Black Paris Profiles™: Almeta Speaks

I was inspired to write this profile after a recent brunch hosted by Almeta at her Paris apartment on a Sunday afternoon. After over five hours of sitting around her table enjoying a delicious home-cooked meal (including a perfect cornbread), scintillating conversation, and laughter, I determined that I would write a profile on this woman who is a never-ending source of incredible stories about her life on two continents and her travels around the world.

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Almeta Speaks
© Hudson Taylor, Toronto

Almeta Speaks is a singer, pianist, professor, and film producer.

Born in Reidsville, NC, she began singing and playing piano at an early age. She graduated from high school at the age of 15, then studied and worked as a hairdresser in her home town for three years before moving to New York, where she hoped to study cosmetology. However, because she felt insecure about the math and chemistry requirements for completing the program, she decided instead to work as a mother’s helper (nanny) for a Jewish family on Long Island while considering her career options.

This family – headed by Morris and Ruth Levine – provided employment for Almeta for four years. They also supported her by paying for voice lessons and giving her time to perform during the evenings at gigs in Manhattan. This situation became very comfortable and fairly lucrative for Almeta, but a job offer in upstate New York convinced her that it was time to move on.

After parting with the Levines, Almeta sang and played piano at Larry Storch’s The Crystal Room in Manhattan for 1½ years prior to moving to Toronto to play at the Castle George Steakhouse. She had been playing for this establishment for five or six years when an innocent comment that she made led to an invitation to run for public office. Feeling insecure about her lack of advanced education, she declined. After her stint in Toronto, she moved to Vancouver to work at the Princess Louise, a venue that she learned about while dining with friends at Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse (the only black-owned restaurant in town) during a previous trip to the city. She subsequently moved to Los Angeles, and then to San Diego. In San Diego, she enrolled at the University of California, where she earned a B.A. in Sociology and a B.A. in Communications with a minor in music in 2½ years. (During the process, she conquered her math phobia by excelling in a course on math appreciation.) She graduated in 1976.

The course work that she undertook for the sociology degree took Almeta to Africa for the first time. There, she completed a six-week research project in the village of Kpaiyea, Liberia, where she studied the male Poro and the female Sande societies of the local population.

While a student at UCSD, Almeta approached KPBS television station in San Diego to point out that none of its programming reflecting awareness of black people in the city. In response, the station granted her a weekly program called “Almeta Speaks with…,” during which she performed and interviewed guests. She eventually assumed the role of Executive Producer and Director of the Office of Ethnic Programming – all while pursuing her college education. While working in this position, she produced the first-ever broadcast of a television show on Kwanzaa. During her tenure at the station, Almeta and the KPBS Office of Ethnic Programming received four Emmy awards, two of which were for “Almeta Speaks with….”

Almeta returned to Canada in 1980, where she began government-supported research on a television project that would feature black women. This was the beginning of her excursions around the world – she visited Australia, Africa, Asia, and northern Europe (Scandinavia) as part of this undertaking. The information that she gathered inspired her to pursue an M.Ed. in Sociology at the University of Toronto, where she prepared a thesis entitled “Conspicuous by their Absence: Black Women’s Achievements and Contributions Unacknowledged and Unheralded.”

Moving to Ottawa to work in television, Almeta wrote a proposal for her critically-acclaimed film series Hymn to Freedom: The Contributions of Blacks to the Historical Development of Canada. She undertook this project because she saw a need to examine Canada’s black history and to “honor both the brave black people who leaped into the abyss to freedom and the brave white abolitionists who joined them to establish a union for freedom from slavery.” To obtain a grant for this venture, she founded Almeta Speaks Productions Inc. April 1994 was the premier date for the four-part series, which examines black history in Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and British Columbia. The series was shown during Black History Month on Canadian television every year until 2001.

Almeta first came to Paris in September 1997 to write a musical composition that was supported by a grant from the Canada Council of the Arts. When the money ran out and the composition remained unfinished, she sought a new way to support herself financially while completing the piece. She found it at the Ritz Hotel, where she performed as a pianist and singer from 1998-99 and 2001-02. Serendipitously, she also landed a recurring position as visiting professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, where she taught “The History of Black Music” from 1998-2005.

Almeta travels to perform as well as to conduct research. During its heyday, the Paris office of the former United States Information Agency sent her on a six-week tour to perform in ten African and Indian Ocean countries – including Somalia, Djibouti, Rwanda, and Mauritius. Almeta has regaled audiences in Hong Kong and Bangkok, and may venture back to the Far East this winter. She still performs in Paris, with her most recent show having taken place at the Ateliers du Chaudron on March 27, 2011 in the 11th arrondissement.

Flier for Steve Potts and Almeta Speaks Trio concert

The Almeta Speaks Trio and Steve Potts
(c) Discover Paris!

When asked which place(s) she considers to be home, Almeta cited Toronto, Vancouver, Reidsville, and Paris. To her, home represents a place of refuge, of natural ownership (birthplace), and “an aesthetic.” When asked to elaborate on the aesthetic, she said, “I think I was determined from the moment I left home (Reidsville) to only live in beautiful spaces…I do often wish I could create that sense of beauty inside the spaces where I have lived. But unless they have the good fortunate to have had steady work, artists – especially musicians – sometimes have to choose between where they live and how they live.”

Almeta currently divides her time almost equally between Paris and Toronto, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Her thesis examines the life and works of African-American sculptor Meta Vaux Warwick Fuller.

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