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| Iv Amenti |
Iv [pronounced Eve] Amenti’s reputation proceeded her; it was back in my heyday as a hardcore, take no prisoners, Corporate American Supervisor in the late 90s, early 2000s. On my team was a very eclectic young man who, during our one-on-one sessions, would tell me about this Goddess named Iv. He spoke of her as if she was in the Garden at that precise moment. He spoke endlessly of her mastery of the spoken word. As a Poet, and not quite a Spoken Word Artist myself [yet], I was extremely captivated. I wanted to know who was this Iv. It wasn’t until many years later that our paths would eventually cross and even later still before I would actually see and hear her in action. After many years of anticipation, I was finally able to be a participant of the Iv Amenti experience - her delivery was dynamic, her words provoked deep thought, she indeed was a masterful architect of the word.
Iv welcomes me into her domain; however, not before she takes me to the courtyard to look at the plants that did not survive the harsh summer we have been experiencing. The frail shrubs were brown, brittle and slumping underneath the burning sun. She is concerned. Crouching down in her white shirt, sky blue pants, ocean blue suspenders and trademark afro in the wild, she wonders – more to herself then to me – what could be done to save our planet? Restore order in the Universe? The answers are unknown however, if Iv has any say in all of this, order will in fact be restored through people getting back to themselves by becoming more aware they are [Earth]lings. Thus becoming one with the place we all call home.
During the interview, as Iv and I were deep into our conversation, over thirty minutes to be exact, was when my laptop decided it wanted to shut down thus losing the entire recording. However, everything in life happens for a reason and although we may not understand it at the time, it happens just as the Universe intended it to. The Divine Order of Life. Once the technology was back on board, we decided to conduct our interview again… in reverse.
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| Artist... Leader... Activist |
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| Iv's beautiful children |
Is one more dominate than the other? Do you ever think that… or like you said you will peacefully co-exist with both so it really is no need, to me, to over analyze.
“But sometimes I do! I really do think, you know, for business sake should you just do this or for art’s sake, should you just do that. But... I have to just let it be where it is. I have to know that’s me living out my own honesty as a human being, you know what I mean? I had just thanked my mother for that the other day because she really, as a mother, allowed me the space to become whatever I was going to become. She did very much so intentionally shape my being and instilled in me values, and a way and a caliber of thinking. But, that was it! Everything else – “if you want to walk outside with one of your pants leg cut and the other one down to your ankle and your shirt put on backwards and all of your clothes are wrinkled – fine, do that, Alicia!” She is a very conservative woman, and so really now that I’m thinking about it… it’s like Alicia Holmes would be who my mother would have me to be – conservative, hardworking, proper, all of that. And then Iv Amenti is who I fought to be my entire life. I didn’t even have to fight; that was who I was being. You know what I mean? My mother very much so allowed me to be both. And so… yeah.”
You ever think that maybe on the inside your mom is Iv as well but just never released that?
“We were just talking about that the other day too, because she said to me when she got pregnant she immediately felt the need to dance and she said men just flocked to her. They wanted to carry her books, and wanted take her places, take her to dinner and all of these things! They thought she was soooo beautiful! And I, by nature, came out just flickering, dancing, and singing and talking. Okay?”
Iv laughs and snaps her fingers.
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| A Little Light |
So you are your mother’s child?
“Yesssss, very much so. And very much so my own person. Very much so.”
And that’s good. So many people get caught up in being dictated to, for lack of a better word, or following the norm or not going against the grain. And to be so adamant about ‘This is the vision I see and I’m going to create it’, hey that’s beautiful.
“Right. And you know what? I feel fortunate because I am not the only one. I am around people that have decided to create their own vision and even if they are not at the pinnacle of it, they are striving whole heartily to do it. To really find out what life is supposed to be like for the self that is beyond anything we see. People want to be comfortable now, and they want to be comfortable with themselves. They want to be able to commune with themselves. They want to be able to commune with others and have life the way they desire. And, I think if more of us are able to do that, then that communion that we are looking for - people will feel more validated in their own reality. You know?
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| Iv Impromptu |
So, hopefully, through these things I have sought to create in life, through the music, the messages that I intend to put in the music. The way that I am approaching the music is from an African perspective, from an indigenous perspective. And I say indigenous because indigenously we were taught through sound. Even speaking is sound and sound has a particular rhythm to it. Indigenously we knew that, we knew that the rhythm could alter your state of being. So we’ve created rhythms specifically for you to think a certain kind of way. These rhythms were for the upliftment of your spirit, your soul, and guided you in a certain direction of your own way. That’s how we indigenously approached music. And so, when I think about the music I want to create, I think about taking those same rhythms, that same thought of ‘If I make this rhythm like this, this will make you think...”
She pauses.
“or if I plant this other rhythm it may make a man think more of himself more as a real man’. Like the rhythm Dundunba, it’s a very masculine hard core rhythm and it’ll make any man march! It is intended to ignite the fire inside of a man so when you hear it, it alters your state of being. We as a collective… the music industry that’s out there right now, they know this, but they don’t use it to really make a man march!”
Well they’re not trying to make a man.
“Thank you! They are not. It has nothing to do with uplifting the vibration. So my goal is to take that, take... that wild indigenous sound, and philosophy and infuse that into contemporary music with some electric guitars and some hip-hop just sprinkled in there. Just funky, you know, because that’s what’s necessary for us - we’re funky people. Right? So... to infuse all of that together with beautiful melodies and things that provoke thought from the spirit perspective, music becomes a path of getting to that communion, a communion with the deeper meanings of music.
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| Coming of Age Rites of Passage |
And then we have the Rights of Passage [Iv is the founder of the Coming of Age Rites of Passage Program]. Which takes the young girls between the ages of 12-17 through a thought process that is far away from art - really. It’s far away from television. It’s far away from music. It’s far away from all of that. And it deals with you. And you are like a litttttle vehicle that can travel anywhere in life, and how are you as the pilot, going to navigate the vehicle? How bout...let’s give you some instructions! It’s like the instruction manual of that time of life for young girls that I wish I could have had!”
That’s outstanding! There’s not… which I haven’t heard… anyone doing that. I know that’s something we as a people used to do and to come back to it, it’s just outstanding!
“Yes, so I think that these different components of life really circulating together… if we can get our music back… if we can get our communities back… if we can get our hair back… if we can get some of our clothes back… if we can get our minds back… our creativity back…”
She pauses again to reflect.
“in a way, that is like giving the Earth a massage. If not just the Black Community could do that… but the White Community, the Hispanic Community, etc., the face of humanity itself could get out of each other’s faces and get into themselves. If everyone could get back in their own little space, and begin to create the things that are just pure good. Not come kill me cause you don’t think like me! I mean, who cares? You go over there; I’m going to go over there. If we bump into each other we can simply say excuse me. You might shoot me the finger. I might go ‘Umm’ to you. But that can be it, and we can go our own separate ways because...”
Iv’s son politely interrupts our conversation to ask her to cut an apple. She peacefully tells him it will be just a moment. Their exchange is soft, quiet and sweet.
“because we’re in our own vehicle. We own our own paths. At that point we as humans, can truly become familiar with each other again. And that will be like putting our hands back in the soil of the Earth and atoning the Earth so that Earth can use the good again. And us as Earthlings… [Earth]links… human beings like we can survive too, more than we are so called surviving now. Our planet is in such a state... everyone just needs to calm down, but read the instructions well. Cause we’ve been giving the instructions for destruction for a long time. Constantly we can see that all around us. We don’t really know how to peacefully live with each other and it’s going to [include] having these particular vehicles [rites of passages, conscious music] as well as everyday human interaction.”
Right. That’s true. We see it all day long, just death and destruction and… just horrifying stories. I guess part of the reason why I even started this because I get so tired of all of that negativity… of all that negative energy. It’s so much greatness out there, these are the things we need to talk about.
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| The Civilian |
You can sing for me!
“I am going to sing ‘The Ballad of the Civilians and Stars’ for you and it actually has two parts to it but I’m not ready to debut all of that, but I will debut the Ballad part of The Ballad of Civilians and Stars.”
Iv begins to sing.
Although she sang a cappella, there is a lot of reverb on the tape. I can clearly hear some of her verses in the background as well as effects even though there were no background vocals or effects. Maybe it is the echo bouncing off the walls; however, it was beautifully captured on tape. I take myself to a quiet place listening to her sing. Imagining all of those sounds she talked about. It is beautifully raw.
Alright! I love it!
“Oh God! Yes, that is ‘The Ballad of the Civilians and Stars’ of course it has a full production that will go behind it but that is it in its raw… at its raw.”
That is so cool! I always wanted to be an undercover singer but I have no voice.
“You know what? No, I believe whole-heartedly that anybody can sing. Anybody can. All you have to know is what to do. You... just don’t know what to do. If you knew all the little buttons to push. That’s what I’ve been telling…”
Iv’s son comes back, gets very close to his mother and whispers quietly in her ear. He still wants the apple cut. She sweetly tells him to get the apple so she can cut it for him and continues with her thoughts.
“I was telling my husband just last night. I feel like I’ve gotten in this spaceship and I’m like boo… boo… boop… boo… boo… booh… boop. And now I know all the little codes, now I know where the diaphragm is. You are supposed to lift your soft palette, open your nose, drop your jaw, these are all the things that singers do. We don’t know that – the layperson – we just think they’re out there doing this… but it’s like a whole muscular technique that shapes the wind coming out your body. The wind… you just have to know where the notes are located inside of you and you learn that by looking at a staff and reading music. Oh ok if I go…”
She cycles through notes until she finds the specific one she is looking for.
“I can go find that at any time; it’s always going to be right there in my body. So, you trust it and then you sing. But I’m still very shy to sing, I’m very impressed with myself for singing for you cause I never do this.”
Really? So why do you think you decided to do it right now?
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| Studying |
Iv asks her son to please wash his apple off so she can cut it.
The only thing I definitely… because I know since we recorded again we’ve touched back on the Rites of Passage program, we’ve talked about the singing. I do want to look back to what you are doing with the Elders. I want to make sure, even though I have it all in my head, I just want to make sure I have that too. Because that’s something that’s just not done and I love that. I love that concept!
“And you know it actually was one of my favorite programs. I say that all the time.”
“It’s one of my favorite programs because it’s so other wordly. The name of the program again for the record is the Generation Connection and it’s gooood. The Generation Connection and the project that we do inside of the project that we do with the youth is called Conversational Quilts. And so, the Generation Connection is when I spend time with the Elders and I do yoga with them, I dance with them, I do line dancing which is super fun. They like to listen to the Blues. I watch them play cards, I talk to them about African Culture, wrap their heads in Geles, and do my part to dispel some of the myths they had been inundated with since their youth.
During my time at one of my sites, there was this woman named Mrs. Gates and she was like the Queen of the Elders and everybody recognized her as this, the entire community, and the other Elder Women that were in the little group. It was really interesting to see how they operated as like a real life community. They respected this woman’s (Mrs. Gates) place, even women in the group that were older than her, said she is our chairperson and we respect her as that. You know? And I really, really super enjoyed having that experience. Watching them speak up for their rights in their apartment community, watching them organize, they would sponsor dinners and field trips for the children in their community. Just… you know what I mean? Just awesome stuff. And then I would get a group of kids together…”
Her son, so inquisitive, wants to know who I am again. Wonders aloud, and I am certain to himself, who is this woman taking up all of my mother’s time. I become very mindful, careful not to infringe too much on their time.
“and they would do a little sit down with the Elders and they would document their stories, that’s the portion of the program called Conversational Quilts. The youth would literally sit at the elders’ feet and ask them questions about their past and what they thought about the world now. You know? And we would put those stories into a book. We collected their pictures and did their family trees. I collected hundreds of names. I also collected old sayings, myths, folklore and oh my God, just the oddest stuff like… you couldn’t each chicken on the third Sunday of the month because the chickens were more fertile at that time and you could get pregnant… I’d be like ‘Really?’ Oh my goodness just the weirdest things and it was so awesome, so much Folklore. You know what I mean?
Getting to hear those Sunday Rituals - what their parents did on Sundays and how they went about food. Food was like completely different. I heard them talk about how they would salt their pork… and the jerkies they would make… and the peas… and the smells… and them having to pick it themselves… and the way that one person may have the bacon for the day… and another person may have the peas… and they would switch around food… they wouldn’t eat a lot but it was feeling good. So I was really mesmerized by their connection with food and how they described and interacted with food in that day. You know what I mean?
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| Enjoying the experience |
So I really enjoyed that experience for myself but also for the experience of the children. They actually sat on the floor and the Elders sat on chairs - so they sat at the feet of the Elders. And then also for the Elders to get a little of that back because it is just kind of long gone that experience that a true Elder deserves for living… making it eighty years on this planet. Which most of us would jump off at any given chance. You know they have endured, endured at a time that we are far away from. And the privilege that we’ve lived and the opportunities that we’ve had in our modern age. So I enjoy giving them that rite back, I enjoy the rite for the children and myself as the middle ground and being able to do my part in bringing that together.
So there is this twelve-month project with the Dallas Housing Authority that I’m going to be doing; I will be able to do the Generation Connection again. I have been doing this work a long time. It’s been about… it’s been 10 years altogether… 10 – 11 years with 7 years really hitting it hard. And so this year I’m about to enter into a twelve month contract, a lot more clear, I’ve learned a lot and now I have a partner to work with my non-profit and she is very good in the community. She’s on a whole other level with business than me as an artist - this is about as business as I’ll get, now I’m very professional… I need about this much planning [squeezes her fingers] and I’ll get the rest to come out of me in the moment. For me she is more grounded when it comes to paperwork and administration so I’ve learned a lot from her. So I feel like okay, I’m good. You know? I’m going to approach the non-profit with ease knowing I have the creative and business side, [smiles] really nice... so I’m excited to do all of those works.”
So you have the twelve month program. You have the singing. The CD… you have to put it out there. The Rites of Passage program where you said you incorporate a range of ages so a lot of young girls get to participate. Where some Rites of Passage program it’s just like you have to be this age… then you have all of these other children…
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| Kikiza Program |
This summer with the Kikiza program, we did that with the girls… it was really beautiful. It was intertwined because we took charm and etiquette, which is a good way to teach manners, and we infused that with eight African Cultural Values and we melded them together. We taught how to be hospitable and how to talk to someone, but then we also gave examples of what happens in an indigenous setting. We brought them in the home of a person living in Ghana and they had the mats and they had Kola Nuts. I used peanuts instead of Kola Nuts… got to improvise. So they broke the Kola Nut and they went through the exchanges of Ghanaian people inside a home. We taught them Twi, which is the Ghanaian native language.
We were able to hit both that indigenous stuff and also just pure charm and etiquette – how to move around in the world with grace. How to do your hair. How to take care of your body and all that good stuff. So the Kikiza program is really dedicated to teaching about just values as a feminine energy... as a girl. And then when you start the Coming of Age Rites of Passage for the older age girls, then we go really deep in the things that will be necessary for you to hold it down and to break the curses as a woman. And let’s talk about these curses. They are what? How are we going to deal with this? What are some things, some tools you can put in your head right now that will combat this in the future because it will happen. So that’s the spectrum of the rites of passage program.
And then we have dance and we can’t forget dance!”
Yes, because I know you dance. You’ve been dancing. You spend a lot of time lately dancing.
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| The Dancer |
“Yes, dance I would say is my second love. It's like a little trio of them and they battle sometimes… it’s writing… sometimes it’s dance… sometimes it’s music… and they all battle for my time. But dance is something that I have relentlessly done in my life. I come alive when I dance. Between the music and my body is like this joy space. You know? I love moving the body around inside of that. So I love to dance, I started out doing the basics… ballet, tap and jazz. I wasn’t able to study it really extensively but even though I wasn’t, I still choreographed my whole life. Any of the hip dances, pleeeeease, I have to have this on lock from the moment and the music starts up ‘What?’ I’m mastering all the dances! In college I auditioned for the Dance Ensemble there, and made it there, and have just danced my whole life. So when I came across African Dance, I was like ‘No, you get to go out here and you get to just do that? With some live drums behind it? Oh, I must do that!’ And that is like really a large part of my vitality. It’s a large part of my joy. It is a large part of my expression. And kind of the way I really feel… it’s this again…”
She points to her name beautifully carved on the side of one of her large drums – the Doundoun Drum. It is fluid. Moving yet still. An organized chaos.
“it’s that symbol just kind of moving, it’s dance. So within me… Alicia Yvette Holmes… Iv Amenti… there are the components of art, art from dance and music through sound and music and then there is the humanitarian that is here most definitely and sincerely to make a difference. To be of goodness. To be fun. To be funky and free. But to really, really, really, really, really be a good person and do good things and surround myself with really good people. And that’s who I am. That’s what God made me to be and I’m very open to find out what else is along the way. I can tell you stories now what I think will happen, but you know maybe we’ll save that for some future interviews. And I hope you interview me again. You can chronicle my whole life I would just be dedicated to you forever. I have so much stuff I can just give you and say okay, here do what you will with this and I would just be indebted to you. But I do plan to continue to do good things in life.”
Now absolutely before we close it out, we have to talk about the writing because we haven’t talked about the writing at all. And I would have to preface this with years before I met you, I knew of you. I knew of you from one person who talked about you always as the Goddess, this great Mother Earth, this writer. You have to hear her! Oh My God! I was like ‘Who is this Iv?’ I got to see who this Iv is. Because to speak to someone who speaks with such high regard for a woman but never with it as a sexual overtone but to speak so highly. So long before I met you, before I knew you, before I saw you… was this Iv, I got to see who this Iv is because what is it that this woman has that she brings this great reputation? The greatness that okay, well, I got to meet Iv. That’s all I’m going to say. Years before I met you, it’s like I got to meet Iv.
“Wow! That is so awesome!”
I have to talk about your writing because we have not talked about it.
“Well, for me, or I think for any writer, writing is very intense. It’s nothing… it’s nothing easy because it’s this mental craft that has like, creative overtones but it’s very mental, it’s very cerebral. You have to use your hands to carve it out. You have to like be here and you have to be driving on the inside. So for me it has always been very intense. It’s also been very passionate though it’s like a passionate love affair because when I pick up and really am able to hook the vi-bra-tion. It’s like I don’t care let’s do it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I enjoy words so much that it’s like... I love them. And so, I will write something, or I see something written or I hear something written and it does something to me. Words can come together in such a way that just does something to me.
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| The Poet |
Now what’s happening right now with the writing, is that it is so much more technical because I have had a tendency to take one to two shortcuts in life. Just kind of like shortcuts. So I did not go through the rites when I was a young girl of just going on and learning the music. I played the violin, the bass, the upright bass, I played the trumpet, I’ve had a guitar, I’ve had someone give me a real live piano. Do you see the piano anywhere in here? No, but someone believed in me and my gift of gab so much that they were like ‘I have a piano I want to give to you’. I do have a keyboard in there now. So I’ve never really went through the rites of learning the music and now because my writing wants to come through music it’s like… stuck. It’s like you have to think it out a little more because now you are going to develop a level of mastery. Whatever happens the whole time is raw talent. The rawness I’ve put in so many different places but now I’m going to take that raw and add it with skill and then once I get passed this little coming together of it, the freedom will come again. I know I will. Because I’ve always been free and been very umm… I think very gifted at what I do… if that doesn’t sound… hope it doesn’t sound a way…”
It doesn’t sound like that at all. No, it doesn’t sound like that.
“And have always kind of believed… I think that’s what we talked about before… I really just always believed in myself to create this. You know? So now when you hear me write again it’s going to be through music. I’ve done it with the spoken word and was able to very passionately give my account of the way that the Gods see me and now I want to share with the world what I hear them say. The way I hear the music, because the way I hear the music and what it does for my psyche and my body and all of that, I want the world to know what it has done for me.
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| Dancer... Singer... Poet |
All the while we are going to be working in the community. Everywhere we go. That’s one of the visions I’ve had since I was a little girl. That I would be on stage and everywhere I went I would have a caravan of people and that caravan of people who do service events everywhere. Like my husband, he would put out all of his massage tables. We would teach some hip-hop history classes. Maybe do a neighborhood clean-up, and all of that would be a part of the concert. It’s like a mobile good group. That’s what I want.”
Good. Good. Good. So do you have any… I don’t normally ask this… but do you have any parting words?
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| Iv Amenti Alicia Yvette Holmes |
With Iv’s introduction, I am reminded that she is the architect of her Garden, masterfully creating bridges between the Youth and the Elders, the Youth and themselves, the people and the music, and the word and the psyche. She carefully intertwines all of these things into her own personal Eden all while ensuring she does her part tending to the Garden. Iv is measuring twice and cutting once as the old saying goes. And because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, she is studying since faith without works is dead. It is her goal to master not only the lyric but the music as well. When it rains is pours, so stay on the lookout for Iv’s new CD.
Life is for the living and Iv is living… completely… freely… humanly… peacefully coexisting. The devil is a lie as long as Iv has her say in the grand scheme of things. According to her, the instructions for rebuilding finally will be given and the Earth will once again bare its beautiful fruit to nourish all of humanity. Now that is something for you to ponder while beginning your travels off the grid…
Be Strong… Stay Strong… Live Strong… Love Strong… Asuecion
To learn more about Iv's organization C.O.R.E Elements, Inc. please visit
