RAÍCES ROOTS MUSIC SERIES

[0:11] Nicole Wines: So, my name is Nicole Wines and it is Monday April 17th. I am in Highland Park, New Jersey. And I am here to welcome Amikaeyla Gaston to… for an oral history interview and thank her for joining us today…

[0:26] Amikaeyla Gaston: Mhm.

[0:27] Nicole: … and sharing her story about her work in the arts. This is part of the Raíces Roots Music Oral History Collection, the sub-collection Women in Culture Series. Ami, could you please introduce yourself and describe the folkloric and artistic forms that you practice?

[0:46] Amikaeyla: Oh, thank you so much. First of all can I just say it’s such an honor to be here. What a great series and something that I am very excited to see and hear about all the artists and especially women artists that you have interviewed. My name is Amikaeyla and I have been studying music since I was in utero. My mom is a classical pianist. My father is a drummer and a trombonist and a French horn player and a bass player and all the things. But specifically player. And so when I was growing up, you know, there was music everywhere and all the time and constantly and my family is from the south and so we would play games like handbone. I don’t know Nicole, have you heard of handbone before?

[1:37] Nicole: No.

[1:38] Amikaeyla: It’s a hand rhythm game and you make up rhymes. It’s like a round-robin game. And we would play this game to get out of doing the dishes. So if you made the best rhyme, then you didn’t have to do the dishes. So it goes like this… [singing: handbone, handbone, have you heard? Mama’s gonna buy me a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy me a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring don’t shine, Mama’s gonna buy me a fifth of wine. And if that fifth of wine get broke, Lord Mama’s gonna buy me a billy goat. Lord, if that billy goat don’t run, Mama’s gonna buy me a BB gun. And if that BB gun don’t shoot, Mama’s gonna buy me a swimming suit. Lord, and if some water get on me, Mama’s gonna whip my b-u-t-t. Handbone! Handbone!]… anyway you do that and you have this structure where you have… it’s a rhyming structure from aa to gg where each line rhymes with itself and then you switch it around and anyway… la di da di da all of that to say is that it’s been in my DNA. Baked into my internal milieu always want to drum and to sing and to create rhymes and to be a part of how art not only feeds culture but reflects culture and represents our ancestral history and herstory that drives who we be to this day. And I think it’s… to me it’s the spice of life honey. It’s what makes me get up. It’s what drives me and fuels me, makes me happy. Feeds my fire and I just love it and wanna sing all the time. Like you know, I always in the middle of a meeting… I’ll break out into a song and it makes everybody smile so why not sing all the time, honey? That’s what I think. [laughs]

[3:36] Nicole: By all means answer any of the following questions in song.

[3:40] Amikaeyla: In song… okay fantastic. [laughs]

[3:43] Nicole: It’ll be a first for our oral history collection, but it will probably be the superstar…

[3:52] Amikaeyla:…sing our oral history [laughs]

[3:55] Nicole: What are the main forms of folkloric arts that you’re practicing right now?

[4:01] Amikaeyla: Hm… well… Yes, thank you so much. It’s been really amazing. Uh, for the past I would say maybe twenty five years I’ve been studying right behind me… I don’t know if you see the batá that’s there? Studying the Afro-Caribbean Lukumi traditions of the Yoruba people and really looking at how it has… through you know the Transatlantic slave trade and by being a very diasporic tradition how it’s moved from Africa to Brazil to Cuba to Haiti to all the different places. To Puerto Rico and morphed religiously and spiritually and musically and linguistically and food and the different orishas and I’m sure you’ve talked about all these things with other folklorists and traditionalists and other artists. But there’s something so profound when you weave together truly all the elements of culture, right. You have the music that goes with the food that goes with the drum that goes with the prayer that goes with the, you know, particular natural element that you’re praying to, you know. You pray to fresh water. You’re praying and singing and doing these things. You praying to salt water, you’re praying and singing and doing these things. And there’s something so um, full and profound to me in the weaving of not just the patakies and stories and fables but how it is applicable to life. And I was raised, you know, Catholic. And I went to school with the nuns like really did the whole thing. So, that kind of um patterning of life and spirituality is something that I always wanted more comprehensive immersion into. Not just on this day we do this and on this day we do that. You know it was much more like how do we weave this into our lives? Make it into how we move everyday. So it’s been really great to be studying particularly the songs, the singing. All the different songs for the orisha, all the rhythms that go with it. All the different dances that go with it, honey. It’s very very comprehensive and so it’s been really a thrill to do that. Cause you know I’ve been in every band ever. I was in a Celtic band, I was in a rock band, I was in a West African band, I was in a… listen you name it I’ve been in that kind of band. And still in those kinds of bands honestly. But I’ve really been playing a lot with, with and touring professionally as a jazz singer and doing a lot of stuff on Broadway and off Broadway. I have a program that I do as a cultural arts ambassador with the state department called Broadway Bound with a colleague of mine. He’s the cultural ambassador of dance and I’m the cultural ambassador of music and we go to these different places around the world. We actually just came back from Thailand where we put on different productions where we talk about art as diplomacy and using art and advocacy in a way to use music and dance and spoken word to kind of help unlock people who have been paralyzed by the trauma of war. And so I work a lot with refugee populations and different folk who have gone through things and right now I’ve done a lot of work actually in Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa with young girls who are on the water trail and so my newest project is called Women Carry Water. We’re making a docu-series, um where we will be talking to not just artist who sing to the water and talk about the water, but really looking at folk of color who have been raised by the waters very much so weaved into our um, traditions, our stories, our history, and her story and how by privatization of large corporations and purchasing all the water shores and the beaches and you have to be a member of the such and such of this to get to water. The effect that it’s having on us not just physically because we can’t access water, but also emotionally and spiritually not being able to get the water. Um, and how we care for water and how we that’s so a part of our reflection of how we care for mother earth and how we care for our women and children. How we’re viewed as anonymous, disposable you know. The bounty of us is um misleading. There’s the thought that we can just be kinda used and abused and taken advantage of but we all know that if the water goes sister love, that’s the end of everything. So, it’s the same with… we need to honor our women and children. In particular our young girls of color. Yeah. It’s um it’s very important and I think that music is the strongest way to relay those messages. And music with singing and drumming in particular. And music with singing and drumming that has a ploy-rhythmic element to it that allows for almost a trans-like state to be induced. This is what I’ve been really fueled by. So that you can receive messages that you don’t even necessarily know that you’re receiving. It isn’t so much so, like you know, very linear. It’s pulling in the spiral and pulling in the um next level connectivity to things that are hurtful. How to crack through those places and allow and unblock um flow to happen again. I can be very verbose. I’m sorry [laughs].

[10:10] Nicole: Oh that is nothing to be sorry about. You already answered a few of the questions.

[10:14] Amikaeyla: Okay, fantastic.

[10:17] Nicole: Everything that you’ve said resonates. I think that especially the way in the very beginning when you mention the connection between the music, the dance, the drum, the prayer, the food, every aspect of culture…

[10:529] Amikaeyla:Yes

[10:29] Nicole: the natural world.

[10:32] Amikaeyla: Yes!

[10:33] Nicole: Yes.

[10:33] Amikaeyla: Light!

[10:35] Nicole: Well that is culture, right?

[10:37] Amikaeyla: Yeah! Exactly! [laughs]

[10:40] Nicole: So I think that always struck me about these forms are that they are all living cultures so even though we…

[10:46] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[10:46] Nicole: …call them folklore and we call them traditional arts they’re also living arts. They always change… they’re still morphing.

[10:56] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[10:57] Nicole: At the same time honoring the… what’s come before and I like that…

[11:01] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[11:02] Nicole: …you mention you play all different kinds of music and that you continue… you have and that you continue to…

[11:07] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[11:08] Nicole: …that you’ve always been connected so that’s the answer to our question about your trajectory from being…

[11:13] Amikaeyla: Oh…[laughs]

[11:16] Nicole: …But what I would like to know what made you choose to pursue it as your life? As what is…as what you do everyday?

[11:30] Amikaeyla: Yes… Thank you for asking. You know, it’s such… I love the way that you said living arts. It is that. It’s so that and I think the more we say it like that the more we realize that it is our everyday, every moment right to have access to this kind of way of being. And I think that because music has become so commodified and commercialized and, you know, it has to sound a certain way to sell a certain number of units in order for you to make a living doing it. It has shaped the way music is now and it’s… I’m finding it very challenging to connect with music now because if you listen to “pop culture music” or what’s on the radio. I don’t… it doesn’t speak to me at all. In any way. Some pieces might, but it’s very few and far between. I’ve been grateful to the fact that I have a, you know, a you know plethora of options of music to listen to and can vibe with. But I do think that it is really important to remember that it is living and ever changing and that we need to kind of not be um, caught up in the game of needing to make it. And by making it be make it by making money at it. Um, and so I think that that really does affect how I chose to do this as my life path. Like so I was honey I worked really hard. Both my parents were doctors and so that was the trajectory. You could be a businessman, you could be a lawyer, or you could be a doctor. Those were the only options that I was told as a child. Um, and my parents were like, “You could be a singing doctor. You could be a doctor during the week and then on the weekend you can go sing at a club.” And so for a while I really did think that was the only option. I never saw anyone doing music that was… Unless they were a mega superstar. The kind of music that I wanted to do. Much more underground jazz rough musician. They were struggling. They were not able to have a meaningful life because, you know, money and greed and politics are all woven into music. Which is, it needs to get untangled. All that to say is that when I was in medical school it was like the first break before like we really sunk into medical school. I had a couple of weeks and I was like alright I’m going to go and get my music on. I’m gonna just be a part of all the music that I can get my hands on before I have to cut music out of my life completely which was so devastating to me. It was really hard to think about having to choose. Because it’s just time. When you’re in medical school there’s no time. So I went off to this big music festival and I was waiting to go into the big music festival and it was really hot outside and it was a long line and the front gates hadn’t opened. So there was this beautiful field of purple flowers and I was like, “Oh I’m going to get out of this hot car and I’m going to go sit in this beautiful field of purple flowers and kind of just wait.” Now there were people on the other side of the road in another field playing frisbee and you know people were kind of just kind of out of their cars waiting to go in. And then all of a sudden I heard people screaming and I looked up and I was like, “What’s going on?” I don’t really know how to play frisbee. So I didn’t understand if maybe they had made a goal in playing frisbee. I don’t know! I don’t know what is happening! Then I saw they were all kind of looking at me and I turned around to see what’s behind me and wham! I got hit by this truck. This big white truck filled with five white men who were on a killing spree and they were committing all these hate crimes where they were doing a hit and run on black women. And so I was that day’s black woman and I was sitting in this field of flowers and they dragged me 86 feet on the gravel road and I got lodged behind the rear wheel and I died and came back. It’s a whole long story, but all of that to say is that when I was in the hospital healing from this massive… I mean I could only move these two fingers. Everything was broken and crushed and burned. The only thing that helped was music. That’s the only thing that I could… more than any drug. They talk about third degree burns being so hard with the respect to pain .. There’s no drug that could quail the pain go through the debilitating process where they scrape all your nerves and your skin and all this stuff. And so anyway the only thing that worked was music and so I had to have it playing all day and all night. And it was either orisha music or it was, you know, very sacred harmonic music, but it wasn’t like “Baby give me your phone number,” it was none of that. It was very much so out of body ethereal music that helped me rise out of this crushing pain that I had constantly. And that’s when I knew there was an element that needed to be unlocked there that wasn’t being called to the surface with the respect of just traditional medicine and we’ve gotten much more into you know music healing practices now. But when I first started on this journey in this trajectory really diving into music as medicine it was like me and one other person talking about. And you know it was very intriguing to hear people. You know they started doing more studies around it. Joseph Campbell was doing his whole Mozart Effect with the children and looking at different ways that music and you know my critique of that was that it was just very Euro-based and it was like classical music is the only music that makes your baby smart. Um they weren’t really studying other types of music so I really started looking deeply and heavily at the batá quite honestly. And how these highly percussive and very intricate rhythmic patterns can cause almost a level of dissociation where you see people and they… its very intended effect for people to get the spirit. Get the Holy Spirit. You hear people talking about that all the time. Southern Baptist churches when the energy is so strong. It causes you to rise up out of this physical experience and tap into this ethereal experience. And what you receive either message wise or music wise or healing wise it was all a way that I found that my spirit was able to connect with something bigger and the ephemera into the miasma of life the vortex of spirit. And, that’s what put me on this path and in this journey. And then right after that after I healed from all of that I was in the hospital for years and came out the Dalai Lama sent me an email that was like, “Don’t you want to come sing for me?” And I was like, “Yeah,” so when I talked to the Dalai Lama about this. He was like, “You have to go spread this message of music and healing all over the world.” And I was like, “Okay.” I have been dubbed by the Dalai Lama to have a purpose to go out into the world. No, I’m just kidding. It wasn’t exactly a dubbing of… I knight thee whatever, but it was definitely a recognition that there were other paths and other trajectories that my passion was pulling me to that I couldn’t shake and so I started doing this. I set up the International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute and started doing a lot of work as a cultural arts ambassador going out partnering with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees and Interactions International and different organizations around the world bringing together artists and healers and different people. Um that were in acknowledgement in the recognition that there needed to be a closer um, practice of healing and medicine. Sorry, healing and music in that way. And so it was more than just music, it was the arts, it was dance. You know, spoken word. It was all forms of authentic voice and expression. So that’s what I’ve been kind of doing for the past… years [laughs].

[20:36] Nicole: That is quite a story! And it sounds less like a choice and of a… there was an option and the option was to heal and the path came through the music.

[20:51] Amikaeyla: Yes, that’s right. That is exactly it.

[20:54] Nicole: That’s what I got from your herstory.

[20:56] Amikaeyla: [laughs] yes, that was my herstory.

[21:00] Nicole: I was also glad you used that term. We use that term a lot here. Histories and herstories.

[21:05] Amikaeyla: Oh great! Yay!

[21:07] Nicole: Our director Francisco and my co-founder. Um, I think you met him briefly?

[21:13] Amikaeyla: I have! Yes!

[21:14] Nicole: It’s one of his favorite terms to use when we talk about our community history work.

[21:20] Amikaeyla: Nice.

[21:21] Nicole: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. That’s very deep.

[21:27] Amikaeyla: Mmm. Yeah it is actually. It is very deep.

[21:34] Nicole: You also mentioned… You’ve mentioned drumming. You’ve mentioned singing.

[21:40] Amikaeyla: Yeah.

[20:41] Nicole: You mentioned dancing…

[21:42] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[21:43] Nicole: What do you… Do you define yourself with specific labels like singer, dancer, drummer or do you generally define yourself as an artist or a performer or… what is the term you use?

[21:59] Amikaeyla: That is such a good question…

[21:59] Nicole: …to describe yourself?

[21:01] Amikaeyla: You know it’s so funny. There was a whole movement that’s kind of gone by the way of all things. Hallelujah. Where they were like, don’t put too many labels on yourself. You can’t be a this or a this. Don’t give anyone a business card and that has lots of things that you do underneath it cause then you look like a charlatan. You look like somebody’s whose a jack of all trades ace of none. Let’s see… I just… I usually use like singer songwriter but that also has a certain connotation that doesn’t embrace all the things that I do. I love playing loads of instruments so I play the piano, the flute, the viola, you know, the dulcimer, the blah blah blah blah blah…. All the things. And really love to play the chambe so much and the batá. So, you know, instead of saying I’m a multi instrumentalist I’m just like… if it’s musical and I can hit it I’m on it [laughs]. If I can pluck it or smack it… [laughs].

[23:09] Nicole: And they can’t really be disconnected from one another. There’s…

[23:12] Amikaeyla: No.

[23:13] Nicole: …There’s something especially in the forms of art that you’re speaking about, especially in those African traditional forms and that Afro-Cuban and the Afro-Puerto Rican, the Caribbean, African, West African… you don’t separate the dance from the drumming from the singing.

[23:31] Amikaeyla: That’s right.

[23:32] Nicole: Or else you don’t actually have the form.

[23:35] Amikaeyla: That’s right! That’s exactly… and you’re not fully embodied right? It’s just like if you dissect which is such a Western construct, right? Let’s slice it open and look at just this part and this part. And if you don’t… you can slice it open and dissect and learn, but then put it all back together so that it’s a whole concept. So that really full experience of going to a bembe and seeing the drums and the dance and the prayers and the singing and the shaking it and the clave and the dress and the beads and everything has meaning. Everything! Down to how many red beads and how many black beads. Everything. The numbers, the food, the herbs, the everything. That complexity is so thrilling and so full and rich and complete. I would hear these people that would say, “Oh I’m just a student,” and they had had fifty, sixty years being made as priest or priestess. I’m like, “How you still be a student?” If you’re still a student and you’ve been doing this for fifty years. Is there ever mastery? And the answer is why would you try to be a master when you could always be, you know, a humble student. Always learning. Always growing. Always sharing. Again another construct to embrace and not take on the master slave dominate over. Yeah.

[25:24] Nicole: Thank you for sharing that.

[25:27] Amikaeyla: You’re so nice and calm. You’re like “Thank you for sharing,” and I’m like “blah blah blah,” [laughs].

[25:32] Nicole: It’s true. It’s true. I think what you’re talking about are different perspectives. Different ways of framing the way that art is done. You’ve mentioned a few different things from looking at it as making a living instead of making a life.

[25:51] Amikaeyla: Ooh!

[25:53] Nicole: You didn’t say…

[25:54] Amikaeyla: Yes!

[25:54] Nicole: it in those words, but that’s what…

[25:55] Amikaeyla: You did! You said that! But you dropped it into a nice t-shirt form. That’s a t-shirt baby.

[26:02] Nicole: Go for it. Do it! [laughs] I would like one.

[26:07] Amikaeyla: All you boo. That’s all you. [laughs]

[26:11] Nicole: And then… and what you just said. Not, you know, not separating. Not being able to dissect it into these little pieces but seeing it as its whole. And then that final statement about the…um, being a master versus a lifelong student versus like you can be a teacher and share.

[26:30] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[26:31] Nicole: Right. You said sharing and that’s really important too because learning and sharing it’s a give and a take. And I think…

[26:38] Amikaeyla: That’s right.

[26:39] Nicole: …we are always learning from each other.

[26:42] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[26:43] Nicole: And I think..

[26:44] Amikaeyla: And it’s way more fun. And organic and like ever growing and changing as opposed to just like,“I’m teacher. I have to have all the answers,” you know. That’s a jail cell for everybody.

[26:56] Nicole:…. – teachers though who.

[26:58] Amikaeyla: Yeah.

[26:59] Nicole: How do you learn from? Who do you consider your teacher and inspirations in your artforms?

[27:07] Amikaeyla: [laughs] That list is so long and deliciously beautiful. God. Lázaro Pedroso, Amelia … good lord… let’s see um Carolyn Brandy, my mama. Oh my word. Good grief… John Santos. Oh my God. Bobi Céspedes, are you kidding? Like the list… I could really go… Linda Tiller. I honestly could go… then you’ve got all the greats like you know, of course there’s always Ella and there’s always Sarah and there’s always Billie and there’s always these fantastic vocalists um, Amy Winehouse, girlfriend. She teaches me all the time. I listen to her. I’m like, “Oh listen to that riff,” you know there are ways that people are teaching us and they aren’t physically in the room we’re still… for me I embrace um the, forever juicy brain. I want it to fill… tell me and I want to see it and learn from it and incorporate it into all of the ways that I go back out into the world and share and teach like you are describing. Um, yeah that’s all I got at the top of my head for teachers at the moment. But you know I still remember with deep love and admiration my teacher teacher in the 3rd grade Mrs. Reese… and how she… you know it was back in the beautiful 60’s and 70’s. She brought her guitar to class everyday and we sang “If I Had a Hammer” like all the freedom songs and all the marching songs for protests that was my childhood training. That was where I cut my teeth on those and that was again everybody. She was a great teacher. She taught us Sweet Honey in the Rock. We sang you know what I mean? They’re everywhere. Everywhere. My mother, my father, my grandmothers… and like everybody’s a teacher [laughs]. I learn from everybody. That’s the bottom line. But yeah I’d like to call those folks out especially my momma and my poppa, forreal.

[29:31] Nicole: That’s a beautiful perspective.

[29:33] Amikaeyla: [laughs]

[29:35] Nicole: Um, can you tell me about one artistic, um, achievement of yours that you are especially proud of?

[29:44] Amikaeyla: Oh, wow. One artistic achievement… jiminy crickets. Let’s see… [laughs] Well um, my last album was pretty fly. It had Shira E and Esperanza Spalding on it and a lot of fierce players. Glenn Veness. Again the list is long. What I loved the most about it was I really wanted to take on the challenge of taking all different kinds of music and weaving a story onto a CD where each song had a moment and meaning. And that’s the one thing that I do miss with, you know, current Apple Music and whatever where you can just pick song… the songs aren’t connected like they were when I was growing up with albums, um, listen, pre-CD. I’m so old I remember HR tapes baby. So [laughs] but the flow of the music was just as much a part of the story and the immersive experience as the songs themselves. So, I really tried to harken back to that in my last CD and it was really fun to work with these really stellar musicians who also were excited by that concept and that notion. And so, the album is called Being in Love and all the songs or all the different moments of being in love. So we do “Midnight Sun” from Ella Fitzgerald and we do “Being in Love” to songs that I wrote. Like there’s a song that I wrote specifically it’s called “Abre Mi Corazon” and it’s all about the language of love and opening up your heart to how the birds sing about it and the bees you know kind of that vibration, um but it’s a love song and uh, yeah. I kind of wrote it to all of my teachers that I really kind of love and um, did it in an Afro-Peruvian style. Um, and it’s just groovy. I liked doing it and I really like kind of the synchronization that happens between different cultures and different musical styles. So you know, Afro-plus [laughs]. Afro-x baby.

[32:20] Nicole: Do you have a link to where people will… can get the album.

[32:24] Amikaeyla: I can send you, yeah.

[32:25] Nicole: So that I can share it. Okay, great. We’ll put it together on the interview page.

[32:30] Amikaeyla: Great! Thanks.

[32:34] Nicole: Make sure that… anyone watching make sure you look below the video…

[32:35] Amikaeyla: Yes.

[32:36] Nicole: … because they will be a link [laughs]. Um, I’d like to ask you about being a woman in the arts.

[32:44] Amikaeyla: Ooh.

[32:47] Nicole: It’s a Women in Culture series right? So, I feel like you already have an answer…something to share.

[32:54] Amikaeyla: Yes, there’s so much to share. You know. I remember when I first wanted to study the batá. Way back in 1992. The first thing out of their mouth was, “Women don’t play that drum.” And I was like, “Oh. I’m really gonna play that drum now.” Now… you tell me.. Exactly like okay.

[33:18] Nicole: I have one of the same reasons for wanting to play that drum being told I can’t.

[33:23] Amikaeyla: Being told I can’t.

[33:25] Nicole: After feeling the connection to it. Not because I was…

[33:29] Amikaeyla: Exactly! Not out of spite or retribution.

[32:32] Nicole: Nope but it felt like…

[33:34] Amikaeyla: It drove me. Exactly.

[33:36] Nicole: It’s something to study.

[33:38] Amikaeyla: That’s exactly right. Oh, I absolutely have to find a teacher and I traveled. You know, I was in D.C. and New York. I was going all over the place. And they were like no, no, no, no, no. Hearing all kinds of reasons like, “Oh your menstrual blood is too strong for the skin and it’ll crack,” and like… all things where you’re like okay… [laughs] I really do firmly believe that there is a reason why my passion, like you just described, to learn and understand this music goes beyond being… cause they were like, “You sing great go be an …That’s on the list and [laughs] and that does not, you know, take away my desire to also sing and play at the same time. Which also was supposed to be unheard of. So anyway to make a long story short, years and years went by and I was really so frustrated and I was trying to listen and do it by myself, but it’s so complex you can’t do that. With a piano you can kind of listen. You can kind of break down where the left hand is and where the right hand is. Any other instrument but not batá because it is concerto. It’s a concert of three drums so I was really feeling so frustrated, lost, and confused and finally one of my friends who is a batá player he would let me kind of come and sneak and watch their rehearsals. But still not play, but I was allowed to watch and take notes and try and sneak. Try and sneak to play the drum. Isn’t that super deep? Anyways he was like, “You need to meet Carolyn Brandy and she’ll teach you. She’s a female bata drummer and she’s in California.” And I was like how? And this was before the internet children! This is before you could just google somebody and find out where they were.This was like a get the phone book type of situation. And I was like that’s like telling me to go find Santa Claus. I don’t know how to find Carolyn Brandy. I have zero way of know[ing]… Unless I hire a private investigator. And I just happened to be out in California and I just happened to be asked to sing a song at a friend’s birthday party and I started singing [singing] and I hear behind me [singing] and I was like what? They introduced me and she was like, “Hi I’m Carolyn Brandy.” I like… I like lost it. Everyone was like what is wrong with this stranger coming from the East Coast? I lost it. I was like, “You don’t understand how I’ve been searching for you for almost ten years,” and can you imagine hearing that and being like this child is crazy but it’s because of that. It’s because I was a woman I was entering into a “male dominated” arena. You know the drums are even still now, trap drums are, you know, very… Cindy Blackmen Santana is, you know, few and far between. She’s one of the, you know, pioneers for women trap drummers to become really famous. It’s amazing how it’s still kind of women and drums aren’t allowed to play together. And we do we do so well. We do so well together [laughs] and so it really is something in me to encourage young girls to drum. We gon’ get every young girl I see on all my travels everywhere I’m like, “Do you have a drum? Have you ever played the drum, would you like to play a drum? Let’s drum. Let’s go.” Right? The power the [grunts] that happens is so magically delicious to watch them transform when they feel that suddenly like they can be loud. They can be seen. They can dominate space like they can … is… it’s the secret sauce… [laughs]. And so as a woman and as an artist in the field I’ve taken it on as my personal charge. Like oh yes we will be drumming [laughs]. We will be and all the little girls get to come up front. Let’s go. And they get to play first. Yep. Yep. We’re going to do a little bit of that reverse stuff for a second here yall. So you can just work it out and then we will go from there. And we’ll re-equilibrate but first it’s who hasn’t been at the drum. Like you said, under told and untold stories are of primary importance.

[38:19] Nicole: That’s true. So I have another word question. Do you consider yourself a traditional artist? And also if you do in what… or if you don’t… in what ways do you consider yourself breaking with tradition? You just mentioned something very big but not breaking with tradition in a bad way, but pushing it to evolve and become more inclusive.

[38:45] Amikaeyla: Yes. Um, so I will qualify and say that the word tradition has a little bit of a connotation for me. I try and go with ancestral. Um, [laughs] I definitely love knowing ancestral origins of music and songs and then I love, you know, organic manifestation and creation. I want to create from there. Have sprouts from there. I want to be able to honor it and then flip it. I want to be able to enjoy it, create it, and then add to it my own voice. Which is another reason why a lot of times people are like “oh jazz…,” you know. If jazz just stayed in this kind of antiquated place or classical music and no one grew from it or was inspired to create from it would be a non-living art like you say. What makes it living is “breaking it” or like you said growing from it or shifting from it. So I do like to um, do the both and.

[40:02] Nicole: I like that.

[40:03] Amikaeyla: [laughs]

[40:04] Nicole: [laughs] um, okay. In… you love to sing.

[40:13] Amikaeyla: I do.

[40:15] Nicole: If you could sing one song. One song… there was one song that somebody said you had to pick one song to sing forever.

[40:24] Amikaeyla: Oh…wow…

[40:25] Nicole: What would that be?

[40:26] Amikaeyla: I don’t know. Everybody asks that question… of like what’s your favorite song in the whole wide world and you’re like..

[40:31] Nicole: Your favorite one to sing… favorite to sing. Or even what’s your favorite genre to sing in?

[40:41] Amikaeyla: Hm…I love love songs. And the thing that’s really great about love songs is that they span all genres quite honestly. Like oshun’s love songs are just [blows kiss], you know. Songs that are love songs to all the orishas, but I also love you know [sings “My Funny Valentine”] you know those old delicious ones [sings “Misty”] those really groovy croonery songs are just gorgeous. But if I had to pick one that I was going to sing all the time for the rest of my life it would have to be a Stevie Wonder song. Stevie Wonder is the wonder of the world. I honestly. Stevie Wonder is air for me. Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye are air for me. So it would have to be either “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye or it would have to be oh geez I can’t even break down Stevie there’s just every Stevie song that’s on the Innervisions album. Can I pick an album?

[42:02] Nicole: Yeah.

[42:02] Amikaeyla: The Innervisions album by Stevie Wonder is what I would sing all the time. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.

[42:11] Nicole: Okay [laughs].

[42:12] Amikaeyla: [laughs] Talk about non-traditionalist. I was like I’m not going to pick a song. I’mma pick an album. Yes… sing the whole… Cover to cover. Or Joni Mitchell. I adore Joni Mitchell. Oh my god. Her Court and Spark album is crazy.

[42:26] Nicole: So you really do have a diverse…

[42:29] Amikaeyla: Oh yes…

[42:30] Nicole: Not just taste for listening but for performing. For sharing. Like…

[42:35] Amikaeyla: Oh yes.

[42:35] Nicole: … all the different forms and all different genres.

[42:38] Amikaeyla: Yes please.

[42:39] Nicole: [laughs]

[42:39] Amikaeyla: I’m the buffet babe. I want the buffet of life. I am not… yeah.

[42:46] Nicole: How many hours a week… a day… Do you think goes dedicated in your life to music?

[42:51] Amikaeyla: All day every day.

[42:52] Nicole: All day every day. That’s what I thought.

[42:53] Amikaeyla: Even in every zoom meeting I’m like there will be some breakout moment where we’re referencing Glee or Schmigadoon or something that’s musical and because it elevates life. To me. When I.. like right now we’re smiling we’re laughing because we’re talking about something that’s just so beautiful and we love so much. Versus the news, which I do a lot of social justice work and so there’s a lot of heavy topics that we’re always talking about all the time. And the only way that we… I’m finding can move through these places of trauma again is to really bring not necessarily levity to it where we’re making it light hearted and not important. But we’re bringing a grounded state of awareness and that grounded state of awareness is driven by music. It’s driven by that opening that the Earth makes where people can go, “What? What’s next?” You know. That kind of inspiration where you’re feeling the beauty happening around you even in midst, you know, the toil… it’s an interesting um, paradigm to move through and it’s intriguing and beautiful if you take it on. Like I don’t know if you’ve ever done pottery. Have you ever made pottery from scratch? There’s a moment where you have this like ball of clay and it’s just like bleh, but when you center it on the middle of the wheel it… you kinda have to wrestle it, but then once it’s centered and grounded its like ring! You can make anything. A bowl. A vase. It’s just like… and that process of doing what it takes to get something centered and grounded so that you can make something beautiful is that cracking open with the artist advocacy really going through the tough conversations. It’s hard to talk to white people about their privilege; they don’t want to come off of it. You know. They don’t wanna be… they don’t wanna feel like a bad person. And you know we have these conversations all the time. Everyday that’s my job. And so the way that I um invite them into this new beautiful radically imagined change agent space is through music. And then they’re like, “Oh this is fun!” This isn’t like taking cod liver oil [laughs]. We can do this and we can do it through music and we can do it through love and openness and community. And the universal we. And the universal we to me has a concert soundtrack with it honey. We all get to put all the songs that we know and love onto that soundtrack and so we can all be together.

[45:45] Nicole: It sounds like healing in the arts and healing and the arts have been a thread that has run through your trajectory

[45:54] Amikaeyla: One hundred percent. Absolutely.

[45:57] Nicole: That said… What do you see… My final question is, what do you see your future as, as an artist in your forms that you practice?

[46:08] Amikaeyla: Geez Louise. You’re good at this! Um, I hope to continue to be blessed with the opportunities to have incredible teachers that want to teach and play and make music with me. I hope to continue to have my faculties and a voice to be able to bring music wherever I go and make music and create and record and sing and drum and dance and play. All live long day. Truly till I go back to being a butterfly [laughs].

[46:51] Nicole: [laughs] Well that sounds like a beautiful  plan and it sounds like a beautiful life. Um, and I hope that continues to be your trajectory. I hope we can continue to connect.

[47:04] Amikaeyla: Me too.

[47:05] Nicole: …and I can’t wait to see what more you are creating and sharing now that we’ve gotten connected and gotten acquainted with one other a little bit. I know some of your teachers and the people who you mentioned in this, especially Carolyn…

[47:20] Amikaeyla: Yay!

[47:21] Nicole: …Carolyn Brandy in your interview and I know your…um, Elizabeth Sayer.

[47:28] Amikaeyla: Oh! My god! My god sister of life! She’s the one honestly that taught me the intricacies of the batá more than anyone else. She is a maestra, maestra, maestra.

[47:46] Nicole: Right? That is for certain. Elizabeth was also… she’s… I have taken lessons with her and she’s been my teacher in the past. I have to absolutely agree with you.

[47:57] Amikaeyla: Oh my gosh. I honestly have never seen anything so beautiful. The way she can hear every part. Whether it’s on or off. She can sing to your part while she’s playing another part. It is, it is… she has a powerful mind and an incredible talent. Oh yes.

[48:19] Nicole: And I just wanted to bring her up because she was the connection that brought us to you and to Carolyn as well.

[48:26] Amikaeyla: Oh! I thought it was Carolyn. I didn’t realize it was Elizabeth.

[48:29] Nicole: Well it was Carolyn, but it was also like we wouldn’t have known Carolyn without Elizabeth. So that…

[48:35] Amikaeyla: I didn’t realize that she was the start.

[48:37] Nicole: It was part of our trajectory.

[48:38] Amikaeyla: Oh!

[48:39] Nicole: And the first time I ever spoke to Carolyn is because I was looking for Elizabeth and I couldn’t find her after she…

[48:46] Amikaeyla: Oh you’re kidding!

[48:47] Nicole: It sounds a little like your story of looking for Carolyn.

[48:51] Amikaeyla: Yes! And didn’t know And you know it’s funny… I met Elizabeth in one of the first banbeis I ever went to and she was tucked in a corner and I was tucked in a corner and we both were like, “What’s happening?” [laugh]. In Philadelphia but we never really spoke, or hung out, or met until I moved out to California and she on the drum, yeah.

[49:13] Nicole: That is very interesting. She is also the inspiration for this series of interviews actually. She…

[49:21] Amikaeyla: Really?!

[49:22] Nicole: is the one who came up with the idea… the original idea for the round robins series within the collective and that was a project we did two years ago and this is the actually the first interview we are adding into the collection after the end of that initial set. Um, so I’m so excited that you’re a part of growing that collection.

[49:41] Amikaeyla: Thank you.

[49:43] Nicole: To share your story with us today.

[49:45] Amikaeyla: I am so honored. Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to hear all the other interviews you’ve done.

[49:50] Nicole: Great. Well I’ll be sure to share them with you. And thank you again. Thank you so much for your time.

[49:57] Amikaeyla: Thank you

[49:58] Nicole: For doing this.

[49:59] Amikaeyla: Truly.

[50:00] Nicole: Is there anything else that you want to share before we end today?

[50:06] Amikaeyla: No. Just my deep gratitude and blessings to you and your organization and to everyone that’s watching this and everyone that’s participated in this. It’s beautiful to share the stories and the ways the ancient living arts ways that we’re talking about here. I really appreciate it. It’s filled my heart truly.

[50:30] Nicole: We appreciate you and your sharing with us. Thanks Ami.

[50:34] Amikaeyla: Thank you. Thanks so much Nicole.

[50:36] Nicole: Have a great day.

[50:37] Amikaeyla: You too.