by the day they were born on. Momma's was Kwabena. She was born on Tuesday.
She gave Daddy one too, Kwame. He was born on a Saturday, and Momma screams it from the rooftops. Or at least from the kitchen.
Daddy came from a hood in Detriot, treaded each day like it could be his last. Dabbled in drug dealing to save his sick Momma. But once he graduated, he was outta there. His sick Momma kicked his a** to Ohio, saying he needed to get an education and stop lumbering around in this beaten-up neighborhood. Daddy tells me the story all the time. Daddy promised he'd get a good job and move his sick Momma outta there, and he followed through on his promise and he did. I know because I saw Grandma everyday of my life that I lived in that small yellow house in Baltimore.
Now when I was growing up in Baltimore, I got the first talk when I was ten but I got the second talk when I was seven. Now Baltimore was bad, but not as bad as Detriot or Chicago. Even then, my Daddy was afraid to move into another hood. Times got tough and they needed a home for him, his newly-wed wife, his Momma, and his oncoming child. Moved into this small yellow house. I saw a lot of things in that small yellow house. Lived my whole life in the small yellow house. There were terrors and joy. Memories I could never forget. The good and the bad. Whether or not I liked it, that small yellow house was home.
Interviewer: Can you expand more on your childhood? Do you have any specific memories that you remember very clearly?
Chaundrise: [Rests her head on her fist for a few moments of silence] There's one that I remember really clear.
Interviewer: Mind filling us in?
Chaundrise: Nah, not at all. Lemme just gather my words. [Laughs] Okay, okay. So I was like what, six? Seven? Yeah, I was seven because I remember this happened right after my birthday. Actually no, no, this happened on my birthday. I went to a Muggle elementary school when I was little 'cause Daddy wasn't magical so he didn't know a lot about this stuff to really make any decisions on my education. Momma though, she wanted to get me a tutor, but it was too expensive for them to come here all the time so we settled for Muggle schooling for a while. At the time, I didn't know anything about magic, I was just that one girl who came to the playground with one of those fake magic wands with the stars on 'em and pretended I was a fairy.
To be honest, I still wake up a little disappointed to find out I'm a witch and not a fairy. Like, my childhood dream was to have wings. There's this old kids show called Winx Club, right? I watched that sh*t religiously. I never missed an episode. It ended in the 2010s I'm pretty sure. 2018, 2019. Before I was born, but when I found it, hoo boy that was and still is my favorite show. The transformations, the spells? Everything, loved it, wanted to live it. I was so close but I didn't have wings. To be honest, I learned wandless magic just so I could get closer to my dream of becoming a fairy.
Funny story, I convinced our personal outfit designer to add like wings to like all my performance outfits. Like there are conspiracies about all the butterfly clips and symbols on all my clothes. That's just because I was tryna be a fairy. One of my outfits actually had large, life-sized wings and when I came on stage, they charmed the wings to flutter when I came in singing because what was happening was, [Starts making gestures to portray the stage] I was standing on a floating platform that would move through the parted curtains. My favorite performance to date and I love doing that so much.
I promise this all has something to do with the memory. I'm not out here tryna waste y'all time like that ranting about my childhood dreams.
Interviewer: [Chuckles] Don't worry, that's fine. It was entertaining listening to it.
Chaundrise: [Places her hand on her chest bashfully] Well I'm glad it was.
Chaundrise: Okay so you see that? [Red circle around Little Chaundrise in the video]
Interviewer: Yes.
Chaundrise: Don't laugh. That's me.
Interviewer: [Interviewer smiles as the footage cuts to them talking again as they point to Little Chaundrise on their tablet.] You were so cute as a kid. Of course you grew into a beautiful young woman.
Chaundrise: Oh my gosh, stop. [Chaundrise laughs] You're making me blush. [Chaundrise fans her face]
Interviewer: [Laughs] Who recorded the video?
Chaundrise: Um... My Mom. I remember that day I specifically said to her "I want to dress up like a Love Fairy for my birthday", and she said she wanted to document my adventures as a Love Fairy that day. I pretty much went around pointing at couples and saying "I'm glad the spell worked, have a happy Valentine's Day" all day. Like if you skip further into the video, we're walking down the street and we see this elderly couple sitting on their porch, and I go up to the gate, point my wand and go, "Here's some Valentine's Day Magic". This is the really specific memory I was talking about earlier. When I say, "Here's some Valentine's Day Magic" something really cool happens. Like, play the video and you'll see.
Interviewer: You literally gave them Valentine's Day Magic.
Chaudnrise: I literally gave them Valentine's Day Magic. [Laughs] Luckily, they weren't muggles and they personally knew Momma really well but like I remember that so well. I thought I was a real fairy and told Momma I was gonna learn how to grow real wings and fly.
Interviewer: You were a unique child when you were younger.
Chaundrise: I think you mean weird. [Both laugh]
Interviewer: So you said you didn't know you had magic at that point in your life, right? [Chaundrise nods] You were seven? [Chaundrise nods again] Can you tell us a little bit about your teenage life? I heard you went to Ilvermorny. How was that?
Chaundrise: Yooo, Ilvermorny was a hoot. I've made some of my best memories there. Some of my best friends of from Ilvermorny and we still talk a lot, y'know? I got sorted into Thunderbird and that house was dope lemme tell you. Momma told me about it when I was ten because she was like you're old enough to know now. Daddy teased me and told me I was finally gonna be a fairy like I wanted. Fairy or not, finding out about magic was honestly one of the best things that happened to me. Lemme tell you, I was a champion at Quodpot. Like I could get the Quod down to the pot before you could even say "Go". I made a joke once when someone asked me how I was so fast. I told them it was because I got practice from running Momma when I stole food from the pantry.
We played Quidditch too sometimes, not as popular but still really fun. We had a dueling club too. It was pretty lit. I ran it for a year, for my last year at Ilvermorny actually. I didn't get to participate in the tournament because I was overseeing the whole thing but overall it was still fun to watch and cheer everyone on. People like to talk and say I was a star student and honestly, the only reason I'm even close to that is because my parents had a no A-tolerance policy. Anything lower than an A- as a final grade? Grounded, phone privileges taken away. They were real serious about me graduating. I love them for that now but in the moment, I kinda wanted to slap them sometimes. [Crosses her arms over her face and laughs] Don't kill me Momma.
Like I would stress over B+ while other kids are tryna get to a B+. Of course, Wizarding World had some weird a** grading system so I got someone to translate my grades into American muggle format so I knew if I was doing well. Graduated two years ago. Proud member of Class 2037. I have my robes framed and everything to be honest. You know how I said I learned wandless magic? I started teaching myself in fifth year and then got a teacher to help me. They were always my favorite teacher but honestly that just made them a thousand times better in my book.
Interviewer: How did Ilvermorny shape you as a perosn?
Chaundrise: Personally I think it brought me more out of my bubble. Like when I was younger, I was more shy but by my last year I was really really outspoken and extroverted. It got me involved in stuff more. Helped me discover my interests. I probably wouldn't have pursued music as a career if it hadn't been for some of my friends and classmates.
Interviewer: Speaking of your talents, were they fostered from a young age?
Chaundrise: Oh, definitely. Momma said I was a musical child, y'know? Like I was making full-blown musicals in the living room with my dolls. Sitting in front of the television acting out scenes with Barbie dolls and unicorns with full-fledged dance numbers and original songs. Daddy even recorded me one time.
Interviewer: You took wild imagination to a whole different level as a kid, didn't you?
Chaundrise: I mean, you could say that. There was a drama center near my house and when I was old enough, during the summer, Momma would let me audition for plays and musicals. I got some really big parts. We did Grease one year and I was Sandy. Another year we did Le Mis, and I was Cosette. We even did Heathers, and I got to be Veronica. We Midsummer's Night and I got to be Hermia 'cause I was so short. The script was hard to read at first but I added kind of a hood twist to Hermia's character and it turned out really funny and entertaining.
Interviewer: Speaking of drama, we heard you're going to be staring in an upcoming film? Do you wanna talk about that?
Chaundrise: Okay so Cliff-Jumping is my first like big, big film. Because I've done small stuff before but I never had the courage to really audition for those lead roles.
Chaundrise: So when I was auditioning for Princess I was pretty much just thinking about my childhood because like in a sense, Princess was me but with a different outcome. Like Princess has big dreams but her problem is she can't keep her mouth shut. Like she wants to become a singer, but no one wants to pick her up on their label because she always jumping to conclusions and talking sh*t about people hence the movie name, Cliff-Jumping. I did that a lot. Not the talking sh*t part but the jumping to conclusions thing. So to think Princess, I had to think me but with a nastier, grittier side. Someone's who's really not afraid to speak her mind. Someone the industry is really afraid of.
Interviewer: Sounds exciting. Is there any one particular thing that if you didn't have in your childhood, you wouldn't be the same person you were today?
Chaundrise: For a second, I thought this would be something I had to think about and then stuff just came to my head. For once, I definitely wouldn't be the person I am now if it wasn't for my love of music and drama. If I hadn't become so interested in music when I was younger, I wouldn't be talking to you right now, performing all over the world with some of the sweetest girls in the world. I also wouldn't be me without my love of just people. Like, I love everyone. I've always been a type of person who couldn't just blatantly hate someone. I just love and I want to share that love.
A big part of my identity right now is my religion and surprisingly my sexuality. People are really conflicted about the LGBTQ+ community living in peace with Christians and other Judo-Era religions. The thing is, I'm bisexual and a faithful Christian. If the God I believe would really condemn me for loving people, then there is no living God. That's the facts. God preaches love, equality, kindness, honesty, and everything good. For a being with such wisdom to be against something like that doesn't make any sense.
I went to church everyday of my life. When I was at Ilvermorny, I spent my morning studying scriptures. My friends would ask me while I was still in bed at 11 A.M. and I'd tell them I was studying and that was the end of it. Whether or not you think the Bible is fake, you have to admit it's a very complex book. You can't just read it in one go and think you understand everything that's going on. You just can't. That book was really important to me and got me through so many tough times. I definitely wouldn't be the same person without my religion. I was in a really dark place in my later teen years and almost committed suicide. If it wasn't for my friends, my family, and my religion, I most certainly wouldn't be here.
Earlier, I said I like loving people. I can't hate people. It's just not in my nature. Like, I can get angry at you. I'll call you a b*tch if you really deserve it, but I'm not gonna hold a grudge against you. I just can't. If you're an a** and you're not good for me personally, I will distance myself from you, but I'm not gonna hate you. I kind of found my bisexuality through that. I got a crush on this girl when I was fourteen and she was so shocked when I told her and I was like, "why?" and the girl explained that she thought I didn't like her because I gave her dirty looks.
Then I had to explain I had a resting bitch face and I was really swooning. That was the most awkward moment of my life but like it exposed me to my true sexuality so y'know the experience overall was good. It was really funny too because the girl I liked had gotten in a really big fight with me two years ago. Funny how my one-time enemy became my first girlfriend. My Momma was the type of person who loved everyone too so when I told her I didn't know what to think. Like I was shaking and crying because I came back from Ilvermorny after a break-up with my first girlfriend and Momma asked me what was wrong and I was like in my head, "I have to be honest with her" so I told her and I still don't regret it to this day.
It was rocky for a little while but overall it made our relationship really strong. She became a really strong supporter for me. I got a girlfriend over the summer and when some old folks asked about it, Momma was always there to knock 'em on the heads and tell 'em to grow up. She told Daddy for me because I was too scared to. Now Daddy wasn't as religious as Momma so when he saw Momma was okay with it, he was super okay with it too. I don't think I'd have the same connections with my parents if it wasn't for my coming out even if it was really stressful at the time.
Interviewer: That sounds heavy, being wedged in between two worlds that seemed to be pitted against each other.
Chaundrise: It was for a little while but I think overall it strengthened my trust with my family and with God.
Interviewer: Okay, so I have a couple more questions.
Chaundrise: Shoot.
Interviewer: [Gestures to Chaundrise's outfit] Where do you get your sense of style?
Chaundrise: Lemme tell you a secret. [Gestures for Interviewer to get closer and the Interviewer scoots their chair towards them] I have no idea.
Interviewer: [Laughs] What do you mean?
Chaundrise: I honestly, I have no idea. Like when I was little I dressed myself in the most trash outfits ever. Nothing matched. From my socks to the ribbons in my hair. They just didn't. The only reason I know how to do makeup is from one of my ex-boyfriends who was like really intensely into makeup and he taught me some stuff and I expanded from that. The rest just kind of came with me over the years. I think the older I got, the more my style developed.
Interviewer: Well I wanted to tell you your outfit is really cute today.
Chaundrise: Thank you. Costume crew picked it out for me. [Laughs]
Interviewer: What I've noticed over the course of this interview you have a very outward sense of humor.
Chaundrise: Yeah, I've been told that a lot but I'm not actually that funny. I just laugh at everything. Like I lowkey laugh at the stupidest sh*t.
Interviewer: I think that makes you more approachable.
Chaundrise: I'm glad you think so.
Interviewer: Well Chaundrise, it was nice interviewing you. I hope your new film does well in the Box Office and we here at Elven Studios will be greatly cheering on Charm Girls' upcoming studio album.
Chaundrise: It was nice talking with you. With such a busy schedule for the debut, I was glad to get some time to really talk about me.
Full Name Chaundrise Afia Owusu
Nickname Chaunny, Afia
Birthday February 14th
Age 20
Nationality American
Ethnicity Ghanaian-American
Home Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Status Single
Sexuality Bisexual
Location
Gender Female
Year/Occupation Girl Group Member
House Thunderbird Alumni
Species Witch
Family Blood Half-Blood
Wand Core Phoenix Feather
Wand Wood Yew
Wand Arm Right
Boggart
Patronus Dove
Model Nyane Lebajoa
Eye Color Brown
Hair Color Black
Height 5"2
Distinguishing Marks Freckles
Disorders None
Mental State Stable
Mother Ailith Abenaa Owusu
Father Jayzel Harris
Full Siblings None
Half Siblings None
Other Kataya Harris (Grandmother)
Favorite Color Pink
Favorite Music Genre R&B and Hip-Hop
Favorite Food Corn Dogs
Favorite Animal Pomeranian Dogs
Favorite Book Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Favorite Drink Sweet Tea
Favorite Song Countdown by Beyonce
Favorite Movie Pitch Perfect
Favorite Sweets Jelly Beans
Quirks
Talents Singing, Rapping
Skills Dancing, Gymnastics
Languages English
- Chaundrise
- Afia - Friday
- Owusu -
- She loves kids, when she starts a family she wants to have at least four
- She loves small fluffy dogs and wants a Pomeranian
- She plans to name it Starlight
- Her favorite rappers are Tupac, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliot, and Macklemore
- She knows the lyrics to virtually any Beyonce song
- She can do wandless magic
