Mahlikah is Kiswahili for Angel and Awe:ri is Mohawk for Heart.

In 1992, Afro-Native Mahlikah Awe:ri made her debut as a Spoken-Word Artist as a member of the Ottawa-Toronto based group The Young Poets of the Revolution. In 1994 she founded three spoken-word collectives, Warriors 4 Revolution, Poetic License, and One Wombmon: Many Voices. From 1993-1995 she was an original artist instructor and mentor for the Fresh Arts Summer Works Program where she met many of the young people who would comprise her performance collectives. While in Fresh Arts she staged her first a choreopoem-stylized full-length play, Black Curse, which ran at the Poor Alex. From 1994-99 she became a fixture at the annual Phemphat Honey Jam Showcases and traveled as a solo spoken-word artist internationally.

In 1994, Mahlikah Awe:ri founded her own Arts and Media Education Company, Ancestral Ties 2 De Drum, which speaks through both her African and First Nations bloodlines. In 1997 she became the first oral artist to receive the Chawkers/Frontier Award for Excellence in Writing and Publishing. For 10 years Mahlikah Awe:ri and Ancestral Ties 2 De Drum Artists has provided Cultural Arts programming in partnership with the Royal Conservatory’s Learning and Living Through The Arts Programs.

Since 2000 Awe:ri has provided Creative Life Coach Training in the area of Communications, Self-Awareness and Self-Direction and Anti-Oppression & Diversity for the Toronto Centre for Community Learning and Development. In 2003 and 2006 she was a facilitator for the Annual International Learning Through The Arts Conference. In 2003 she also participated in the Cultural Arts Festival for Diversity in Ottawa, as an artist mentor.

2007 marked Awe:ri’s return to the stage after returning from community arts touring in Trinidad and Tobago. Awe:ri was featured in the November 2007 issue of City Post Local Hero Column. She is currently a regular poet at Acoustic Soul Tuesday Nights @ Trane Studio and Cloud 9 Entertainment Snapp Sundayz and Fly & Flashy @ Nile Bar Lounge. She was the featured poet @ Underground Sounds and Auralfixations in 2007, Toronto Poets.com Saturday Night Love Showcase, and Speak Out! Fundraiser in 2008. In June of 2008 she embarked on her first performance tour in Ireland, and in July she was a featured performer at the first annual SOS Children's Village Showcase.

In 2009 Mahlikah helped found Red Slam:

This artistically diverse 5 member collective performed tracks from their first self-titled album co-produced with award-winning musical group DiggingRoots due to drop this Fall, for the new musical variety APTN Series “Rez Tunes”. The episode is scheduled to air nationally this September. Red Slam is poetic song stories infused with hip hop, rez blues, powwow reggae, and drum talk. A variety of themes are expressed in the pieces, but the underlying goal is to: uplift, self-identify and promote unify through Spoken, Lyricism which Arranges Meaning (SLAM). The group is comprised of poets, songwriters, rappers, musicians, composers, and vocalists: John Hupfield Anishinaabe from Wasauksing First Nations, Mahlikah Aweri, Afro-Native of Mohawk and Mik’maw First Nations from Nova Scotia, Miles Turner Six Nations Mohawk, Isaac Llacuachaqui, Native, Spanish, Black Inca ancestry from Peru and Lena Recollet, Anishnaabe from Wikwemikong First Nation.

www.myspace.com/redslamcollective