Yoruba priestess for Black History Month showcase and brunch

IN OBSERVANCE of Black History Month there will be a showcase and brunch under the theme ‘Reclaiming our Roots’ with an emphasis on cultural education on Sunday, February 11, at Barrington Watson Art Gallery, Orange Park Great House, Yallahs, St Thomas, featuring world-renowned Orisha singer, Iya Amma McKen.

The package for Sunday, which includes brunch, costs $7,500 (US$50), and the organisers may be contacted at 876 421 8838. They say the event is “a cultural remembrance and reclamation through fabric arts, song and dance”, which takes place between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Iya Amma McKen was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has been singing traditional Yoruba Orisa music for over 45 years. She is one the most requested singers for Orisa music in the United States. Orisas are divine spirits that play key roles in the Yoruba religion of Nigeria. Orisa songs are sacred chants used for worship of Olodumare (God in the Yoruba language).

McKen has several roles and titles in the Yoruba tradition and religion, including the title of Akpon, a lead singer and officiator for the drumming and dancing celebrations. As a priestess of Yemonja since 1979, she is also a dancer, a professional tie-dye artist, clothing designer, natural hair stylist and owner of Abeokuta Enterprises, an African-inspired apparel company.

In 2009, she was selected as one of the recipients of the USA’s highest honour in the folk and traditional arts, the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship. Awardees were chosen for their artistic excellence and contributions to their respective artistic traditions.

McKen became the first African-American female Akpon to produce a musical recording of traditional songs, titled, A laako Oso: Owner of the Songs is Eloquent. In 2014, she performed as a featured singer of a tribute to Celia Cruz at Apollo Theater and at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s opening performances with director Wynton Marsalis who presented his large-scaled work, Ochas, with renowned Cuban percussionist Pedrito Matinez, and Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes.

In 2017, McKen received a grant from Queens Council on the Arts to collaborate on a new work titled, Where the Waters Meet: Songs of Two Mothers, centred on the relationship between Oshun and Yemonja (Orishas).

An educator, McKen currently instructs classes and workshops on the chants for the Orisas and the use of chanting to practitioners of the Yoruba religion in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Chicago and North Carolina. She also teaches classes on the traditional art of tie-dye and batik.

McKen has travelled extensively throughout the United States and other countries worldwide to various elementary, intermediate and high schools, as well as colleges and universities conducting lecture demonstrations and performances individually and with groups.

The objectives of event are: to expose Jamaicans to the superlative artistry of Iya Amma McKen via a beautiful day of art and culture; to educate the public on parts of our culture that have been forgotten/lost (indigo, logwood dying, African spirituality); to reconnect people to a way of earning a living, and expressing their creativity through natural dyeing and/or sewing; to reconnect people to the traditional practice of using song, dance and music as a way of communication with the Creator, ancestors, and Orisas; and to reconnect people to St Thomas, The Source Farm activities and the Barrington Watson Gallery.