mutabaruka

MERVYN MORRIS

Muta ba ru ka

1

The so-called ‘dub poets’ are a number of individuals, with differing atti- tudes to that generic label and indeed to composition and perf0rmance.l While it has been useful to recognise broad similarities between these poet- performers, it is important to be clear about the specific character of each. Between Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mutabaruka, Oku Onuora, the late Mikey Smith, and Jean Binta Breeze, for example, there are significant distinctions to be made.

Unlike most other published poets, Mutabaruka claims that he does not revise the poems he writes, though he has abandoned some. But the avail- ability of various versions cannot safely be attributed only to casualness about the presentation of his texts. ‘Revolutionary Words‘, for example, is a reworking of ’Revolutionary Poets’.* ‘The Eyes of Liberty’ as performed by Muta at the first Anti-Drugs ’Crucial Concert’ (1989) is a distinct im- provement on the version available on The Mystery Unfolds (1986). In this poem, which centres on the symbolic significance of the Statue of Liberty, the 1986 ending runs:

but de eyes of liberty is watchin you watchin all de tings you do de eyes of liberty is watchin you to yourself you must be true.

This has become (in 1989):

but de eyes of liberty is watchin you watchin all de tings you do de eyes of justice is cryin out what is your democracy all about.3

Though of course he makes aesthetic choices, Muta pretends to care little about them; he talks more readily about the content and function bf his material. ’My poetry’, he has said, ’is to show you, and awaken you to dis problem an‘ how you now gwine motivate yourself to come out of that problem. I think that should be the purpose of all artistic expression then: how to motivate thought and action.’4 Many poets would sign their names to that; but they also often articulate their search for appropriate form.5

Not much inclined to talk about the shaping, Muta often writes with

40 Critical Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 4

canny sophistication. It is hard to believe that ‘Dis Poem‘, for example, was a one-shot production never revised, Sonorously naming names, it evokes black history, alludes to slavery and heroic rebellion, ancient and modern achievement and oppression. It is also mischievously self-reflexive, elabor- ately playful:

dis poem is watchin u tryin to make sense from dis poem dis poem is messin up your brains makin u want to stop listenin to dis poem but u shall not stop listenin to dis poem u need to know what will be said next in dis poem dis poem shall disappoint u because dis poem is to be continued in your mind in your mind in your mind your mind

The echoheverb effect at the end reminds us that Muta is a recording artist. In addition to some early 45s, he has put out six albumslCDs of his work: Check It (1983), Outcry (1984, 1987), The Mystery Unfolds (1987), Any Which Way Freedom (1989), Blakk Wi Blak.. . k . . . k . . . (1991), and Melanin Man (1994). His books are virtually unavailable,6 but there is a new collection in the pipeline.

Black history IconsciousnessIidentity /liberation is Muta’s central concern. Though he has also written love poems, poems in praise of the ecology, and some that reflect on the creative relation between poet and reader (‘there is everything/ already in my poem/ that is in your/ mind’),7 the protest element predominates in Muta’s work: protest against poverty, inequality, racism, class oppression, political deceit, and the wickedness of powerful nations. He most often locks his gaze on the Caribbean and the USA, but will target the enemy in Africa, Latin America, Europe, anywhere. Socio-economic deprivation is often seen to stem from imperialism, neo-colonialism, and the miseducation of blacks,

So here we are figurin out about self tryin to free ourselves from everything and nothin hopin for a better day . . . everything we know is wrong8

And, as he writes in ’Lamentati~n’:~ ’the world needs rearrangin’. Mutabaruka moved stage by stage to his present views on the world. He

was born in Rae Town, Kingston, on 26 December 1952. He was trained in Electronics at Kingston Technical High School, and worked for a time at the Jamaica Telephone Company. Brought up Roman Catholic, he came

Mutabaruka 41

under the influence of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s. Seek- ing something more radical, he became Rastafarian in the early 1970s, and went to live and grow food in Potosi District, St James, in 1974. He changed his name from Allan Hope to Mutabaruka (’one who is always victorious’).10 He was hired by the Negril Beach Village to talk Jamaican culture with tourists. The experience stood him in good stead when a few years later he began reading poems to American college audiences. With the help of an agent, he was soon performing regularly in the USA. He now regularly fulfils engagements all over the world, including Africa and Europe.

With his wife Yvonne he has developed various businesses, interfacing with Babylon while defending his beliefs. His daughters have attended conventional high schools (St Andrew High and Wolmer’s Girls) where their Rastafarian religion has been accorded respect. Muta drives a Volvo, and doesn’t wear shoes. He owns an itall’ restaurant and health food store (’if I don’t eat the thing I don’t sell it’),’* a sound system that plays black music from all over the world, and a small gift shop selling music and books which promote black consciousness. On Tuesday nights he conducts a radio programme on Irie FM, from 1O:OO until 2:OO. He accepts a range of invitations to talk and to read poems: he seems equally at home in a class- room and on stage at Sunsplash. When he is on tour he may be addressing college audiences, or mesmerising huge rock festivals, or playing in small nightclubs.

He regards poetry as only one of several instruments for doing the work he has chosen. A charismatic communicator, he will not often simply speak some poems when he is asked to. He will talk towards the poems, around the poems, even instead of the poems. A Muta ’reading’ is often also a ’reasoning’.13 This makes it distinctively different from a reading by another poet, even another Rastafarian poet. When most other poets agree to read, their poems are the central focus, whether briefly or copiously introduced, framed with eloquence or humour. But a typical Muta performance presents the philosophy and opinions of Mutabaruka; and the poems, no matter how successful, are only a part of the flow.

He often seeks to ‘move away from as a poet speaking to a audience and become more a part of that whole communication thing’. He says the rap is spontaneous. ‘I never can tell what going go in me mind when I am doing it.’ And he has observed: ’I find that sometimes when I’m speaking the audience get so involved with the rapping that I continue in it. I don’t know if it is good or it is bad, but I get this impression that a lot of people love to hear when me talk.’ ’Apart from just being a poet now’ he can ’comment on things social, political, religious’.14


In 1989 he was invited to read some of his poems as part of an Anti- Drugs Concert in Kingston, televised by the Jamaica Broadcasting Corpor- ati0n.1~ While Muta is often (on the surface) more ingratiating than he was this time, the relation between the poems and the fuller political discourse in which they are inserted is fairly representative of his work. I describe below some of the details of his performance. The Appendix is a transcript of his words.

2

The MC announces ’Mutabaruka’ . Muta enters, bare-footed, dressed in varitextured black. He tests the microphones, rejects one, decides on another. The camera gives close-ups of his impressive face, black with leonine locks, a grey patch just above the forehead. He seems confident, at ease.

Apologising in advance for taking time that might have been given to poems, he begins. ‘Now we supposed to read some poem but me have some statement fi make , . .’ He sends shock waves through the audience by roundly attacking two of the major sponsors, J. Wray and Nephew Ltd (rum) and Carreras Jamaica Ltd (cigarettes). He is issuing a moral rebuke. ‘Now we see all a this as hypocrisy.’ (Who is ‘we‘? That singular ‘we‘ who was supposed to read poems? Jamaicans? Blacks? Rastafarians? The ‘we’ may be ambiguous; but it is soon apparent that Muta speaks for many people present.)

The audience response is overwhelmingly positive. Muta is appealing to nationalism, racial pride, and resentment. He is tapping in to disappoint- ment with the powerful: Big Business, politicians, the Prime Minister, the United States. ’Black people a suffer through imperialism long time.’ Applause. If black Jamaicans are so carefully scrutinised when entering the USA, why shouldn‘t (white) foreigners be carefully processed when they come to visit Jamaica? ’We want the Prime Minister to protect the Jamaican people by searching those tourist that is coming to Jamaica.’ Loud applause. With so much professed concern about ganja, why (he wonders) does there seem to be no similar anxiety to prevent cocaine and crack from coming into Jamaica? Besides, why so much fuss about Jamaican ganja when there is plenty growing in the USA?

He anticipates the reaction that, as a Rastafarian, he may be presumed a smoker of the weed. He does not smoke, he says - not anything. And he doesn’t drink rum. He is anti-drugs. ‘That mean,‘ he says, ’I fight gainst

Mutabaruka 43

smoking, drunkard, cocaine and crack.’ He is critical of people who inveigh against cocaine while condoning cigarettes and rum.

His manner is intense, but relieved with flashes of humour. On the model of ’J. Wray and him Nephew’ (for J. Wray and Nephew Ltd) he im- provises a parallel appellation, ’Desnoes and him Geddes’ (for Desnoes and Geddes Ltd, who are also in the business of promoting rum). Talking of the war on ganja, it strikes him as funny that the name of the General is Bush. (With a broad smile to signal Joke, he declares, ‘Now you hear what him name? Mr Bush!’) Conscious of the impact his monologue is having, he alludes with laughter and a hint of self-mockery to his awareness of a television audience: ‘because it not every day we get fi come pon TV inna Jamaica’.

He uses voice and body with skill, to compel attention, to underscore what he is saying, and to indicate shifts in the structure. He gestures generously, like a practised orator, pointing, sawing the air or reaching out, his right arm effectively extended by a rolled-up poster he is holding. His head waggles, his torso bends, in consort with the rhythms of his speech. When, in the message to the Prime Minister, he says, ’And this is not no “throw-word”, this is a thing coming from we heart’, he bows on ’heart’ as in the body language of an inspired preacher, signalling con- viction, demanding that the faithful speak assent. In a later moment, however, the body language, perhaps unconsciously, distances the speaker from his most incendiary passage. Strolling thoughtfully along the platform front, he says (rhetorically of course): ’More people die from cigarette smoke than any other drug in the world and Carrea [Carreras] still out there. Who going go burn down Carrea building? When them raid the crack house in Jamaica who going go raid J. Wray and him Nephew? Or Desnoe and him Geddes? I don’t know. Who going go raid it?’

It is a riveting performance, complemented by his equally strong presentation of two poems. In the rap his eyes are sometimes open fairly wide, sometimes are slits of animosity. When he goes into the poems, he closes his eyes and pounds out the rhythms of the pieces. He seems at one point surprised by the response he has generated, and has to repeat a line: ’Yuh buil a nation from dih sweat of mih back’.

The audience seems to endorse the poems as well as the other critical statements. It responds with particular warmth to the shafts directed at Queen Victoria and the English language: ’Gimme mih Queen like Kleopa[tra]/ Mih nuh waah ear bout Queen Victoria/ Gimme mih language a kno suh well/ Yuh mixup Inglish canfusin nuh hell’.

It makes no sense to consider Muta‘s performance merely as a poetry presentation. Muta here is orator as much as poet. By the quality and skill


of the rap, h e sets these poems in a very specific socio-cultural context. What he is doing is something quite distinct from the work of other Jamaican poets, including some whose political agenda may be fairly similar to his.

Notes

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See Christian Habekost, Verbal Riddim: The Politics and Aesthetics of African- Caribbean Dub Poetry (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi BV, 1993), especially pp. 15-49. Cf. Mutabaruka: The First Poems (Kingston: Paul Issa, 1980), p. 64 and The Mystery Unfolds (Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ: Shenachie Records, 1986). The ‘Crucial Concert’ (1989) version is due to appear in Mutabaruka’s forth- coming collection. ‘Mutabaruka talks to Shivaun Hearne‘, Jamaica Journal, vol. 24, no. 2, March 1992, p. 49. Mikey Smith, for example: ’and then I build under that, build up under that. Build under that and catch me breaks and the bridges. Just like how a musician a work out.’ See Hinterland, ed. E. A. Markham (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1989), p. 280, extract from an interview first published in Jamaica Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, May-July 1985. These include Outcry (Kingston: Swing, 1973), Sun and Moon (Kingston: [Swing?], 1976, with Faybiene) and Mutabaruka: The First Poems, 1970-1979 (Kingston: Paul Issa, 1980). Mutabaruka: The First Poems, p. 59. Typescript, p. 48. Melanin Man, 1994: Shanachie 45013. ‘Mutabaruka is a name from Rwanda. It mean one who is always victorious. Mi took it from a poet from Rwanda.’ (’Mutabaruka talks to Shivaun Hearne’, p. 48.) Organic food. See Velma Pollard, Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari (Kingston: Canoe Press, 1994), p. 37: ‘ital, I-fal, itol - vital; pure[;] natural; organic; food cooked without salt; Rasta food.’ Mutabaruka, interviewed by Mervyn Morris, 24 March 1994, at ‘Food for Life’, Dumfries Road, Kingston. In Rastafarian usage an earnest, often free-wheeling, expression of experience and opinions. Interview, 24 March 1994. I am indebted to the JBC for a video-tape of Muta’s presentation.

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APPENDIX

Mutabaruka at the 1989 Anti-Drugs ’Crucial Concert‘,

Kingston, Jamaica

Yes. Now we supposed to read some poem but me have some statement fi make an if the statement take up the time sorry bout the poems.

Now we see all a this as hypocrisy. All a this. Because we hear the talk about ‘drug-free Jamaica’ and we don’t hear them planning to close down J. Wray and him Nephew! [Applause.] A serious thing. Because J. Wray and his Nephew has committed more crime in Jamaica than the ganja man and the cocaine man put together. [Applause.] And when me hear them talk about drugs me don’t hear them talk bout Carrea [Cameras] and him black cat that him pushing up on the people them. Cigarette and rum is the most destructive thing in Jamaica right now. And it killing off a lot a black people. And we don’t hear them addressing that. And just because Mr Bush tell them must clamp down on ganja them clamp down on it. [Applause.] Is long time, long time, black people in Jamaica smoking ganja and them never know seh it bad until Mr Bush tell them seh it bad.

Now, you hear what him name? Mr Bush! Is a serious thing. Now we have a statement to make to the Prime Minister, and we don’t

know if any of him friend them is here, but we want to tell him this: We want the Prime Minister to protect the Jamaican people by searching those tourist that is coming into Jamaica. [Applause.] Because I travel a lot, and when I leave Jamaica before I reach into a airport in foreign, is fourteen times I get check before I sit down on the plane. Fourteen times. Not to mention when we reach over the other side and them strip you naked . . . When them come here we want to be protected. We want to be protected. And cocaine and crack is coming through the international airports. So we calling upon the Prime Minister, if him really understand the problem of black people in Jamaica, to understand that we know that is not only Bush going help us out of this situation but he himself have to help we. Because we don’t have no big this and billions of dollars to protect we from American people, but American people protect themself.

And this is not no ’throw-word’, this is a thing coming from we heart. Black people a suffer through imperialism long time. [Applause.] And we a go suffer more now, because we have problem, we having problem and no one not protecting we from the Aids and from the cocaine that coming in


but them protecting America. [Applause.] We have to wake up! Because we know that America grow more herbs than Jamaica. And if them stop the herbs from go into Jamaica it don’t mean nothing because them plant more, them start importing into Jamaica. [Applause.] Me know that. We go to California, we see more herbs anywhere - I mean Jamaica is about 2 per cent of the herbs that go into America, come from Jamaica. It don‘t mean nothing. So we question what’s behind the clamp-down on herbs.

And we not talking about herbs because through we is Rasta, because I never smoke herbs from I born! [Applause.] I don’t even know how fi roll a spliff, so no man cyaan accuse me as a Rasta seh is pure ganja talk him a talk. I don’t know what it is to smoke ganja. I don’t know what it is to smoke cigarette or drink rum. And we see them feeding black people with rum - a man drink rum and him go beat him wife, him go drive a car and kill people, and then now them tell me bout Anti-Drug? Anti-which drug? Is something them up to! [Applause.] Them up to something! We know them up to something!

Cigarette kill more people in the world than cocaine and crack and all a them put together! More people die from cigarette smoke than any other drug in the world and Carrea [Carreras] still out there. Who going go burn down Carrea building? When them raid the crack house in Jamaica who going go raid J. Wray and him Nephew? [He laughs.] Or Desnoes and him Geddes? [He laughs.] I don’t know. Who going go raid it? But we understand that and we know that we want to be protected, and is useless we try to go on like seh everything - I mean, we get check . . . all when you a go sit down them check you. You a go through the airport, fourteen times you haffi get check, and when you a come through you only get check two time. These guys come in with them license, them car license, with them attach6 case and them coat and tie, and when them reach to Negril them in shorts! We wonder what them up to. Anyway, we not going dwelve [dwell] on that.

[ Thievin Legacy]

Gimme mih [dis, gimme mi dat,] Gimme back mih everyting yuh got Gimme mih philasophy yuh carry to Greece Tief Homo and Socrates Gimme [. . .] mih historical masta piece Gimme back mih name Gimme back mih kalinda Gimme mih books yuh tief from Alexzand[r]a

Mutabaruka - Appendix 47

Gimme mih Queen like Kleopa[tra] Mih nuh waah ear bout Queen Victoria Gimme mih language a kno suh well Yuh mixup Inglish canfusin nuh hell Gimme back mih maths u Pytagarus Gimme mih simbals yuh tief from us Gimme [mih] dis Gimme [mih] dat Gimme back mih everything yuh got Gimme mih dymon Gimme mih gohl Gimme back mih rack an roll Gimme mih uraynium Gimme mih coal Gimme mih reggae Gimme mih blues Gimme mih muzik dat yuh confuse No spiritual cansep originated here Suh who I praiz yuh shouldnt kare Yuh seh steal not Yuh tief mih lan Sex not Yuh rape mih mada Keep dih sabbat Wih work seven days a week Yuh buil a nation from dih sweat of mih back Now yuh waah corn gimme crack Gimme mih herbs meck wih meck som tea Gimme back all mih fruit tree

Gimme dih remidy dat meck bline see Gimme [everyting dat] yuh teck from mih Gimme mih dis Gimme mih dat Gimme back mih everything yuh got Gimme a space a can run mih own life Respect is due dih time is now No more turn cheek Dis time wih naah bow.

[. * -1

[Text as in Ifafions of Jamaica and I: The Second Itation, published by Judah Anbesa]


Now I am an anti-drug artist. That mean seh I fight gainst smoking, drunkard, cocaine and crack. Now I waan know how much people inside here is fighting against all a those things. Now, you see if you fighting all a those things and if it all a come pon TV - because not every day we get fi come pon TV inna Jamaica [He laughs] - so me a talk to all the people out a Jamaica: we want you to wake up tomorrow and fight gainst rum! Yes, because rum destroy a lot of families in Jamaica. And a whole heap of people here fighting against man bout ’Boy, you have a whoie heap a artist who deh pon it an a sniff coke.’ Look pon you with you cigarette inna you hand! Look pon you with you cigarette inna you hand and you a fight gainst artist bout ‘Boy me no know weh dem get them artist - deh pon it and them sniff coke.’ So how you a smoke cigarette? Cigarette is what? Cigarette is the wickedest drug that them put in the palms of you hand, and we know that, so check all the things them that going on. Anyway, we have anymore time deh? [Applause.]

We going read a poem about the Statue uf Liberty. Because we go to America whole heap a time, and we question the liberty and justice that they say exist in America.

[The Eyes of Liberty]

on that bridge i look and see the symbol of your justice and equality standin tall with her torch of flames now i ask wat is your aim

yuh invade grenada u invade nicaragua u bomb hirashima u bomb philidelphia

but de eyes of liberty is watchin you watchin all the things you do de eyes of justice is cryin out wat is your democracy all about

de true owners of your nation is forced to live on a reservation now i see you in my land makin all kinds of plan spendin billions of dollars every year to keep us all livin in fear economical pressure is your game

Mutabaruka - Appendix 49

liberty reachin with her torch of flames yes de eyes of liberty is watchin you watchin all the things you do de eyes of justice is cryin out wat is your democracy all about

talk of invadin libya no talk of invadin south afrika but yuh invade de sandinista government usin jamaica as your Caribbean investment and de palistinians are your biggest resentment

terror-ism is de order of de day where will de children play

ah seh yuh invade grenada yuh invade nicaragua yuh bomb hirashima yuh bomb philidelphia de symbol of true justice and equality stand erect for all to see makin plans for the haitians helpin to keep down de black amerikans

but de eyes of liberty is watchin you watchin all de tings you do de eyes of justice is cryin out wat is your democracy all about

mutabaruka

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