Next regular post coming this weekend. Look out for it.
Almost a month ago, on Saturday 9th of April 2011, the Rastafari business community known as Temple Yard was affected by a fire. This fire destroyed 10 shops, but had and continues to have an effect on the entire community, both from a business point of view and also from a personal/emotional level.
Some of the nation's treasures, in the forms of sculptures and other art works, have been damaged and lost in this blaze. There will be donation boxes and sponsor sheets in the public circle from next week so keep an eye out for them. I ask that we try to make donations to this community which is not just a part of Rastafari life, but Barbadian life as well.
Temple Yard has had a trying past, from the days at Rockers Alley through all the re-locations to its current location at the edge of Bridgetown. This fire is just another chapter in this history, with help from the general public Temple Yard can overcome this latest setback and get back on track.
I give thanks in the early for any help given to Temple Yard in this time.
For more information keep checking Our Afrikan Heritage Magazine on theirFacebook page, or on theirwebsite. Ras ILive can be contacted at 232-1222
"Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?" -Adrian Green*
Honestly, at first I could not fathom the potential energy that is stored in words. The poet, in whatever incarnation, is a wealth of potential and their words are like fully charged batteries.
I always had a leaning towards English and the subjects generally referred to as the arts in school, so History caught my attention more so than Geography, and I preferred English to Mathematics. I was writing poetry from the age of 6/7 and talking foolishness, a skill in its own right, for as long as I can remember. Still this did not leave me immune to the trappings of adolescence and the tricky teenage years, so a lot of the things I did or liked were directly and indirectly influenced by peer pressure and the expectations of my peers and the general teenage consensus. In simpler terms, consciously and subconsciously my movements were dictated by one simple thing, coolness. I wrote poetry, lots of it actually, but never really did much with it, and I sure as hell was not going to listen to poetry albums, much less buy them, and especially not the rootsy, culture filled ones like AJA's, "Doing it Saf" - jokes!
However, as I said I did like History, and I was writing and reading poetry, though not as often as I wish I did now, so when I got to around 5th form and I began to mature(even if my actions did not reflect the intellectual growth) my perceptions started to change, my attention to "cool" started to change. This was as I was preparing my History SBA (School Based Assessment) which was based on the work of Dr. Ivan van Sertima, and more specifically, his book, "They Came Before Columbus". The work of van Sertima opened my mind's eye and shifted my existing historical paradigm and set me on a course to find out about Africa, in a pre-European era. As I began to connect with this history and this culture of "enlightenment" I began to lose some of the romantic notions I had early on when I first read van Sertima, and I began to see that everything in this subculture was not pristine and perfect. There were lazy people in "the struggle", there were out and out frauds, looking to capitalise on the hopefulness of others, but those eye openers aside, there was work to be done and not much people knew exactly how to set about this work. This annoyed me a bit, probably because I was, as are most teens, anxious and a bit impatient and expected that the elders would at least know what they were doing. This led to me writing a poem called "Rant" and it was, as the title suggests, me ranting about some of the inadequacies in the "Black Power/Pan African" movement.
All of this was not said to initiate any talk about the movement and its glories or its short comings and misgivings, but was a convoluted way of getting you to understand the mindset I was in when I wrote the poem linked above.
"Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?" I did not. My mother had AJA's album and I listened to it, under the rule of coolness, with the intention of getting some laughs at the "funny talking dashiki wearing rastaman", and I did get some laughs. The last laugh, however, was to be AJA's, because even though I was mocking the works at first, the words from some of the pieces became imprinted in my mind and remained there. Fast forward a few years and my mother, knowing I write poetry and do the NIFCA thing from time to time, brought home this book by a young Bajan poet who worked as the tech guy in her office, a little known guy with a sweet Riddim and Flo' going by the name DJ Simmons. I read the book, and at first the poems did not move me much, because at the time my poetry was in standard English with traditional structure and arrangement, so this dialect work was not so much my thing, it was nice, but just not my thing. Fast forward a little bit in time and I found myself at a show put on by "two roaring lions" and for the first time the question is posed to me, " Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?", and it was as if the poet had known that I was unsure, and he would have had to have been pretty damn intuitive because at the time I myself was not aware that I was unsure. He then told me what would happen if I understood the power of the words, he said," If you understood the power of the word you would understand and that you have the power to bring down the house..with a word", " because the power of life and death is on the tongue, but you know this, you feel it when certain songs are sung..when certain passages are read." In this moment I began to truly understand the power of the words and could answer the question that I had not known I was even to be asking with a quiet but certain; Yes!
As with my discovery of African greatness through the work of Dr. van Sertima, my fascination with the power of words was initially deeply romantic and a bit one sided. I had been fascinated with the potentially positive, almost magical, power of words and wordsmiths, but soon I would sober up from the romantic hangover and realise that with with all this potential that words had, there was no guarantee that once released their power would be used for good. Some of the most powerful words that can be uttered are "In the name of the Lord", and the evils committed under these words were/are unpleasant at best. Hitler and his Nazi regime were propelled largely by word power; manifested by means of his propaganda machinery, and his speeches.
"Djs and artists must know what their part is..."*, because "far too many of us are speaking poison."* Maybe the question that was posed to me should now be posed to them, or should be one of the questions posed during the interview when they apply to work at radio stations, "Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?" They might be just like me and not aware that they are unsure, or that there is even something to be unsure about.
The poet is right, far too many of us are speaking poison, and it is time for the positive potential in the words to be released. Released in the form of Positive Energy...RAH!*
*Blog title from Adrian Green's poem "Word Power". track 14 on his "Random Acts of Consciousness" album. *quotes come from Adrian Green's poem "Djs and Artists", track 6 on his "Random Acts of Conscience" album. *DJ Simmons' track "Energy", track 6 on his "Riddim & Flo" album. Check out track 18 for the remix with Adrian Green, its wickedly nice.
Once more we are back on music, and this time exploring non-indigenous genres in the local music industry. Local here of course refers to Barbados, but can easily apply to any music industry anywhere.
By now it should be no secret to anyone,living in Barbados, that Barbados has musical acts practising and representing a plethora of musical genres. From the internationally known soca acts like Krosfyah, Allison Hinds and Lil Rick to the amazing rock alternative stylings of Kite, Barbados goes hard. Standing Penance, Psilos, Threads of Scarlet, The Highgrade Band, The Fully Loaded Band, Nexcyx, Teff, Cover Drive, Daveny Ellis, Sunrok, Rhy Minister, Dundeal, Billy Kincaid(where you at son?) Red Star Lion, LRG, Ayana John, Betty Rose, and this list could and would go on. This list represents rock, reggae, r&b, pop, hip hop, indie and more, and is 100% Bajan. Anyone remember DJ Carlos and his Friday night techno-dance-trance sessions on Mix 96.9FM?
I claim this list as 100% Bajan and I stand by it, but they are some who would beg to differ, and for valid reasons, very valid reasons in fact. The arguments cited, in opposition of the 100% Bajan tag vary. There is the argument that Barbadians should stick to Bajan music and not get caught up in trying to do other peoples things, amd by other peoples things they usually mean pop, rap and hip hop, rock/alternative and reggae. The persons presenting this argument would prefer for Bajans to stick to soca and revitalise spouge, and stop all the banja. There is of course the slight issue in that soca is no more bajan than hip hop is, and a lot of people either do not know this, forgot this, or would love to pretend that it is. "Yuh hear lie, dat is lie." This argument is perpetuated by some narrow minded, but not ill-intentioned, people, who are gladly starting to fade from existance thanks mainly to the signing of a few young Bajans (Livvi Franc, Vita Chambers, Hal Linton, Shontelle and of course RiRi) to international labels, none practising any "indigenous" genres.
This next argument holds ground on this, its supporters and agitators have nothing against a diverse musical industry and in fact welcome the diversity, their peeve is that the artists are imitating the international and regional artists from which ever country their selected genre is from. Simplified, the rappers are rapping and phrasing like Americans, and rockers are singing like Americans, the reggae artists are chanting and singing and phrasing and speaking like Jamaicans, the Calypsonians and Soca artists are "phrasing like Trini".
This argument claims that the Barbadian self image, or perception of self, is in crisis since its artist are choosing to imitate, not emulate, the image and voices of others and not highlight their own, or create one that is uniquely and distinctly Bajan. It is a fairly valid point, and no doubt a serious one, no nation should let its national self image be weak enough to be erased by external influences, but is it really that bad, is the Barbadian self image so malleable? I'm not convinced, at least not from a musical stand point, that it is. If as a musician I lean towards rock, and choose that rock is the genre I wish to perform, then I would naturally seek to emulate other rock artist, especially the ones that I like and that influence me. It should come as no surprise to anyone that listens to me perform that I would have a similar sound to my influences, even in my original pieces. So when I go and listen to Adrian Green perform, I do not say, this is 75% Bajan, because I can hear the influence of Heru in him, neither do I ask whether Billy Kincaid has dual American/Bajan citizenship because he uses Bajan metaphors and analogies with some traces of an American accent and phrasing when rapping. Sunrok is hot in either dialect or the American flow, and 100% Bajan in both.
"Because when man luv ah ooman and ah ooman luv ah man ah jah jah bless eet" said the white Italian Rasta, and no one cares. Who remembers Snow from the 90's, the skinny white Canadian reggae artist, who on the radio sounded just like the skinny black boys from Kingston.
The genres these artists love and perform are not Bajan in origin, and while I can agree that some Barbadian influences coming through in the music would be nice (and it does happen, hell of a lot too) we really should not be disappointed when they sound like people from the respective lands of origin of whatever genre they perform, it is only natural. Listen to the junglist selections coming out of England, ever heard Mighty Crown or Black Chiney in a clash? Simon Pipe sounds like a Bay Area kid? So what? If these walls could talk they would tell you hush and just listen to the music.
These Bajan artist are some of the proudest Bajans we have, and they rep the country to the fullest when the chance arises. One of the guys from Kite had a customised guitar painted like the Barbados flag, unfortunately it was stolen. RiRi always has a trident somewhere in her videos. Buggy and the Fully Loaded Band always remixing songs and incorporating Barbadian things in their covers, "take a look down Baxters Road, do you see anything to smile bout?", "I got a hundred weight of collie weed coming from St. John..", and they had this crazy crazy spouge rendition of Culture's "A Song to Make the Whole World Sing" ..the engineer would tell you I love that version bad bad bad. The Highgrade Band started to incorporate some Bajan familiarities into their cover sets too. Do you know what I do when I hear Nexcyx perform? The same thing I do when Taio Cruz comes on, I get On The Floor and throw my hands in the air sometimes, it just feels a lot better when its to Nexcyx.
We have spouge(dead as it is) and Fling, and I hope that if fling ever gets regional and international followers that when I am overseas I can hear some Americans phrasing in Bajan and flinging it down like Azman. They will be no less American, just like The Bajan musicians are no less Bajan; Real Ting!
There are a few people who sit in fancy chairs around fancy tables in each island and tattle amongst themselves, and then they meet with their counterparts from across the region and tattle amongst themselves again and then they stand behind lecterns, on top of podiums, in front of cameras and speak to us, the ordinary folk, and say we are moving towards integration, we are finding and working towards ways of unifying all almost 40 million people.
After this the brilliant ones amongst us sit in lecture theaters and and classrooms and library cubicles and analyse the implications and possibilities that would arise from this unification and integration. They write papers and present their findings to their peers who either cheer or chide and then it is filtered by removing jargon and convoluted terms and given to Joe Public so as to get them on board and in a mind state to facilitate what is called the integration movement.
All is fine and fair so far, here is where it gets tricky, and where the insulting of my intelligence begins; ready? Remember your parents back in the days of your youth telling you, "Do as I say not as I do."? Well the officials, the academics, the institutions, the governments are manifesting this parenting cliche. How? Like this.
The University of the West Indies, an institution created within the vision of regional integration, one university, three campuses, none offering the same specialties so as to make people leave home and travel (read as integrate) to other regional territories and foster relationships with a regional cross section of persons. This would facilitate a much smoother integration process...LOL! So fast forward a few years, and the campuses begin offering the same things as each other, so Bajans really do not need to leff home and Jamaicans don't haffi fly out and Trinis can stay home and lime. Well non-campus territories still have to send their people out, but integration is a all encompassing not selective, as some people would like to have us believe. University of Guyana? 4th UWI campus? Things of myth and legend I believe.
Caribbean Court of Justice, who sign on? Enough said, moving on.
Media. Yes media. "The integration movement is making significant strides to becoming a reality", says one news report, then the rest of the news program is dedicated to how Jamaicans are drug dealers and prostitutes and murderous bastards, Trinidadians are obnoxious, self centered people with serious internal integration problems based on a racial divide, the Winward and Leeward Islands are hopeless banana republics and the non-English speaking countries are not worth a once-over.
I sense a mixed message here..subtle.
This is an outrage and very shameful. The Jamaican government has many tools at its disposal to retaliate against the Barbados yet is seemingly polite about this travesty. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident and requires a string response. Jamaicans, if little Barbados can treat some of us like that, you retaliate by not vacationing there, don't buy goods made in Barbados and boycott Bajan owned companies in Jamaica. Support Jamaican owned enterprises.
Jamaicans, you have power. Use it!!!
Jamaica must go it alone, no to Caricom and no to CCJ. It is a good thing that Jamaica did get out of the West Indian Federation. This "Finger-raped" would never happened to Shanique if she was traveling on an US or Canadian or EU passport because those governments will "punish" Barbados.
It is bad when a "white country" theat Jamaicans "bad" but when it it a 'black country" doing the same there are no words to discribe shame shame on our so call " black" brothers and sistersin Barbados.
Someone somewhere thinks I am stupid.
Why produce/promote songs like this then nuh if wunna really aint bout this togetherness thing?
Piss in muh facking pocket and call it gold man, I stupid so. Would have to be.
Ok yeh its a bit odd, but I'm still on a music tip.
So here is the question, what is bashment? What makes a song bashment? Is it the song it self, the lyrical content or the instrumental? A combination? Let us take a look see.
From observation I'll have to say that all songs deemed bashment have a few things in common: they are bass heavy, usually very high bmp, and are more rhythm oriented than melody oriented so as to inspire waistline articulation in the form of juks and stabs, a wukkupp more than a wine or grind. These features are found in bashment without regard for the era from which the song originates.
Nothing too fantastic in the melodies of these songs: Little Lenny - Bum Flick and Vybz Kartel - Dumpa Truck, but they are bass heavy, rhythm oriented and the bmp is fairly high.
Now looking back at the list one might be asking, "but rastaman what about the lyrics?" In those two songs above the lyrics are, quite "bashy", but from observation lyrical content is not a determining factor in what is bashment or not. How many old dub fetes or bashment events (short pants vs short skirts/ leggins and heels) are advertised with these songs as part of the ad?
In fact Super Cat seems to be the go to guy for old bashment, but listen to the lyrics of these songs, the latter is a hail up to the veterans of dancehall music, a song of praise/celebration if anything, but let the DJ select it and the the girls will call on their energy reserves if they have to and bash right out...COME OUT TINGS!
Which Lil Rick is bashier? Which will fill a dance floor faster? I bet the first one will, and its is more socially conscious than the latter, which is just about the female ass and its effects on him.
What's the point? The point is this, bashment is not lyrically defined and I guess that is good and bad. On the one hand you get a larger selection of music to chose for bashment events, and as an artist you get to reach a larger demographic, but on the other hand the message in the song, in a case where there is a message, is potentially lost in the bashment frenzy since it is the beat, not the lyrics, that crowd responds to. In most cases I'm not sure people even listen to the lyrics, sure they hear the lyrics and given enough time they repeat the lyrics, but they are not listening to them. What therefore is bashment music? Bashment music is music that can bring out the bash within, and for that nuff nuff bass, high bmp and repetitive drum rhythms are all you need. So whether it "too scabical"* or "you can't walk the road as you like lately"* is not the determining factor, once it makes the people jump up, bruk out, skin out 6:30 pat and crank and dagger, it is bashment.
It is kinda hard to do all of those dances to the song below. Its so mellow you just have to listen to the lyrics, no inner bash to be summoned by bass and drums, maybe just a lil scant and a head bop.
Red Star Lion - Watching Me
*Peter Ram and Lil Rick references. The first reference is to Peter Ram's Pat and Crank, which is opened with him declaring 'this one too/to (no one is sure whether he is addressing scabicals or declaring the song itself as scabical) scabical'. The second is Lil Rick reference to his dub song from the 90's about gossiping people and how they talk about you behind your back and even to your face. The chorus begins with the line " i can't walk on the road as i like lately, everybody like dem got talk fuh me" It is also the source of this blog title.
There exists this magical place in cyberspace where music lovers come together and post 'tune' and vibe in the cyber company of one another. The cyber city wherein this little enclave is found is Facebook, but before you go "oh dear, a facebook thing/app, it has to be folly" hear me out. This little cyber hole might be a Facebook group, but it lives up, for the most part, to its name, "I dedicate this group to real tune..." For those outside of, or unfamiliar with Caribbean musical jargon, when a song/piece of music is titled as 'tune' it means its either very popular or it merits distinction from other songs. This merit could be based on things like the musical concept of the piece, to the arrangement, to the lyrical content, instrumentals, etc. but it has to be distinct and distinctly good. This group is dedicated to real tune..and by real tune I mean the songs merited above others, not for popularity, but for being distinctly good in some aspects, if not all.
Look at these offerings from last nights crazy, crazy reggae session:
Dennis Brown - Money in my Pocket
Beres Hammond - Warriors Don't Cry
Matisyahu - Jerusalem
Bushman - Call the Hearse
It is a group formed by Caribbean nationals, but its focus is not solely on Caribbean music like reggae and dancehall. Dubstep, rock, trance, hip hop and rap, r and b, have strong representation in this group too. This group is a private group, kinda like a members only club, but is has members from across the Caribbean and even as far as away as Sweden, so we are actually global in scope and representation and musical preference.
For this blog post I dedicate it to real tune... from which ever genre.
