Reasoning with Yellowman

In a bold and calculated move to empower your humble homeless vendor, street roots gave I a press pass last month, the theory being that such a pass would permit I to pass through previously locked doors in the pursuit of stories related to homelessness and poor people issues. Quite naturally this pursuit led to an interview with Winston Foster, the one Yellowman, who was playing at Berbati's Pan. Of course, ev'rybody love Yellowman, especially de gal dem. Also present at the interview were Ras Danny from KBOO Radio 90.7 FM, Sistren Lisa from Yared Hall, and Bryan Pollard, erstwhile street roots editor and photographer.

You may wonder why I chose to interview Yellowman. My reasoning went like this: Yellowman was born an albino in a country whose population is overwhelmingly African of heritage, was abandoned at an early age. He grew up in orphanages and homeless on the rough, tough streets of Kingston, JA, not only surviving but prevailing. He overcame great adversity. Between '81 and '84 he was more popular in Jamaica than Bob Marley, at the age of twenty-two he ruled dance floors worldwide because of the amazing style he creates every time he touches a mic. I have always admired King Yellowman.

Knowing nothing of interviewing technique, I burned the holy herb just prior to the interview, asked Almighty Jah for guidancy. What follows is transcribed from a tape. It is free-flowing and diffuse as Father God meant it to be.

[Play]

Jack Tafari: Winston Foster, Ah write for a street paper, homeless paper, Ah write what Ah know an' feel to be true, write poetry, heartical article an' like dat, write about poor people business...

Yellowman: Yeah, real ting...

JT: There are a couple of forces rising in the world today. One is economic globalization which threatens to impoverish us all. The other is Rastafari. You see Rasta beginning in the '30s in Jamaica with a small group of peasants who became conscious, you see it suppressed like early Christianity, crossing class lines with Twelve Tribes, spreading through Jah music, crossing national boundaries, racial divisions. I used to call myself a white dread. Today so many different kinds of people are Jah conscious to different degrees...

Yellowman: Rasta organization, de religion of Rasta, is no racial barrier...

JT: ...but out a respect me nah seh me a Rasta through Ah never went through slavery...

Yellowman: It doesn't matter what yuh went through, fram yuh is a Rasta yuh is a Rasta, seen? Ca yuh 'ave Twelve Tribe, yuh 'ave Bobo dread, yuh 'ave Nyabinghi, yuh 'ave all diff'rent tribe a Rasta. Yuh 'ave Earth dread. Earth dread dem doan wear clothes. Dem wear like leave. Fram creation day dem nah use water fram de pipe, dem use river water, dew water. Dem doan use toothbrush...

JT: Who are these guys?

Yellowman: Dem live inna de mountain in Jamaica, deep inna de mountain...

JT: Like the Maroons?

Yellowman: Right. No light, no cup. An' dem call dem de Earth dread, yuh know, de real real Earth dread...

Ras Danny: Do you sing about stuff like that?

Yellowman: Sometime, yuh know. Ah sing about de issue...

RD: I'm interested in what you draw from in your songs nowadays.

Yellowman: Well, it is originally ev'ryday tings, yuh know, like political issue an' 'ow de world a go end. Yuh know, nobody can predict when de comin' of Jah. Nobody can predict, ca yuh membah dem seh de year 2000 a whole heap a tings a go happen, man, God a come an'...Nobody can predict de comin' of de Lord. When God a come 'im come an' 'im come when nobody nah know when 'im a come, yuh andahstan?

RD: So you sing about Jah?

Yellowman: Yeah, right. But me mix de issue, yuh know. Like seh, for instance, Ah doan tek one side. Me deal wi' him an' him an' she an' she, yuh andahstan wha' Ah mean? Yuh haffi deal wi' ev'rybody. It jus' like touring is important to me because me learn fram diff'rent people culture, yuh andahstan?

Sistren Lisa: I've really been coming into conversations recently knowing that I really need to listen because every conversation that's there for me is for me to learn from.

Yellowman: Yeah, is true. Dat's de reason why it important fe yuh read an' it important fe yuh go out dere an' it important fe watch de news, ca if yuh doan watch de news yuh nah go know wha' gwan.

JT: You were like a newspaper, you published worldwide what was going on in Kingston when Seaga was prime minister and when the [E]radication Squads were taking out ghetto youths. You have a white skin and an African heart. What was it like growing up? Was it rough?

Yellowman: Well, yuh see, my parents are black people. People claim dat Ah'm white but it doesn't matter to me, it doesn't matter if dem waan seh me white, yellow, blue, green, it nah matter to me. Is jus' dat people is people, yuh andahstan. It nah matter to me if a person 'ave one arm, one eye, one ears, no mouth, no foot, yuh know, people is people. De only people dem me really doan like is politician. Dem mind an' dem brain is like dis, yuh know, it doan straight. An' dem always disappoint de people over an' over. An' doan mek dem do yuh any favour. If dem ever do yuh a favour, dem waan try control yuh forever. If yuh can do yuh own ting, do it, do it after yuh own mind, man, yuh own conscience. But nah mek nobody do it for yuh, especially a politician

[stop].

A little background information and this mostly from Dr Laurie Gunst's excellent book, Born Fi Dead. By the late '70s Michael Manley's social democratic government in Jamaica was running on empty. There was capital flight as wealthy Jamaicans moved to Miami, Manley's Brigadista work exchange program with Cuba had made the Reagan administration decidedly uncomfortable. Both political parties had long since armed the rudebwoys in the ghettos, posses did the politricksters' dirty work in the garrison communities. Political gangsterism and patronage were rife. In the 1980 election the US backed Edward Seaga's IMF-approved JLP. With the help of the CIA and with guns from anti-Castro Miami Cubans, Seaga (CIA-ga) of course won. More than 800 people died in the political violence of that year.

1980 was also the year Jamaica became a major trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine. The JLP was heavily involved in the cocaine runnings. While Nancy Reagan chanted the same old cant about "Just Say No," the Reagan administration turned a blind eye to cocaine in Jamaica, focusing instead on burning the ganja fields and destroying the livelihood of small peasant farmers, thus adding to the spiraling social misery. This led in part to where we are today in this country with a spurious war on drugs, an expanding prison system full of prisoners of war, martial law and the suspension of the Bill of Rights, piss in this, blow in that and who, by the way, is your case manager?

[Fast forward, play]

Yellowman (to Ras Danny): Yuh mus' try get de new CD Yellowfever. Is a great CD. Freedom of Speech is a great one, too.

JT: I like Galong, Galong, Galong.

Yellowman: Ev'rybody like dat.

JT: Wha'ppen to Squiddly an' Welton (musicians on the Galong, Galong, Galong CD)?

Yellowman: Well, dem still deh 'bout.

JT: Wha'ppen to Fathead (a talented mic MC)?

Yellowman: Fat'ead dead. Is de same ting Ah'm tellin' yuh seh, if yuh nah live righteous, God gwan tek weh yuh talent an' tek yuh weh, too. Yuh see, Fat'ead switch an' start sell drugs. So 'im jus' end up bad.

RD: That's what happened to me, you know, He took me away and I came out and started living right and I have a new mission now.

JT: When did he die.

Yellowman: 'im die fram '86.

JT: Wha'ppen to 'im?

Yellowman: Dem shoot 'im.

JT: 'im sellin' de White Wife?

Yellowman: Yeah, sellin' de White Lady. Yuh see, if 'im sellin' ganja is diff'rent beca ganja come fram de earth, is a natural ting. But cocaine is a man-made ting an' man-made ting always corrupt, is a devil ting dat.

JT: Tenor Saw (a gifted singer who died selling cocaine in Texas)?

Yellowman: Same ting, drugs.

JT: You were in Jamaica when a lot of the posses came over to the US and England because of the [E]radication Squads. Is that still going on?

Yellowman: It still in Jamaica now. But dat kind a mash up now. Jim Brown die ca dem was gonna extradite 'im to de United States. De US government was gonna extradite 'im de nex' day. 'im was like de leader for de Shower

[stop].

Miami's Metro-Dade police--along with the AFT, the INS, and the Drug Enforcement Agency--had been after Lester "Jim Brown" Coke since 1987, after authorities finally linked him to the 1984 murders of six people in Miami...At the same time, they realized that Brown was the man who had killed twelve people in the 1984 attack on the Rema ghetto in Kingston. So he was picked up by the INS and deported to Jamaica, but Seaga was prime minister and his protection made Jim Brown untouchable. Soon after he returned to the island, Brown killed the driver of a Kingston minibus; when it looked as if nothing was going to be done about this, the city's bus drivers went on strike. Their protest brought about Brown's arrest, but he was soon acquitted because no one was foolish enough to testify against him...

The Shower was still going strong in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles; Jim Brown was in Kingston...But now that Michael Manley had become prime minister again (in 1989), federal agents were now hoping that Jamaica's PNP government would finally deliver Jim Brown to them, but Brown was playing for time by appealing to the British Privy Council, Jamaica's court of last resort.

In the meantime, he was still loose in Tivoli Gardens [a JLP garrison]. In July 1990 the Kingston police tried to arrest him there with a force of eighty men. They were caught in a gun battle that killed four policemen...

...Jim Brown was burned to death in a conflagration in his prison cell. The British Privy Council had denied his extradition appeal, and agents from the DEA were waiting in Kingston to put him on a plane to Miami. Brown had vowed that if he ever went to trial in the United States, he would tell the world everything he knew about Seaga and the Shower posse. No one ever found out who set the mysterious fire in his cell, but everyone knew that...Seaga wanted Brown dead.

Also well worth checking is Yellowman's new CD Yellowfever. It is on the Artists Only label and came out in May. Yellowman seh is a great CD dat, and knowing the way the man rocks a mic, I believe him.

You know, King Yellowman ruled dance floors when the king of reggae, Bob Marley, died. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, spit inna de sky it a go fall inna yuh eye. One King, however, remains and He is ever-living and His name is Jah Rastafari. One Love.