Grandmother HumminBird

I am a Native American/ Afrikan singer/ songwriter /storyteller/ historian / soapmaker /vegetarian chef/ labor and life coach/ aroma therapist / sweat lodge water pourer/ mother and grandmother. I started out singing at age 4 in my mother's choir in Chicago at Greater Harvest Baptist Church. I formed my own band when I was 16 with bassist and drummer Verdine and Freddie White who later went on to join their brother Maurice to form Earth Wind and Fire. I then went on to open for Sammy Davis Jr. in a cross-country tour.After th tour, I went back to Chicago and began singing in the showrooms of Hugh Hefner's Play Boy Clubs. Shortly after, I moved to New York to join Lionel Hampton's big band and traveled coast to coast as his premiere Singer. There I met Stony Browder and left Hampton's band to become the original singer and song stylist for "Doctor Buzzard̢۪s Original Savannah Band." My voice landed the group a recoding contract with RCA records. But before the album was released, at the age of 23 I had a spiritual walk out which caused my voice to shut down. I had come to a crossroads and I knew I had to leave New York for my own personal, spiritual, and emotional stability. While my life to come was unfolding right in front of my eyes, I decided to go college to study music and history and wait for Spirit to tell me what to do next, since all I had ever known myself as was a singer and without my voice I had no self identification, I just had to trust that my life would come back into focus somehow. I was raised by a praying mother who always told me that the darkest night was just before the brightest dawn. And as Great Spirit would have it, I did receive my message in more ways than one. I was released from my prison sentence of show business and caring about a career, and over the next 35 years I found new, more inspiring songs in a key that express the light inside my soul in a way that I had never known.During this journey into the light of my own womb , I met a visionary jazz musician named Bro Ah who invited me to join his band, Sounds of Awareness. He incouraged me to let my voice ride the wind & find it's own colors for me to paint. He freed me from the constraints of words and lead me into the dance of pure sound. For the first time I was experiencing what Stevie Wonder meant by Songs In The Key Of Life. My whole life became one never-ending melody in a minor key that lead me back home to myself. Back home to the understanding that I am here to luv as much as possible, and use that luv in the capacity of a planetary midwife. My mother Mountain Eagle Woman, before she went to Spirit in 2000, established a spiritual retreat center that we named Mountain Eagle Place. Now that I am finished raising my children, I'm on to my 4th life, and ready to record an album to honor my mama,and continue to teach her philosophy of oneness on stage. Momi myself & my daughters Nko & Maimouna had a group together called Three Generations. We will be working on this album together and inviting Momi's children to come and join in. Soon as we get some tracks done I'll share them on here. To Great Spirit and my Ancestors my husbands, my children and all of you my relatives, I say Wado {Thank You}