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Back to the concept of live production and that whole sound.
Somebody attributed you and your radio show to really turning
the consciousness in the music. After the time that Garnett Silk
passed away and Luciano started to come along, not only did that
machine sound . . . even though they were still using machine
production, started to fade out of the music. And I feel like
[some] of the stuff the comes out of Jamaica [now], even though
it's programmed, has a more human touch to it. Do you perceive
that or is that a bunch of . . . Like some of Fatis' rhythms?
Well, the only live thing I see happening is with the musicians
who used to record for years, but the tunes that are hitting is
machine -- the hit songs, the Beenie Man songs, and dis and dat,
Scare Dem Crew songs is machine. I feel that it is going to go
back. It's going to return to the live musicians. I feel that
way.
Is that feasible, economically?
Yea mon, yea mon, it's feasible of course. It's the best thing
that can be done to the music now. I tell you what is happening
now in Europe. The old rhythms is what is selling. And they are
mixing it again in dub style. And then now you have ska. Ska is
prominent again. Dub music is prominent again. And is not new
music. Is the same old rhythms used and you go back with the engineer,
and you recast it. It's almost like a sequel to an original track.
So it going to return to that. It going to haffe return to that,
because we're talking about man . . . and the humanness in man,
with music. Music cannot be just machine. I can see where the
music will return to that level. It's all about the culture of
a people and the expression of those people in them culture. Remember
that when the men them did start, them never did a ting pon a
money ting. Them was just thinking of expressing a culture. And
eventually it going to become the expression of culture again.
Cause when the big record companies start to drop everybody left
and right, man going to realize, say, them cyaan just a sing tune
fe suit CBS and Epic and them ting. Them haffe sing songs out
of them experience. And then it going to lead back now to what
it is all about. What it is all about is reggae music.
So do you have any plans to take someone like Luciano or Everton
Blender or somebody who has a real youth pull and then put them
on some of these kinds of real rhythms?
I don't know if I a produce it as a producer. Dis ting yah as
a producer now . . . No, I don't have no plans fe do dat, but
if it come, I wouldn't say I wouldn't dweet, but I don't have
no plans. Me and Luciano supposed to go back in the studio and
do "Psalms 23." We do "Psalms 24," and it
was big. So I plan fe do "Psalms 23" with a different
vibes to it. Not like how it is written. Like how you hear Bobby
McFerrin sing, 'the Lord is my sheppard, I shall not want. SHE
made me to lie down in green pastures. SHE lead me beside still
waters.' Well is something like that, but is not basically the
same thing, but we plan to dweet. We talk to Fatis already, and
is just a matter again fe link (laughs) inna Jamaica. Meanwhile,
when I'm am dere, he is out here. When I am out here , he is there.
I think that is me next tune, "Psalms 23."
Very good . . .
We just did a tune you know. Me just remember. Ini Kamoze just
produce a tune, three tracks. Him, Sizzla, me. Separate, but the
same rhythm, so I guess that soon come out.
I wanted to go back again, talking about musicians, early on
I associated you with, did Chinna produce your first album?
First album, yes.
And also, Gibby (Leebert Morrison). You had a lot of involvement
with those two guitarists.
Yea, alright, Chinna was there with me from the beginning. When
I didn't know nothing about music, I was just writing poetry.
Chinna is a musician. So how you going to put poetry to music
in Jamaica now? Chinna, me. I say the poems, Chinna listen to
what I am saying, him fashion the riddims around it. So Chinna
did this first album. I started to produce me own album. Chinna
have his own company doing other things, so we get Gibby. Gibby
now has been with me over the years. He has been involved with
a lot of the arrangements that is in the albums coming right up.
What do you think about his rock and roll band?
Alternate . . . yea, 'alternate,' they're called. Well, it's just
Gibby expressing himself. Gibby is a lover of Jimi Hendrix and
these people. He likes that kind of guitar. Is just rock guitar
and reggae. Is just a next way fe play. De reggae music can be
incorporated in all different kind of music. So it's just rock
guitar . . . is just Gibby a play rock guitar inna reggae music.
I guess the die-hearted reggae fans will say, 'wha! Me no like
dat,' but is just a next aspect of the music still.
But it's worked for so many bands all over the world . . .
I don't have no problem with it. I don't like rock music, but
I don't have no problem with Gibby, cause him used to play it
inna my tunes dem. We deh pon stage inna Europe, and we have poems
like "Ecology," "Famine Injection" and dem
poems, and [I] give him solo . . . As a matter a fact we're going
to come for a rock concert yah so is Gibby a play.
You're going to join him?
No, he's going to join me. Yea, we're coming to do this concert
inna RFK Stadium deh weh Tibetian thing that the Beastie Boys
them do every year. So we're going to do that and we're bringing
Gibby.
Tell me about, somebody I never knew about until I went to
Jamaica was Louise Bennett, Miss Lou. you even sang a song about
her on your last album?
Miss Lou is the keeper of the folk tradition through poetry and
songs in Jamaica. Miss Lou is the one who maintain the language
of the people in the artistic expression of the people. When people
was looking at the Jamaican language as dirty, terrible, Miss
Lou used it in the artistic expression to express the feelings
and the attitudes of the people. She is rightly where she is.
She is a hero to a lot of people. She is one of the women who
has kept the African-ness inside of the Jamaican culture and express
it through song and poetry. Right now she lives in Canada. You
see through we don't worship dead people, now, we say we haffe
do a tribute to Miss Lou before any 'pass away' business. So that
poem was done years ago. As a matter of fact, we carry Miss Lou
to the studio years ago too, to do two reggae tune. This is the
first time she ever say a poem on reggae. She used to do it with
like the folk music. There is an album name Woman Talk
that we produce years ago with female poets. I did it for Heartbeat.
That was my second album I produce without it being my album.
Well, this album had two tracks on it by Miss Louise Bennett.
And she was doing it to reggae, and it was great. And we did that
tune "Miss Lou" [on Melanin Man] from the "Peanut
Vendor" melody.
Right, the original "Peanut Vendor." I heard it described
that she made people proud of the way they speak.
Yea mon, that is what I am saying. She used the language of the
people as an artistic expression. That wasn't ever done in Jamaica.
We were more English, British, trying to imitate Keats and Shakespeare
and ting. She went on the stage 50-odd years ago and talk patois,
talked the Jamaican language. And that was not acceptable. Is
like you say 'raas clot.' 'Raas clot' is not acceptable. The Jamaican
language was like you're saying 'raas clot' or 'bumboclot.'
Just the whole of it?
Yea, the language itself. To speak like a Jamaican was not accepted
in the Jamaican society. It was not accepted. You were either
uneducated or you was just [considered] stupid to speak that way.
Well Miss Lou used that language and make it become something
of a gem in the Jamaican society, through her art form.
Yea, she really broke the colonial mentality . . .
Yea man, she brake that terrible.
Let me pause here for a second and look at my notes . . .
. . .
Some people ask stupid questions, like 'how old you is, and how
long you start do dub poetry, and why you walk barefoot.' Dem
question deh some lickle cliché question, and I start get
annoyed.
I haven't asked you any of those yet have I?
(Laughs) No no, that is I tell you say, dem question I get annoyed,
'how long you walking barefoot, why you don't wear shoes?' Dem
kinda ting deh . . .
I know why you do that . . .
Yea, well, some people feel them know but is another ting that.
Yea.
One question I wrote down today . . . you're very analytical
in the way you look at the world. You have a very analytical mind,
a very Africentric view of the world, but obviously that had to
come into you at some point in your life. Was there a critical
moment or a time period that you were in touch with some kind
of influence that shaped your Africentric consciousness?
Yea mon, when we going to school, the teacher them that we have
round we was Africentric, but them never used to teach we. But
we used to gather with them, like Marcus Garvey son.
Marcus Garvey's son?!
Yea, Marcus Garvey son used to teach at Kingston Technical where
I used to go. And you did have some others who is around now.
I remember one bredren name Makow(?), him never used to teach,
but him used to be around.
When you're talking about technical school. . .
Kingston Technical, [I was age] . . 15, 16, yea.
A trade school?
It was a school, but is a technical school where they do the physical
things. It's an ordinary high school but they have like woodwork,
and the electrical . . .
Vocational.
Yea, so these people was there. Locksley Comrie, I remember him.
They used to have the Malcolm X albums and the Autobiography
of Malcolm X. All of these things helped fe shape my consciousness
plus we used to gather with Marcus Garvey Junior, with Amy [Jaques]
Garvey, which is Marcus Garvey wife up at her house, and we used
to just read books. We used to just read a whole heap of books
and draw off a conclusion. And we start to read and is years after
[that] we start to travel. The consciousness that we had carry
through until we start to travel, and we start to see more of
what we was thinking. Is like you have the theory in Jamaica and
then you come [off the island]. We've been to so much place, we
see so much things. And it help fe shape we consciousness again,
because we believe in change, and we don't afraid of change. Maybe
the first time we used to think seh change is something weird,
but now we would see, and we understand more clearly what things
is all about, but we still maintain that African-ness -- that
liberation perspective. That consciousness fe tell we seh, yea
is Haile Selassie and the consciousness of Haile Selassie that
bring we to here, and we have to even reshape it to suit and to
elevate other people's consciousness too. So that is why even
the radio program [The Cutting Edge, IRIE-FM, Ocho Rios] in Jamaica
is so important. That we can now express what we used to say mongst
weself to the wider public. This is the first time Rasta going
to be on Jamaican radio that length of time.
When did you go on the air?
Five years ago we started the program. Now we have five hours,
four hours, every Tuesday night to express anything that we want
to express. That, as you say, rightly, that has helped to reshape
a lot of the thinking and influence a whole heap of ones now fe
get a clearer understanding of what Rasta was saying all along
and what Rastafari is all about.
What do you mean by the Selassie consciousness?
Well, Rasta is saying Haile Selassie I. We nah come off of that.
The consciousness meaning that what Haile Selassie did when he
was Ras Tafari and what he has done being the Emperor of Ethiopia,
we have seen him shaping Africa. And we can look on what he has
done as Rastas and see a certain Christ-ness that is what we are
searching for. Not as we were taught it, because first of all,
to really understand what the Rastaman is saying about Haile Selassie,
you haffe go move Jesus out of your mind. This idea, this Jesus
concept that was given to us by Rome. You have to totally wipe
it out and this God mentality, this God-conciousness. You have
to move that out now and reshape it. You have to look within man
not in the sky. And I think that is what a whole heap of Jamaicans
find difficult. That when the Rastaman say Haile Selassie, he
is trying to put what he sees in his mind about God with what
we is talking about this Man. And not knowing that what he sees
in his mind is what is in man. There is no other concept outside
of man. Is man make God. If there was no man, there wouldn't be
any concept of God. So you have to look within man to find the
reality of life and what life really mean. So when man is him
good, him say is God, and when man is him bad, him say is the
devil, but is really man still. So all concepts of good and bad
is coming from man is emanate from man.
from I&I . . .
Yea, so when the Rastaman says Haile Selassie, because man cannot
see man as the Supreme Being. Him trying to look outside of himself
fe that consciousness. And the Rastaman is saying, no, that consciousness
is here.
Wasn't also just the image of a Blackman as a King, a crucial
thing?
Yea, is the connection with history. Haile Selassie is the connection
is the Blackman's connection with the past and now.
The line of Solomon you're talking about?
No, even before that, we're not limiting. You see, we're not now
limiting Selassie to the dynasty of Solomon and Sheba, because
the dynasty of Ethiopia existed long before Queen of Sheeba went
to Solomon, seen? There was an Ethiopian dynasty before Israel,
seen? What we talking about now is long before Solomon and Sheba.
We saying now that Haile Selassie can trace him genealogy three-thousand
years before Solomon and Sheba. That is what Haile Selassie say.
There was Emperors is Ethiopia before Abraham, before Adam and
Eve. So we talking now about the link with our past and our now.
And you can choose anybody in Africa fe deal with this, but when
we look and we see without any disconnection, we see Haile Selassie
a carry that connection with the past and with now. And what we
see Haile Selassie do in his time here, is more than what them
say Jesus do. So we still say Haile Selassie, but we move Haile
Selassie above Jesus and God and all these concepts that has been
put into us by Western philosophy and Western ideologies. Cause
Western philosophy don't give you the feeling that you can be
connected with the supreme. It make you feel like God is an object.
And [like] it's unattainable, short of the impossible . . .
It's possible. So now the Rastaman a say, this nah impossible,
because him a show you a man like yourself, and that is very hard
to swallow with the concept of the Western world. That 'how can
you say a man like yourself is a supreme being? That is unheard
of.' The Rastaman a seh, but is only man can be a supreme being,
cause is only man can rule man. And is only man can attain that
consciousness that man search for in God, because God cannot exist
without man. If there is no man, there is no God. If there is
no God, there is no devil. If there is a devil, there is a God.
The two of them is just the flip side of the same coin.
So you don't see anything beyond, if circumstances came about
that all life was wiped off the face of the Earth, there's no
consciousness beyond man?
All life cyaan wipe off the face of the Earth. That is man imagination.
The Earth was always here and the Earth will always be here, whether
it is in the form of man life, woman life, animal life, but there
was never a time when there was nothing. Cause if God make everything,
where was God when he was making all these things? When them tell
you seh God make Heaven and Earth, where did the Heaven and Earth
come from that God could a make it? You know, we a say all of
these things is concepts that don't have no bearing on how we
live with each other. These things divide man. Moses form a concept
fe suit the Israelites in the wilderness. I am not in the wilderness.
I haffe go find a different god from Jehoviah god now. I a seh
now, is Haile Selassie, Haile Selassie to I is where I stop. And
I stop now, but evolving within Haile Selassie, not that there's
nothing else, but I can see within that concept.
Through that, you see what you need to see . . .
Yea, a wider picture of what is the purpose.
Similar to how an indigenous person in America would look within
. . .
Like how a Buddhist would see Buddha. Him look on Buddha and him
see that consciousness reveal. Christ is not a man. Christ is
a way. Like ya is a mechanic, or an electrician. There is a way
to fix the radio. If you follow that way, you fix the radio. But
you have to study that way. There is a way to live, that make
man be more friendly with each other. That way can be called the
Christ way, so if you follow that way, man will attain a certain
level of consciousness with himself. But if you start to focus
on the man, Jesus, you going to get mixed up, because there is
so much things that people say about Jesus: Him born of a virgin;
him dead pon cross; him walk pon water. These things is myth.
Last fall when I was [in JA], you played a tape or read something
you'd recorded but it was some old scripture . . .
The Gospel of the Nazarene? About Christ, Jesus.
About him being just a man.
But he was a man.
Of course he was.
There was no virgin birth. These things is set by Rome. All of
these stories that we hear about Jesus.
You don't have to convince me of that.
Yea, yea, but through we talking for this thing. These things
was set there politically by Rome. If Rome did not control Christianity,
Christianity would not be what it is today, because Rome was a
world power at the time, and they started to adopt this religion;
they started to spread it amongst the colonies of Rome, so now
all these things did not fit within the context of them, so they
used their mythology and mix it up with Jewish mythology, and
then come out with Christian mythology. But we now start to look
on these mythologies and start to feel that these things is real.
Like them tell you say a man walk pon water. If a man believe
say a man walk pon water, him just believe say a cow jump over
the moon and done! Who believe say a cow jump over the moon? A
virgin baby?!
Some people, unfortunately, do believe that a cow jumps over
the moon.
(Laughing). Yea, well, unfortunately them believe seh him walk
pon de water! But there is a greater understanding to these stories
that we don't investigate. Is like a myth. A myth is there to
explain reality that we have to look into. There is metaphors,
but we stop at the metaphor, and we use the metaphor within our
reality. Metaphors cannot suit reality. You have to decipher out
these myths to come to a conclusion in your life, ya nuh see't?
But we don't come to the conclusion by sticking, what does it
REALLY mean when it say, Noah and the Ark. Do you really believe
that a five-hundred foot boat could hold two of every animal in
the Earth? No, it's impossible. It's ridiculous. Do you really
believe that the rainbow inna de sky, because God say him nah
going to destroy the Earth again, by water but by fire? We know
why the rainbow inna de sky. There is a scientific explanation
why the rainbow inna the sky. The religious person him not going
to make him mind go deh, so him a go say is God put it deh. God
nah go put nuttin deh. Is a phenomenon. Is a natural phenomenon.
We can explain it now. These guys four thousand years ago, them
couldn't explain it, so them attribute everything to God. Now
I am in this modern times. I can't attribute everything to God
that I know I can explain. So that is where the myth must be deciphered
to make it sensible to an intellectual or an intelligent person
who is thinking. If you don't want to think then you can believe
anything. Now we can think. We are thinking. Black people a think
now. We a read. We a read the same book; we a go a the same school
as Europeans now, so we can no longer believe in them lickle illusions
deh, cause that going to carry further and further dung inna de
pit. That is why Bob Marley say, 'have no fear of atomic energy,
cause none of them can stop the time.' People make atomic bombs,
but them can't stop the time. Them blow up man, the Earth still
there. The environmentalist say man a go destroy the Earth. Man
cyaan destroy the Earth. Man a go destroy what it is to make him
live on the Earth, but just because him dead, him is not the only
life. Man is not the supreme life on Earth, is man believe that.
Every life is as important as man life, is just man take it upon
him head and feel like him more important than everything else.
You kind of answered my next question and that is, what is
the use then of the Bible?
The Bible is to confuse you, but still it is there to heal you.
It is a book written by men of old to express their historical
understanding of life. But now you in this time would have to
look into it, and see what is best suitable for your existence
and what is not. There is no way I'm going to follow God in the
Old Testament and sacrifice animals cause I love the scent of
it. And if I do something wrong, I'm going to go out there and
get so much turtles and so much oxen and burn them. That is primitive
thinking. But they say is God say it. I know God nah have nuttin
fe do with it. It is man trump up all these thing. So the god
of Moses is not the god of Christ, because Christ come and deny
everything weh them say him say, 'you have heard that it was said,
but I say . . .' So him a show you a higher thing now. But I live
inna dis time ya so now. Ya haffe look pon now, wha dem a seh
Jesus say. What Paul say? Paul a try gather up some numbers from
the Greeks and the Romans fe bring them over to a Jewish form
of Christianity. Now, I am not a Roman or a Greek, so a lot of
letters that Paul write to these people, the Ephesians, the Romans,
the Corinthians. I wouldn't take it upon myself and say is me,
because I a come from a different experience. I a come from an
African experience. I come from five-hundred years of colonialism
and slavery. So I would have to shape God within the context of
my life and how can God work for me. I nah work for God. How can
God a go work for me? Because is I going to create all of this
reality. So I create within my reality a historical figure and
a historical person. That is Haile Selassie. I can see how Haile
Selassie work for me, because I see him work for Africa. And I
see how that linkage link the old with the new and with the now.
And I have something to refer to without thinking mythologically.
Because when I think pon Jesus, I haffe think mythologically.
When I think pon Haile Selassie, I don't haffe think mythologically.
When you talk about him working for Africa . . .
The works that Haile Selassie do for Africa, like the OAU (Organization
of African Unity). He was instrumental in forming the OAU. He
was the one who went to the Geneva Conference when everybody was
thinking that Ethiopia was a primitive country. This eloquent
man spoke so eloquently in the League of Nations, yet still he
was mocked and jeered. He prophesied the Second World War. Him
tell them, 'you have struck the match in Ethiopia, it shall burn
Europe. International morality is at stake.' And so many things
that we can see within Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the oldest unconquerable
country in Africa. Is the only country in Africa that was never
colonized. And it has maintained an ancient history, that if you
go to Ethiopia, you can link Ethiopia past, and you can see the
future. When I go to Ethiopia, Ethiopia to me come like ya inna
de Bible. Lalabella. You go to Lalabella, it come like you inna
de Bible days. Just like what you [read] about inna de Bible.
Yet still there is parts of Ethiopia where you go and it look
so modern. So we can see the link. We can see the link. I cyaan
see the link inna Europe, because Rome history start at two youth
weh dem say wolf. I mean is myth, [but] so them say it start.
We have Egyptian mythology, Oros, Isis, these things is what create
other religions. Is what create even the concept of what Moses
handed down to the Israelites. I mean 'thou shall not kill' is
not a new thing. When you hear 'thou shall not kill' it sound
like out of the Ten Commandments it come, but the reason why Moses
left Egypt is because him did kill. So there must be a law inna
Egypt saying 'thou shall not kill' why him did haffe run left
Egypt. Because him did kill a man and bury him inna de sand. And
them find out him kill the man and him run, but Moses have a law
say 'thou shall not kill' and everybody believe this is a Moses
law. So a lot of the concepts that Moses came out with came from
who him was with. Moses spend 40 years inna Egypt and him spend
40 years amongst an Ethiopian man name Jethro and him married
an Ethiopian woman, so is 80 years of Moses life spent developing
a political and a philosophical idea to lead the people of Israel
out of the wilderness. So when I look pon dat, I a say, I can
see how that could a blend with me, but I nah go take it literally.
I a go see it as symbols -- symbolism. And and how now maybe I
can use it fe relate to me, but then again who need it fe relate
to me. Black people inna more shit than Israel of the past, right
now. So the Rastaman create this ideology out of an experience,
out of a black ideology, out of a black theology. And it may sound
ridiculous to some people, but it getting somewhere, because out
of that come the reggae music that has influenced so much people
inna de world. So when you look pon a lickle country like Jamaica,
144 miles long and fe see a lickle country like that has done
so much in Earth, much more than what Jerusalem did then . . .
It's almost unprecedented.
Yes. So I guess we just continue with that. So we haffe protect
it by doing these things.
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