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StoryCorps In Kansas City — Forging A New Identity After Juvenile Incarceration

Ashley Raines and Vanessa Aricco talked about Raines' difficult upbringing at the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Kansas City.
StoryCorps
Ashley Raines and Vanessa Aricco talked about Raines' difficult upbringing at the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Kansas City.

StoryCorps' MobileBooth came to Kansas City to collect the stories and memories of residents. This is one in a series of stories KCUR has chosen to highlight.

Ashley Raines' childhood wasn't easy.

"I wouldn't classify it as entirely ugly or unfortunate or anything, but it was a struggle," Raines told his wife Vanessa Aricco.

He started running away from home around 14 years old, hitchhiking across the country. He ended up incarcerated in a juvenile correctional facility in Topeka after a prank, and it wasn't pretty — there was sexual assault and violence in the facility.

After getting out, Raines decided he had to make some major changes.

"The first thing I had to do was get as far away from everything that had defined me so I had an honest opportunity to start somewhere.," Raines said.

He knew he wanted to express himself as a songwriter and musician. But even outside of the correctional facility, things weren't simple. Raines spent time on the streets, busking for money.

"It was easy for me to go be hungry on a street corner and play a song to try to coax a buck out of somebody," Raines said. "It would be much harder for me to starve that part of me that needed to write and create to make a livable wage."

Now as an adult, Raines reflects on how the power of art shifted his perspective from the kid who got locked up to the musician and man he is today.

"I can see the places where art impacts a life," Raines said. "I'm not talking about making some big purchase of some Basquiat and sticking it in your mansion somewhere, I'm talking about ... seeing your dying father trying to sing along to a song that you wrote.

"It matters when you see a painting that causes you to think, 'Maybe people all over hurt and we should take care of one another.' These are good ideas to continue to have ... we're going to lose the people who can do it and do it really well if we don't take better care of them too."

Matthew Long-Middleton is a community producer for KCUR 89.3. Follow him on Twitter @MLMIndustries.

Cody Newill is an audience development specialist for KCUR 89.3. Follow him on Twitter @CodyNewill.

Copyright 2021 KCUR 89.3. To see more, visit KCUR 89.3.

Cody Newill was born and raised in Independence, Missouri, and attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cody won a Regional Edward R. Murrow award for his work curating kcur.org in 2017. But if you ask him, his true accomplishments lie in Twitter memes and using the term "Devil's lettuce" in a story.
Matthew has been involved in media since 2003. While hosting a show on his college radio station, he quickly realized the influence, intimacy and joys of radio. After graduating from Kenyon College he had a brief stint as a short-order cook in exotic Gambier, Ohio. He then joined Murray Street Productions as the marketing manager. At Murray Street he also conducted interviews, produced podcasts, wrote scripts for Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio, and made the office computers hum. In addition to working at Murray Street, Matthew has done freelance radio production and his work has been featured on Chicago Public Radio’s local news program Eight Forty-Eight. He has also worked as a marketing assistant at WBGO in Newark, NJ, where he helped to grow audience through placing advertisements, managing the station social media, improving the website, building email campaigns and doing in person promotion at jazz events throughout New York and New Jersey. Matthew has won several awards for radio production including a Gold and Silver from the Kansas City Press Club in 2017. You can find Matthew bicycling around the city and the globe.