ARTIST | Page 5

L E A R N I N G T O With a love for music, Maya Angelou would sing calypso, dance in night and supper clubs and eventually become known for her ability to write lyrics and perform spoken word. Collaborating with Quincy Jones she wrote lyrics for B.B. King in the film For Love of Ivy, a Sidney Poitier film. She would later become close friends and work intimately with Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashford to produce an album titled Been Found, featuring Ashford and Simpson’s vocals and Maya Angelou’s spoken word and released in 1996.Maya Angelou has won three Grammys: Best Spoken Word Album, Best Spoken Word. In the late 1950’s Maya Angelou joined the Harlem Writer’s Guild. With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings received international acclaim made the bestseller list. The book was also banned in many schools during that time as Maya Angelou’s honesty about having been sexually abused opened a subject matter that had long been taboo in the culture. Later, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings would become a course adoption at college campuses around the world. With more than 30 bestselling titles, Maya Angelou has written 36 books. In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom. 5 F L Y Songs an Album combining various genre’s of music including hip-hop to be released posthumously on November 4, 2014. At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, a man named Freeman. She told her brother, who told the rest of their family. Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for only one day. Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles.[12] Angelou became mute for almost five years,[13] believing, as she stated, "I thought, my voice killed him; I killed that man, "I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks, 'I never did anything wrong. Who, Moi? – never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet.” or Non Musical Album 1993 for On the Pulse of Morning, Grammy for Best Spoken Word or Non Musical Album, 1995 for Phenomenal Woman, Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album, 2000 for A Song Flung up to Heaven. Earlier this year Maya Angelou was working on Caged Bird because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone ..."[14] According to Marcia Ann Gillespie and her colleagues, who wrote a biography about Angelou, it was during this period of silence when Angelou developed her.