Street Roots • March 25-31, 2016
News
Page 7
BY SUZANNE ZALOKAR
STAFF W R ITER
B.M.: I have been practicing yoga since
1996. And it was 2005,1 think, and I just
didn’t understand people in the music
industry - I couldn’t understand them. It
was all about the ego and power and putting
other people down and feeling superior.
That’s not how I was brought up, and it is
certainly not what yoga had been teaching
me since 1996. It completely changed my
life. I got to the place where I was tired of
dealing with these people in the music
industry. I was like, I’m going to teach yoga.
I love music, but I don’t like the industry. -
I’m done. I’m putting down my guitar. I’m
going to continue to teach and practice yoga
and season my yoga practice. If it had been
up to me, I would have left everything and
gone and lived in a cave in India and just
meditated. That was a dream of mine too.
But I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t realistic.
Then there was Northridge earthquake in
California that hit in the early ’90s (its
magnitude was 6.7), and I had just recently
moved to California. It was my first
earthquake, and it killed a lot of people and
freeways were collapsed. The city was dark.
ibi McGill began playing guitar at the
age of 12. Her parents noticed her
playing air guitar on a pool cue and
asked her if she wanted to take lessons. She
B
did.
McGill went on to study music
academically and earn a degree in music
scoring and arranging, after which she
promptly made the move to Los Angeles,
where she worked hard and faced as much
rejection as anyone. But she did not give up.
In 2001, she cracked the nut of the L.A.
music scene; she got her first break -
touring with Pink. The torn- was short lived,
but she was noticed. “Who is that woman
with the tattoos and the Afro who is ripping it
up on the guitar?”
One day she was playing in bars and her
living room in her Hollywood apartment and
the next week she was playing some of the
biggest shows: MTV, Saturday Night Live,
Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year’s Eve and
Jay Leno.
She went on to tour with big Latin artists:
Paulina Rubio, the “Mexican Madonna,” and
then La Ley, a Grammy Award and two-time
Latin Grammy Award-winning Chilean rock
band.
From 2006 to 2014, McGill served as lead
guitarist and, for many of those years, as
musical director in Beyonce’s all-female
band, The Sugar Mamas.
Ask and McGill will tell you that the fame
and glory of touring has it upside - and its
downside.
Today, the guitar diva, who has been
called the female Jimi Hendrix, is on the
same journey of personal enlightenment
that she has always been on - even through
her fame. The journey is her focus.
McGill has her own line of raw, vegan
kale chips and teaches yoga in a couple of
studios in Portland. She DJs conscious
music and spiritual gatherings. She leads
yoga retreats and is a guest speaker at
events around the globe. Her latest addition
to her arsenal of self-discovery is hosting tea
ceremonies through her platform, Black
Light Honey Dragon Tea.
Suzanne Zalokar: Tell me about the
significance of the tea ceremonies you have
been holding.
Bibi McGill: No one in my family drank
coffee growing up, so I didn’t have that.
Being more drawn to nature and plants, I
wanted to drink tea.
Recently, I realized that I have been on
this path for much longer than I thought. It
just began to flourish and blossom in me at
the encouragement of one of my tea
teachers.
He is what is called a Tea Monk. Pretty
much all he does is serve tea. He drinks tea.
He studies tea. He meditates. He does
Qigong. He is very much more of a recluse,
a h erm it He sources different information
I t fe lt lik e a d e se r te d p la n et. I t slio o k m e up
B ibi McGill hosts tea ceremonies a n d teaches yoga in a couple o f Portland studios.
Bibi McGill s patii
of self-discovery
The Portland guitarist, who was musical director
in Beyonce’s all-female hand, shares love
and healing through music, tea and yoga
about Chinese art and things that relate to
tea: teapots that are from the 1800s, for
example.
Long story short, for me, being on this
path for two decades, if not more, seeing
him and being drawn to what he is doing,
being able to sit with him and drink tea with
him in ceremony with other people and then
starting to study with him and having him
tell me that I should (pour tea for others
publicly), I was like, w ait You meditate all
day, you’ve been doing this for many years.
I’m a musician. I don’t know.
I didn’t think I had enough information.
He encouraged me. In less than a month I
started to serve tea to other people in more
of an open, public kind of space.
Tea is a plant with medicinal properties
that can not only heal different aspects of
your biological or your physical body - your
digestion, certain organs, your blood - but
also energetically.
There are different energy channels in the
body can be opened up. Clarity can be
brought into your being. That is the
experience that I want to bring to people.
The invitation is, yes, “Come sit with me and
drink tea,” but come drink tea and listen.
I pour tea in an environment where the
first hour or horn: and a half is silent.
It’s so wonderful to connect with
something that is so simple. You feel
something, but it’s not a psychoactive,
psychedelic drug like ayahuasca (Amazonian
plant mixture that is capable of inducing
altered states) - a lot of people are into
th a t But it takes people out of their bodies.
This brings you into your body and causes
you to be more aware.
S.Z.: You grew up in Denver. How did you
end up in Portland?
a lot. I wanted to figure out a way to get out
of there. I was traumatized.
I read a paragraph about Portland, Ore.,
and I was like, “That’s where I want to live.”
It talked about outdoor beauty. It talked
about laid-back people. It talked about being
conscious and healthy and peaceful. It talked
about good food. But it also had a really nice
music scene. I don’t need a big, huge music
scene. I want something that is more laid
back.
I love it more and more every day.
S.Z.: What musical projects are you
cultivating on your own?
B.M.: For many years, the last four to five
years, I have been playing with different
Kirtan artists. Kirtan is the word for
devotional music.
I’m into sharing music in a way that is a
little bit different now. It doesn’t mean that I
will never go back to mainstream music; it
just means that this is where I’m at now.
Music has to support my intention and my
path right now.
It’s not traveling with an entourage of 100
people, only me having to rely on myself.
If I get (an interesting, enticing) ca ll... I
have many that have been booked over the
last couple of months and many that are in
process. I’m going to speak at the wildlife
festival in Borneo and a Balinese women’s
conference.
If I play music, it is going to have to
support the other ways in which I share love
and knowledge and education and
experience and life and healing and all of
the things that are important to me.
It is just as healing to me as it is when I
share it with other people.