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| Biography |
Cultured from fire, water, blood and spirit, her essence seeped through concrete jungles and developed during a time crack cocaine devastated black and brown communities in Los Angeles. She was given the purpose to speak of and for the voiceless and help bring healing to the world. Her crown is made of the spirit of the sacrifices of her ancestors, and the sacred, spoken word. Kaia Niambi Shivers, an internationally recognized and award-winning writer, poet, radio personality, educator, storyteller, African dancer, orator, youth advocate and entrepreneur, continues to manifest the meaning of her central African name, which means “loveable melody to be heard by all.” “My name is not a common name so I got into a lot of scuffles from constant harassment of my schoolmates. After one of my many fights when I was a young girl, I frustratingly questioned my father on the reasons why he and my mother named their children these funny African names. He told me, I was given the name to one day epitomize its meaning. Since, my daily affirmation and motivation is to be that vessel to bring harmony and healing.” From the time she could understand verse and prose, Kaia has been writing. Her escapism, evolved into a vital tool to fulfill her destiny. Today, she is one of the most accomplished and multi-gifted ascending artists/activists/scholars in the country, forging her way. As a little girl, Kaia’s family emphasized the importance of education. During the summer months her mother, a foreign language teacher made her read books and essays for leisure. “My parents got these discarded desks from the high school my mom taught. We cleaned them up and transformed the garage into a small home school. In the summers we had a ritual. My siblings and I would go to swim team practice, eat free lunch at the local elementary school then come home for lessons. I would go through the work quickly and often got bored because we had a serious television restriction. To this day, I don’t care for TV. One day in a restless frenzy, I selected a book from my mother’s library, when I ran out of my own. It was Roots. I was about seven or eight. I devoured the book. Then I saw, The Autobiography of Malcom X. I consumed it. Then I read, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, afterwards, The Invisible Man. The language was so advanced, I didn’t understand it all, but the pain that oozed from these books, the power, I connected with. Then I read a book on Black Poetry in America written in the early 70s and edited by Gwendolyn Brooks. The book had the writings of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sun Ra, Claude McKay and Phyllis Wheatley. My mind and soul immediately awakened. I had begun to write poetry already, but that it was then I adapted poetry as one of my main forms of writing.” “Growing up, I experienced the normal adolescent life, with a twist. Living in the big city especially South Central Los Angeles, shaped and molded me in a unique way. Through it all, I wrote stories, poems, essays, often participating in poetry and speech contests. From my interests in the social, political and cultural dynamics of the community I became active in my neighborhood at an early age. Now I know it is just an extension of my parent’s activism.” As a high school student, Kaia was always involved. She served in student government and an array of community and church projects. After the Los Angeles Civil Unrest, at the age of 17, she was one of the young African-Americans recognized as future leaders selected to participate in a cultural exchange program with South Korea. At the same time, she began writing for the local African-American paper, The Los Angeles Sentinel, as a youth journalist. “I
still have the first article I wrote. It was on Malcolm X, and it was
entitled, “Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary.”
I embraced the ancestor, because he was the epitome of constant growth,
change. For me, that is important.” |
| Click Here to Read the Complete Biography |
© 2004 Kaia Niambi Shivers / All Rights Reserved
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