On the Road to Timbuktu with Blakk Rasta
By SoulSista
In all the time that I have been with MzansiReggae there was never a time when I felt so nervous or rather petrified to interview an artist. When the request for the interview was accepted I secretly wished that MissLee was in the country and she could rescue me.
Blakk Rasta is a larger than life figure, he speaks his mind freely. A man who without fear or favour calls the American President “The Modern day vampire ancestor of Hitler ” “Dumb Trump”, “Hot headed terrorist…” so you see why my fears were justified! to top it all off I was running late as I had under estimated my travelling time, I was playing scenes in my head of how it was going to go down when I meet him and trust me they were not pretty.
When I finally made it to our meeting place, The Hector Pieterson Memorial Center and Museum I received a warm welcome from him and his team and all my fears were subdued. While walking through the museum reading and discussing about the history of the ‘76 student uprising that was made famous among other things by the heart wrenching Iconic photo of a 10 year old Hector Pieterson who was shot during the protests being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo and his (Hector) sister Antoinette Sithole running besides them, I understood why he proposed that venue. The Tamale born father of four, husband, award winning reggae artist, radio host, poet, philanthropist, humanitarian, lecturer and a staunch Pan Africanist has made it his mission to fight the injustices of the world through his music and teachings.
He was in the country to launch his 10th studio Album, Timbuktu by Road which is published by Sheer Africa and we couldn’t miss the chance to meet the man behind Blakk Rasta.
How you are finding the place and how did the launch go?
I had a very nice time, I had fun, I enjoyed myself. I think Sheer Africa was founded somewhere around 1992 and it was the first time they were hosting a press conference there (at their premises), it was an honour, we made it happen. I went through the Album which has 32 tracks we talked about it. It was wonderful, we had fun.
Why 32 tracks?
I decided to make it a 32 tracks album because I wanted people to have a lot of variety. I’ve been away for some time and I also realise that this days people don’t really patronize CDs, anytime I pick a taxi I realise they just slot in a flash drive, they want to listen to a lot of their favourites, It’s not like in my days when an album had two tracks or four tracks, so I said ok if you want so many songs why don’t I give you that, and most of the time I like to stand I don’t want to be bitten into a line, I love to stand out and let the people feel me more. The main inspiration came when I was recording this album four years ago. A young man invited me to his studio, but I didn’t like the kind of production he had there. We listened to some traditional music and I liked it, we recorded a song in that studio and when we released it the whole country of Ghana went crazy, the song is called Dede. The reggae that I do is called Kuchoko, Kuchoko is just a blend of Jamaican Reggae and Traditional African music, you will hear xylophone in reggae, and you’ll hear some African horns and all that. So I decided to do Kuchoko but this one (Dede) is more like Jamaican dancehall but blended with African flavour. I decide to do two albums one Kuchoko reggae and Kuchoko dancehall. I released it and it looks like we are still rising.
How’s the reception? Are people accepting that Kuchoko style, because I find that with myself, I’ve been listening to reggae and if someone comes with another style I’d be more receptive, listen and give them a chance?
Ye, in fact it’s interesting, I was in Canada the other day to do a festival called Jambana One World Festival, Jamaican festival in Ontario and I was there and they introduced me as an African artist and I was the only African artist who had been invited in over 20 years of the festival, it was a big hype “somebody is coming all the way from Africa” and 20 thousand Jamaican people, reggae lovers were there. I came on stage and started playing my music, the normal one drop and it looked like they have heard so much of that from Jamaica you see, so when I dropped my Kuchoko style the whole place went ablaze and I said “Oh Thank God, at last I’m able to touch them: cause I am an energetic performer when I am on stage I like people to feel the worth of their money so when I went off stage and when they were introducing the next artist the crowd starting screaming my name, they wanted to see me again, so I had an encore, from that time I told myself that people want creativity we cannot be stuck. If Bob Marley was alive today I am sure he would be doing Kuchoko. When he (Bob) was recording in London and wanted to introduce Rock guitar into his reggae, the purists, the so called reggae purists were like “oh nah nah nah nah” and he had to go out, according to the history that we read, he had to go out and virtually drag in his guitarist to play the rock guitar. If you listen to the Exodus album you hear a lot of the rock guitar that ordinary Jamaicans were not playing. Reggae evolves. Reggae is not stagnant and I believe that as an African, Reggae is from Africa let us fill it with the spirit of Africa. That is why I decided to do Kuchoko. SoulSista, I travel out of the country and I’m going to play a show and the band is asking me what riddim do you want this song on, I say I don’t do riddims, I do original music. A lot of artists come on stage and all they tell you is that: ‘give me this riddim’, ‘oh is the band good enough? Yeah it’s good, ok play me this riddim I’ll ride on it.’ I don’t do riddims I play original music.
So whenever you perform you don’t do riddims at all!?
No, not at all, there is not a single song of mine that is on a riddim unless I’m doing a cover, and in my life I’ve only done two covers out of the 10 albums that I’ve recorded. It’s all about being creative and Africans are so energetic, if you just follow the so called reggae culture where you raise one leg up, raise one hand with the finger up, drop it and raise the other one, just like people do then we will be behaving like robots, everybody knows that this artist is all about “chuck boom chaka” and I didn’t want to do that.
You know recently there was all that hullabaloo about Afro-beats replacing dancehall on the mainstream, would you say that is the reason? People are becoming stagnant? There is no creativity?
SoulSista has hit it on the head “Bam” that’s it! Look how Afro-beat has swallowed dancehall, yes there was that whole uproar to the point that somebody like (David) Rodigan who plays reggae on BBC Extra, his programme is now an Afro-beat programme and he had being warning them right from the start ‘Listen don’t via away from the reggae feel too much and make it too much of hip-hop or rnb, stick to the rudiments of reggae like Bob Marley did, you can add some other things but don’t change it’ but Jamaica did not listen, they kept doing it and this is the result. Other people like Lutan Fyah and some other artist spoke about it. And they said dancehall has never suffered a huge threat like it’s suffering now from Afro beats, and what is Afro-beats?; its high-life music from Ghana that Fela (Kuti) went to study and ADDED something to the high-life to make it Afro-beat instead of having one drop from the drum he made it double. So Kuchoko is the same reggae, the same one drop that we have or the same foxtrot that we have and I just added some African instruments that will connect you with your ancestors, which will make you have goosebumps, which will make you sit back and say “What! This is creativity” I remember in Canada at the same festival I got a band to support me to play, a year later when I returned they said “Blakk Rasta, you know what, next time you come please come with your own band, we can’t play your music” but the first time it was easy it was a normal ting to the point now that when you talking about Reggae, Africans don’t get a chance, if people want to listen to reggae they would go to Jamaica and Jamaica is closer to Europe and Europe is closer to America they won’t fly to South Africa, Ghana or Tanzania to look for a Reggae Artist. It’s like me flying all the way to Germany to get a white man to come and do South African house music for me, or come to play high-life, it’s going to be something else. They think that we are watering down their culture so I decided to keep the reggae, take a bit of it and add the spirit of Africa into it and let it fly.
And you are so provocative, I was listening to some interviews that you did and I listened to some of your music, the song Donald Trump, How do you become so provocative, so fearless, how do you tap into that, or it’s in your nature?
Yes I think I was born with that DNA, I am a Rebel, just like right now we are sitting in Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum Center, you realise that all this people rebelled against a certain system and if that system continues, then we would not be comfortable, it is not about us, it is also about the people who are coming after us. When I sit back and think about the little children who are going to grow up after me and that they are going to inherit this mess, I feel like I would I have failed. What is all that energy for if it cannot be put into use, what is all the fluency for, the oratory, what is it all for if I will not be able to change somethings in our society. I will consider myself a failed artist if my music is not able to touch society; forget about the melodies, forget the riddim, that’s why most of the time I do poetry, If I truly want to attack or hit a point, I don’t worry myself about melodies. I give you hard hitting poetry and I keep it like that. Donald Trump is the worst president we’ve ever had in the world. Look at what he is doing, he sees himself as untouchable, he sees himself as somebody who controls and owns the whole world. If a man like that is not stopped, we are going to have another Hitler, who is going to be going around again and try to colonise or better still recolonize us. We are not ready for that. Donald Trump is just one human being, he must not have so much power to a point that he can enslave or colonise some people. Listen to his statements, that song was released long before he even became president, you see “Mexicans are drug addicts, they are rapists, Muslims should never be allowed into America” forgetting that there are Muslims in America, Born Muslims, and they helped to build America. Somebody who talks to the Pope who controls a whole lot of spiritual crowd as if he was talking to his backyard gardener. He has no respect and I think that when you are meeting people like that you have to match them boot for boot. That’s why I decided to make that song, and I sent it to him over and over just like when I made that Barrack Obama song, in 2007 November, a black man was becoming a president at last, that is good news, atleast people will now change their minds about black people just being boxers, dancers and entertainers. They’ll know that we have intellectuals, we are not only bus drivers, footballers and all and when nobody gave Obama a chance. November 2007, I recorded it, sent it around and it became a massive hit all over the world, CNN, Aljazera, everybody played it. Obama promised himself that if he won the elections, he was going to come down and honour me for believing in him from outside his jurisdiction and he did it. 2009 June, He came to Ghana and he gave me the opportunity to meet him with one on one, to sit with him and dine. That is the power of the music. I don’t want to do music that people will just drink and dance to and forget, I want to do music that will uplift me.
And which people will remember for a long time, I’m definitely sure people will remember that Donald Trump song for a long time, have you received any backlash over it, cause there are some ‘undesirable comments’ about you on the net.
Certainly, I know even God does not have everyone as his fan, there are people who are not fans of God the Creator. There are people who will tell you either he does not exist or he is such a terrible spirit that somebody doesn’t want to deal with. I see myself as somebody who cannot convince everybody at the same time or appeal to everybody at the same time. There’s a saying that says “when you are for peace, you must prepare for war” because there are some people who don’t want that peace, so they will WAR against you in order NOT to give you that peace, for instance that man who sells chemical weapons and guns, if there’s is peace how is he going to sell those things, so if you come with peace he will make sure to give you a fight, so prepare for that fight if you want that peace. So I give it out as I am lead by the spirit of the most high, and whomever it hits, hits. It’s like a stray bullet.
So you have no fear at all?
No No No, fear! NO, fear! What is fear! No man, no fear. I mean (chuckles) fear is just you trying to say that I can do it but I don’t want to try. No, if we feared, fear is the greatest (silence) I don’t know, fear is the greatest disservice for man and woman. If you have no fear, then the devil cannot come near you. For the fear of the devil people become religious and for the fear of heartbreaks people don’t want to love anymore, for the fear of sicknesses and all that some people don’t even want to get into any relationship at all, but when you don’t have fear the evil one is not able to get to you, the devil uses fear to trap anybody, the devil never uses love it’s just fear, ‘I fear that there’s a certain Sangoma somewhere who wants to destroy my life therefore let me go get protection’, so you spend your time trying to protect yourself instead of opening up yourself with love and appreciating nature. I thank God fear is not in my DNA.
That’s very powerful I wish everyone had that concept about life, things would be much easier. Why Timbuktu by Road.
Timbuktu by Road, the first ever university in the world was in Timbuktu, present day Mali. When black people invented reading and writing , Europeans were totally illiterate, stark illiterate, we as black people invented the art of writing and even language, check it out, what other language did Adam and Eve speak if they were black people as it has been confirmed, what language did they speak, so I’m saying that Bob Marley had an album that he called “Babylon by Bus” that means he was going to Babylon by Bus to conquer Babylon and I’m saying Timbuktu by Road, I won’t go by bus, I will go by road to the city of learning, on the way I’ll pick up the sights and sounds, I’ll pick up the energies and move towards the city of learning and when I talk of learning, I’m talking about enlightenment, that is it, that is the concept. The album is a whole lot of variety, it has so many sounds from so many different African countries, the influence is heavy, you have some highlife, some Soca. If you listen you will hear that it sounds like Africa, this thing sounds like the so called francophone. That’s the inspiration behind it.
Let’s talk about Ras Kimono, the song ‘Bye Bye Kimono‘ it’s very, I won’t say sad but it’s very emotional
I’m glad that you heard it that was the intention, to make people solemn and to make people share that emotion with me. Kimono was the one who introduced me to the music, his music was the first that I appreciated and loved as a little boy in Tamali. His lyrics were so simple, he didn’t have too much western education, lyrics simple and straight to the point, talking about black consciousness, talking AGAINST evil corruption and all that, so I could relate to that. The riddim was simple and beautiful and he was a Rastaman and he was one of those who got me into Rastafarian. He became my mentor and I had the pleasure to meet him later in life. He was a huge superstar, for me a student to leave school and to get an opportunity to sit with him and take photographs, it was huge for me.
How was that emotion, I can imagine you growing up listening to him and him also being the one who influenced your journey into reggae. How was the emotion behind that?
Extremely emotional, I never believed that I’ll meet him. In those days there was nothing like Instagram, nothing like social media, so I sat down and wrote a letter to a programme called VON (Voice of Nigeria) Link Up on Voice of Nigeria radio which I was getting on SW2 cause there was no FM (frequency modulation technology) at that time. I would listen on my small radio at night cause the signal was better at night and I realised that people were writing letters to the station and asking about Nigerian artists, so I wrote to them and one day when I was listening I hear them reading out the letter “there’s someone from Ghana who likes Ras Kimono…” they read out the address where I could reach him on. It was the happiest day in my life, see the funny thing is because it was read on radio and I was not prepared to write it down, I missed the address but they gave the address to Ras Kimono who wrote back to me and that was it. Imagine how many artists would pick a pen, paper, write and go to the post office, post it by snail mail to this little boy in Ghana, that was something huge for me and I think it has helped to humble me. A lot of people who meet me in Ghana say “you are too humble, are you sure you are that person?” you see fear, you see pride, these two things! There’s always that pride before a fall. I’m glad that they’ve never been part of my family. Meeting Kimono was wonderful and I realised that I couldn’t get to him, I couldn’t get close to him because the fans were all around him and he drew me closer and when he passed on it was a terrible blow to me.
You can feel it in the song that it was a really huge blow for you, it’s not even about what you are saying but how you express it.
I cried, so I had to put something down and he loved me doing poetry, I was going to sing it but he always told me “Hey do poetry, I want to hear the poetry”. Kimono had a poet who wrote poetry for him to turn into music. Kimono was not a lyricist, he was a very melodic singer. The poet would write down the lyrics, send to him and he would put melody and music to that. He cherished poets, so I said well, he loved poetry why don’t I give him a poetry tribute.
It is a Powerful song indeed, I want to come back to something you once said, that there’s you the artist and there’s you the radio host, but don’t those two people meet somewhere, how do you separate them.
It’s true, it’s very true. you see a female friend of mine told me some time ago, “there’s George my husband and there’s George the singer, When he is at home he is my husband, it’s lovely, we don’t talk music and everything is about the family but the moment we step out and his moving towards the music platform, family is forgotten and it’s all about the music”. I am on Radio and as I told you I like to help change society, to teach about our History. That’s why I have a radio program called ‘Taxi Driver’ named after the common people on the streets who drive us every now and then, it has been running for so many years now and I have a segment called ‘African History Class’ it is huge. I was shocked when I heard that kids as young as six, seven, eight years listen to that class, schools wrote letters to me, I was shocked, I only intended it to be an adult class but that’s what it became. Now I have another segment called ‘The Black Pot’ and in the Black Pot I look at issues that are happening every day and I give my opinionated commentary and that is where the problem is. Thankfully I have never been associated with any political party, every Ghanaian knows that so for that reason today if I’m on this side, this other side is angry, and then people will start talking a lot of things but I’ve taken so much of that it doesn’t matter to me anymore, It’s all about preaching the message. I used to go on social media and find out about what people were saying to me and I realised that nah there are a lot of idiots out there, they will say anything because they are hiding behind a certain computer and they are faceless so they write anything, some of them are even your biggest fans but they just want to be noticed. I stopped reading those things, I don’t read that. If there is a story I read the story and let it go and I fly, I think it has helped me a lot.
So do you still play a lot of your music on your show? I was laughing when I was listening to your explanation, it makes sense though but the way you explain it lol, also do people know that you are funny, do they know that “funny side”?
Yes, I when I had the press conference everybody was laughing left right and center, it comes to me naturally. So now this is a man whose on radio, today he steps on this person’s toe, that person could be your uncle could be your sister or your sister’s sister uncle’s brother. In Africa we are SO connected it’s not funny and somebody sitting on a radio as a DJ says “Oh the other day he spoke bad about my wife’s sisters aunties brother for that reason mxm, no matter how much good the music is I am not going to play it”. You know I am a musician and at the same time a radio host and somebody sits on another show and say “ahh if I play his music I will have to say that it’s Blakk Rasta who plays on Xylophone FM, I am promoting Xylophone FM a competitor of mine on my radio show” so I have that trouble, we make the most conscious music, I come on stage very energetic infact people wonder “is he on drugs or something” BUT, you are not good enough to have your music freely played and I don’t pay payola, I don’t go out there and pay people to play my music because I see it as bribery. If you do that you are going to inundate the radio space with unwanted music because somebody has paid you, that’s why I’ve never accepted payola, they know that in Ghana, you don’t go to Blakk Rasta and give him your music and say take this, I say let’s do the work and if you feel like it then we can have lunch, so that when I go home and I listen to your music and I don’t like it I can throw it away, but if it’s good I’ll play it, they know that about me and I’m very happy about that.
Have you had a chance to listen to any of our artists?
Yes I have, the 1st South African artist who touched me, people are suprised by this, it was Penny Penny Shaka Bundu “Papa Penny ahe” he was huge where I come from. The other music genre that touched me when I was here was House music, I particularly enjoyed listening to Sho Madjozi, she has that song called ‘John Cena’ and she is a happy lady. So when I return to Ghana I’m recording a happy song, a house song and it is going to be called ‘Mpumalanga’
Why Mpumalanga?
Mpumalanga, the name sounds nice in my ears, Mpumalanga, it sounds like some energy (and you checked what it means?) Yes, that’s the other part that attracted me more, I hear it means ‘The Place of the rising sun’ Mpumalanga, look at that energy, without the sun there is no life. Oh my I’m going to record that.
Have you had any chance to meet with any of our reggae artists?
I’d say that Lucky Dube was big. We were supposed to have a concert before he passed on so sadly. I’ve listened to Senzo Mthethwa, one of the reasons I came here is to sign him and take him to Ghana, which we have done. I know he has been sick for the past twenty years and speech is a problem and all that but the spirit is telling me that it does not matter just honour a legend, if he comes on stage and he is not able to hit his notes and be in key, remember that he used to be in key, remember that he used to have that energy. Sickness should not be an excuse to creativity. We decided he is going to be in Ghana, we will take him on a tour. I’ve taken it upon myself to TRY and bring him back to that space again. Apart from Senzo which other artist have I heard, reggae is almost quiet in South Africa after Lucky Dube flew away I haven’t heard that much reggae from South Africa.
You see that’s the problem that we have. We have a lot of good artists but we are struggling to get back into mainstream radio. If you do check on our site we have a lot of good artists, in Venda, Cape Town, and KZN everywhere. We have a couple of shows on mainstream but they are only one-two hour programs and mostly at night.
SoulSista, I think we used to have this problem in Ghana too, but as a revivalist, trying to revive whatever it is I believe that you have to go all out and make it happen. Right now I have the biggest reggae radio show in the world, why! Because every day I play four hours of reggae, Monday to Friday, four times five that’s 20 hours of reggae a week. Somebody has only one hour the whole week, why! I realised that there were two reasons; people are quick to follow trends and two: they are not commercializing Reggae. When I started, I started with so many other people but along the lines they got blown away cause of some of this things. So I made sure that with my Reggae I don’t follow trends I don’t want to hear “oh this is the new artist, and is doing so well” I have to convince my spirits that I like this music. Someone asked “is it all about you?” It’s not all about me but it starts with me. If you don’t like the music and you tell everyone “this is the best song wow” you are being a hypocrite, you are following fashion, and you are not able to stand on your own two feet and speak from your heart and say this is it. They follow trends and you see when you are faking something it will show in one way or the other but if you truly love the thing and play it, telepathy, it exudes from you, that is who I am. People criticise me for playing old time reggae on my show, but that is why I have all the listeners, that is why all the sponsors are on my show that is why the show is big and makes the biggest money for my station. I don’t go around running for sponsorship but if I have to do that I would do that to keep the Reggae thing alive. So when you see them firing some other people on other shows they call me “Blakk Rasta, my manager said my time has to be reduced from two hours to thirty minutes” I ask “do you have sponsors on your show?” He says “Mxm, But you know reggae, sponsors are not keen” I say “no, no, let it happen” I bet you if I was in South Africa, reggae would rise to the top again.
So don’t you want to move this side?
Honestly, I would love to, because this is the bigger space and I don’t believe in those rhetoric, I went to Newtown music factory (Baseline) I realise that they have skewed the whole thing to dancehall, me as a conscious reggae artist, who is coming to give them a certain flavour of reggae music, everybody just want to go hyper, drink and smoke, no, sometimes you have to be sober and listen to the vibes. I didn’t hear a single reggae song in there even the UB40 song ‘red red wine’ they gave it a dancehall beat, boom boom so you are telling people that they are there to dance, so if I don’t have a dance song I’m not going to be appreciated. We are trying to kill that mentally in Ghana. I never perform at a places where people’s minds are on “this is it, it has to be a dance thing and without it, no…” No, so Baseline, I’m glad that it’s able to keep the dancehall thing alive cause dancehall came out of reggae, but I wish that the people there would make a conscious effort to also keep reggae pumping cause they are scared to do that because the crowd is going to diminish. How do you keep the crowd, you have to find a way of doing that or else reggae artists will suffer, it’s not all about dancehall. No, right now Afro beat is swallowing dancehall, if dancehall was that strong why Afro beat should swallow it. Create be creative, you can’t just bring Sisters on stage to do all that, I don’t believe in that, I like to see pretty, sexy sisters but I don’t want them to do some lewd dances in public, it makes me feel like they are being exploited. Yes it makes me feel that, some of the weird dances where women are thrown up in the air, we are copying Jamaican foolishness, Jamaican foolishness, it doesn’t make sense to me.
But what if, because I think they do it for the crowd, what if the crowd goes there for that?
That’s what I’m saying, if you follow the crowd, if you play to the gallery then you’d be a robot. You have no faculties of your own. You move according to the distaste of a certain crowd, it doesn’t make sense. If everybody says “ok we want to go drink and have a good time and feel good” and you know drinking kills people, so you want to go drink and feel liberal, so go do whatever you want. You are killing the society. That is why we have laws, that is why in some countries they say homosexuality is not good, they say lesbianism is not good, some people say you can’t smoke marijuana in this country, some people say you don’t do this and this, so many different laws, we evolve, in time you see that those things that were considered not good are now being accepted, it moves with the times, it moves with the times. Yes trends are there, but a lot of the things that society frowns on are the things that sell. Look at cocaine, bring it out here, since marijuana was legalised in this country the usage has gone down, some people take it because it’s illegal and wants to feel like a rebel. I see sisters doing this thing, but for me it’s a no. I think if we have to be conscious we have to be conscious, don’t necessarily think that that is what people want to see, they want to see nudity so you give them nudity. Why did they write on the walls of Baseline that you can’t bring in codeine in there, because they know codeine kills society, Let them allow it and see how many people are going to fill that place with codeine, the fact that the crowd likes it doesn’t mean that it’s right. Feed them according to what glorifies and not what deteriorates and that’s my opinion.
Where to now with Timbuktu by Road?
Beautiful, Timbuktu by Road was only released last month in November and we are selling it at a very high price, no Cd has ever been sold in Ghana at that price. It sells at 50 Ghana Cedis, so times that by 4 it will be 200 Rands in South Africa and it’s selling at a time that no one is buying CDs, the packaging is beautiful, it’s heavy, two cd’s in one, manufactured properly. Its quality music and the good thing about that album is that it was recorded live, at a time when people are just computerizing every beat, I tell you SoulSista there is no way that African reggae Artists would make it if they want to be Jamaicans, no ways. If you do not INDIGENISE your reggae, you are going to be a copycat, a follow fashion and it will not work. If reggae is all about speaking patios and shouting ‘Jah’ to crowds and jumping around and hopping around smoking marijuana like some Jamaican reggae artists do, forget it. If they want the best ganja smokers they’ll find them in Jamaica, if they want the best Reggae singers they will find them in Jamaica, if they want the hottest reggae music they will find it in Jamaica, they won’t come for a second rate, copycat or a photocopy. Indigenise, that’s how Lucky Dube made it. Peter Tosh was Lucky Dube’s Icon, he picked up Peter Tosh music and added a lot of flutes, pitch bass, before he passed on what kind of music was he doing, its Xhosa added to reggae, indigenous South African music, listen to his bass it’s a Zulu bass from Kwazulu Natal. He would have never have made it if he had just followed Jamaicans. He sold more than any Jamaican artist, look at Alpha Blondy, he sings in his language. He get Africans to play the thing and takes it to Jamaica to give it a Jamaican mix, it’s a combination. If you want to be a Jamaican then you are a second rate Jamaican, and if they want the best they won’t come for the second class, that’s what I keep telling the youth, that’s what I keep telling people.
Reggae artists and patois, you know I speak patois more than a lot of Jamaicans but it didn’t help me. It’s good to learn languages but when it becomes a certain stereotype that if you do this genre of music then you must speak the language. There are a lot of Ghanaian girls who don’t speak a lot of patois, they are doing dancehall and they try to speak patois and it’s laughable, I listen to it and they are recolonizing us for Jamaica. In the past I did a lot of that, my past albums still has a lot of that but I do not limit myself to patois. Today, a lot of Jamaican dancehall artists are running after Nigerian Afro beat makers. Popcaan and the rest who were disrespectful in the past are running after Afro beat artists and I’m happy for Africa, this is our time we have to make it work. Our brothers have to also come home and learn our style of music. That’s it.
So where are you off to from here?
Timbuktu by Road, we are taking a group of school children to Timbuktu to teach them about our history, it’s a seven day journey. We will take them through all the routes, every city, every town, every village and we will stop and tell them something small about that place, to pick up the vibes because vibes want to teach them about our proper history. When I was in school we always thought it was only people who are ‘crazy’ that would go for History, it was seen as something that was a waste of time a. History is great, I studied science but when I went into History I loved it and made up mind that this is what I want to give to the youth. I’m taking them to Timbuktu by Road, going in a bus by road, we will ride camels when we arrive, that’s why If you look at the Album cover, you see camels and donkeys, and PRAY that this Album reaches the Bob Marley’s of this music, it’s going to grow bigger and bigger until it reaches its right audience. Same way I pray that people will sit back and say “oh he wasn’t such a musical genius but he was smart, he taught about blending and he called it Kuchoko”
