Kiddus I: Security In The Streets (The Interview)
Where: France
When: 2007
Reporter: Peter I
Photos: Courtesy of Gerry McMahon, Teacher, and the respective record companies (labels/sleeves)
Copyright: 2025 – Peter I
There’s lots and lots of hidden treasures in Jamaican music, singers who made the occasional single and appearance on the odd album, but never seemed to make it big despite showing a great amount of talent, having a prosperous future ahead and the critics behind them, such as the subject of this article, Kiddus I.
His name may be familiar to some from the inclusion in the ‘Rockers’ movie soundtrack. Apart from ‘Graduation In Zion’, a track that largely contributed to the cult surrounding this singer, Kiddus I was also one of the leading ‘characters’ in that movie which saw release back in 1979 on Island Records; an equally mythical epic of a picture since, with several legendary names appearing mainly as themselves, like the singing car mechanic Gregory ‘Jah Tooth’ Isaacs; the late Theophilius Beckford also known as Snappin’ and a highly regarded R&B/ska pianist from the foundational days of Jamaican popular music; mechanic and ace bass player Robbie Shakespeare; Trevor ‘Leggo Beast’ Douglas the man behind the Leggo Sounds label as producer and the Cash & Carry distribution outlet; John Dread later producer for the Hands & Heart imprint; welders the Mighty Diamonds; Jacob ‘Jakes’ Miller the late Inner Circle frontman; Big Youth; young brothers Ruffy & Tuffy; Up-Sweet the ‘mythical’ herbsman known for delivering the sweetest herb in town; Leroy Smart; deejays Dillinger, Prince Hammer and Dr. Alimantado; producers Joe Gibbs and the late Jack Ruby; painter and Tippatone Hi-Fi soundman Jah Wise (brother of Cornell Campbell); as well as the leading ‘actors’ in the late saxman Dirty Harry (Richard Hall); and drummer extraordinaire Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, lead character in the film. A classic line-up to say the least and a movie you ought to own, one for each and every reggae household.
Kiddus’ recorded output was pretty scarce at the time, a few singles came out in limited edition only such as ‘Time (Harder)’, ‘Crying Wolf’ and the classic Black Ark-produced ‘Security In the Streets’, while other obscurities like ‘Give I Strength’ may have been lost forever. Kiddus’ career is – in many ways – a story of lost opportunity and what could have been. Kiddus is making a lot of his past work available later this year through a Japanese label. Read on for more information on this long lost talent in Jamaican music. My thanks to Kiddus, Muta, Nicolas & Romain (Makasound), Greg Lawson, Russ Bell-Brown, Donovan Phillips, and Steve Barrow.
Where are you born in Jamaica, Kiddus?
I was born in Port Maria, St. Mary.
How did you grow up, you had a substantially large family, the Dowdings?
No, I have a brother and sister, father, mother.
Where music played a big role?
Always, yes. That’s songs my mother sings.
What was played at home?
Whatever music was there, popular or sound of the time. My father listen to all type of music, opera to classical music. The opera, classics, blues, jazz, rock’n’roll. Coming up we started listening to funk, but mostly it was now ska, you have merengue, you have cha-cha, Cuban rhythms, the Afro rhythms. Yes, so a wide… I mean, music – we never put any barriers of music, if music was good we was playing it.
You started off singin’ as a choir-boy?
Yeah, I did that. In high-school, I did that in high-school for four years.
What church was it?
It was a Quaker, friendly school… Quaker? It’s an American army institution, I went to an American school in Jamaica. Funded by the Quakers, which they call them friends. Yeah, that was that.
When did you take the music more seriously? You have mentioned being a part of various groups in the mid sixties.
Oh, well, there’s in high school we had like a little band, we had a t’ing them time. We were involved in singin’ for shows, before shows at school, for May Queens, for different festivals and stuff. That is before I left school.
What were you called at that time? This was harmony stuff, vocal groups?
Yeah, vocals, but we had instruments, we played little instrumental songs. Like how maybe it was a start in playing a little guitar, but we made music out of our own instruments, really. We improvised the music out of different type of… bamboo, pumpkin (chuckles) – sticks, drums, whatever. I mean, bamboo saxophone – bamboo, you know (chuckles). Them type a t’ing.
You went to contests like the ‘Opportunity Hour’?
No, I never did. Never did, right. I did festivals, festivals at school, natural competition in high school, in different schools and stuff. Yeah, we competed at that level. But I didn’t go to Vere Johns, ‘Opportunity Hour’, or ‘Opportunity Knocks’, no. It was just school bands, these were guys that… we all went to school together, so we just made music at the time, yunno.
No one continued with music from those bands apart from yourself?
I don’t think they really went on to do any other t’ing in the music industry, no. I am the only one who continued in that vein.
What part of Kingston did you live in?
At that time my father was on a property up until I was about thirteen, thereabouts. So I lived on an estate, which was like a farm, a huge farm. It was after high school when I went to Kingston, fully, and start being an apprentice to a major – was the largest, possibly – heavy equipment company in Jamaica, Caterpillar Service, sold caterpillar tractors and bulldozers and all kinds. Yeah, I went into that after school. And was involved in the music from that period now coming up with different… Some of the bands, Terry & The Hurricanes was one of the main ones at the time. A band called Terry & The Hurricanes, a band called Sheiks.
At least the Sheiks seems familiar. Sheiks, is that with some of the Zap Pow members, who became Zap Pow later on?
No, not Zap Pow. These were – Terry & The Hurricanes were a band with about three Trinidadians who lived in Jamaica, and some other Jamaicans, and we all were close friends. So we just jammed and work together. Sheiks was a Jamaican band which then now went to Canada.
What were the members of the Sheiks?
All of the big ones, Deadly Hedley, Ken Lazarus – was one of the main guitarists in Jamaica, Dobby Jones – one of the Jones from the electrical company’s sons played drums. But Deadly Hedley, Lester Sterling, and even Roland Alphonso played in the Sheiks as one section there.
How come you didn’t give the music business a try in the sixties, this didn’t come about until the early part of the seventies?
Well, music was going on, but at the time…
Something put you off there, obviously.
Yeah, at the time I had other interests and I was still working with it, but my money wasn’t making too tough in them time what was in the music industry, so… You know, it was until afterwards, more in the seventies coming up that the industry took off. Sixties was sort of misuse and abuse of a lot of the artists, y’know, so I wasn’t interested in being misused by any promoter or anyone. So I just get myself to myself and continued until I was able to start producing myself.
So what leads up to your first recording, which came about circa 1972, with ‘Careful How You Jump’?
Well, I had been writing songs for a while and I figured then it was about the time to start, because I was more ready. Yeah. So we recorded that, although we had start to record a little bit before that too. But I started recording seriously in ’72, didn’t release anything immediately. But I did my first release in 1970, I think.
What was the title?
‘Security (In the Streets)’ I think was the first release, with ‘Too Fat’.
But that was later, up to ’77 or thereabouts.
Yeah, that was coming down, right. But I had been recording before but just never release it.
How come? You didn’t have the finances to put it out or you weren’t satisfied with the result at the time?
No, I wasn’t totally satisfied one hundred percent at the time, so I kept them, kept the music.
But ‘Careful How You Jump’ was the first one anyhow.
Yes, it was my first recordings, the first recording, but it was never released. It hasn’t been released (chuckles). Yeah.
Where did you record it?
We record at first at Joe Gibbs, we recorded first on a two-track tape at 56 Hope Road with Family Man from the Wailers, Carly Barrett from the Wailers, and Sangie Davis and Bunny Wailer. Yeah. And then eventually I re-recorded it in ’72 at Harry J. No – at Joe Gibbs. I didn’t release it, then I re-record it in ’78 I think it was, at Tuff Gong.
So there was a good time-gap between the first sessions at Joe Gibbs and the recordings you did in ’76 with ‘Security’, and so on, there was nothing recorded in-between there?
Yes, I did a number of tracks with Lee Perry in ’76, I did about seven or eight tracks. But only three of them were released, was ‘Crying Wolf’, ‘Security’, and ‘Too Fat’. These were the only three releases I think offa that. But I was abroad and something happened and when I came back my tapes were mixed up, man. Yeah, I couldn’t find some a them tracks still, not even today.
All the four tracks that I did with Lee Perry I think, yeah, that weren’t released.
Around this time you joined the Sons of Negus as percussionist, right? When was this?
Yeah. Well, from about ’71, ’72, ’73, to about ’77 or thereabouts.
Did you play with other groups at the same time before you decided to…
To do my own? No, no. I mainly just played with Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, we just really concentrated on Sons of Negus. We had many jams with different, different people. Because at 1c Oxford Road you see now the mass jams, we used to be there from – let’s see, ’71 until about ’77 when they tore down the buildings and made it into a… you know? Yeah, they tore down everything that was there. But at that period of time it was like the center of music in Kingston with Zap Pow being stationed there, Ras Michael being stationed there, those people. Tommy Cowan had his…
Talent Corporation?
Yeah, Talent Corporation which was based in there. So all the musicians would be… you know? Yeah, that was the seventies where there would be every day Gregory Isaacs coming in, Dennis Brown or John Holt or Bunny Rugs from Third World, Jacob Miller from Inner Circle, even Bob Marley, Peter Tosh or Bunny (Wailer).
Now you’re talking about this restaurant, the Ital kitchen or café or cultural center you created?
There was a café there we ran, we cooked Ital food and it was the center, we had music… There’s a music room where we had instruments and worked there. We all had interchange and, y’know, sometimes worked together creatively and… yeah. But nothing I’d say I would be particularly involved with one of the man, but there’s so many groups at the time that we all interchange and maybe at times a jam-session or vibes with ones, yunno.
This center was called Café D’artique I think.
Café D’artique, that was the place. But it was at 1c Oxford Road, this is where in Kingston now there turned out to be a musical center, because they had it tore down.
Jacob Miller used to have a rehearsal studio there.
Jacob Miller used to be, yes.
And the Zap Pow band too?
Zap Pow, Inner Circle. Third World was also there most times. All of the musicians per se at the time would be gravitating in and around 1c Oxford Road, from early seventies up until maybe ’78, thereabouts.
I suppose this is where you were looked upon as some sort of ‘community leader’ at the time?
Oh, well, that is where I would say that we had an artist commune.
That’s where it originates from.
Yeah.
What led up to recording at Perry’s Black Ark studio, how did that come about, that you chose Scratch?
Scratch Perry, I knew Scratch Perry for a while and I went there and I recorded some of my songs, it might have been between ’75 and ’76. And then in ’78 after the Peace Treaty I went there and I recorded this track called ‘Security’, which was then released in ’78, pertaining to the warring factors laying down the arms and coming together and create a peaceful sorta vibe going among people in the different communities at the time. We thought it was significant and important at the time, so I go out and did that track, ‘Security’. Yeah.
What about ‘Too Fat’?
Well, ‘Too Fat’ might’ve been recorded a little bit before ‘Security’ but it was put on the track.
That was pressed on a 12″ at the time.
Yeah, that is what we call it, a ‘disco 45’.
And you formed your own Shepherd label to release it on, you really wanted to stay independent even though it takes a lot more to struggle with it, in terms of distribution, getting it played out and so on.
Yeah, well, we wasn’t too interested in dealing with much of the producers who were taking advantage of artists, y’know, misusing and abusing and lying and everything. So we just said it would be better if we dealt with ourselves without having to be any animosity or any arguments with any Tom, Dick or Harry. So let us do the music ourselves, press it ourselves, market and promote it ourselves, and find people like ourselves who we can work with. Instead of some of the artists who were already in the business running to the people an’ t’ing, taking advantage of the artists and various musicians.
It got a lot of airplay. I mean, that was played for maybe three years straight on one station, because one person used it as a sort of jingle. A lot of people use it, even the Minister of Security started using it as his theme for certain things, because of what identified with that peace that we were hoping for that would’ve remained in the streets of… you know? So it got a lot of play, it got dancehall play, radio it got quite a bit of play on that. It is possibly the most well-known of my songs too in Jamaica.
It was a pretty limited pressing though?
I might have pressed about two thousand copies of it.
And sold out quickly.
Well, all of the copies were sold and then… what you call it… Tuff Gong distribute it, I don’t know if they did any more pressing on it in that period of time. They had gotten the distribution of the song, I think about 1980 I give them the song to distribute.
A pity you didn’t do any more pressing on it so it could’ve reached a wider audience, circulation, nowadays that record asks for a lot of money, it is pretty rare to say the least.
I know. Well, I have restarted the Shepherd label, and a number of these things will come back out on the old label.
Good. I was gonna ask you about some of the other mythical tracks you did in that mid seventies period, such as ‘Runaround Girl’.
Yeah, ‘Runaround Girl’…? How did you hear about that?
I think you told Simon Buckland about this years ago.
OK. Yeah, I did that track. Officially first at Scratch in ’76 with Junior Marvin, not the singer but Junior Marvin from the Wailers. Yeah, ’76, ‘Runaround Girl’. I did that also again for Fatis’ Xterminator when I came back from England, this is about 2003, or 2002. Wha’ am I talkin’ about, 2002?? 1992 (laughs)! Yeah ’92, so I think I might’ve done that for him in about ’92 or ’93, I don’t think a copy were ever released.
There was a title for the debut album at the time, I believe it was ‘Jah Power, Jah Glory’.
‘Jah Power, Jah Glory’ was never released, that was the name of my LP which I did for ’79.
Oh yes, yes, yes.
Carl Gayle’s Rasta paper.
Yes, yes.
Announcing the ‘soon come’ arrival of the album, which never saw release. Talk about ‘soon come’…
It never came out, no. I was stopped in the middle of the tracks.
What happened?
I mean, all tracks were laid at the time, but I was stopped. Tuff Gong was distributing for me, and I had been working there for three months while everybody was on tour, and paying all of my bills and just about finished, and I came in to work this day and they stopped me from working, they wouldn’t give me any studio time. So I came and paid the little money that was owed. But I mean, if I remember correctly, Tuff Gong which was built in 56 Hope Road was paid mainly by my money in the studio, working in the studio over that x amount of period of time and no one was there. And I felt a bit… you know…
Ripped off?
Yeah! That they had distributing for me, if my music… When I finished, they going to have the distribution, and then still after laying twelve tracks in Tuff Gong, overdubbing – doing all form of works on them, just to finish as to finish the final stage. I mean, just a few little things to do and my LP would have been completed. And they stopped me laying me tracks, so… I released only one track offa that work, which was called ‘Love Child’.
Oh yes, nice tune. In fact very good.
Yeah, that was the only track which was released from there, offa those works that I did. Life is funny, the main track, ‘Jah Power, Jah Glory’, I had on a two-inch tape was stolen somehow, five of them was stolen. So a lot of them music just disappear. Yeah.
Nothing has been tracked down since?
No. I mean, I would imagine that somebody might have it, because they were like new tapes, new-looking tapes. So I just imagine that somebody who was maybe hungry, maybe – whatever, just sold them and wiped off my music and sold them to somebody. ‘Cause at the studio where we left tapes – Music Mountain, Chris Stanley had gotten sick and was not able to oversee what was happening, and some people came in and were running the studio. Yeah, at the time we heard that… I was not there, I was abroad, but there was one or two junkies involved and I’m quite sure that one or the two of them might’ve just wiped off my music and sold it.
What a shame, destroyed a lot there.
Yeah, trust me. I mean at the time it was said it was the strongest LP coming out of Jamaica, right, and I wonder if that had anything to do with it also. But we won’t bother go over that history. But at the time, trust me, everybody was sort of…
Expecting the goods?
Great expectations, the people around the place were all enthused and yeah, a lot of energy. So that was just spoken my way to make sure that things didn’t… a stumbling block them, per se.
Yeah, it was always – whatever song I got, it was always positive. Yeah, it was always positive, more so after the movie was released.
Right, ‘Rockers’.
And all the Europeans, from different parts of Europe I met in the eighties, like ’81, Australians, people come down and… Yeah, it seemed as if people really appreciated what was happening and what I was doing, y’know.
What about this track from the Perry sessions, ‘Flying 30 000 Feet Above the Sea’, was that one lost as well?
Oh gosh, yeah. Shit, I… a whe you take that outta – Ugliman (laughs)?!
(Laughs)
(Laughs) That song, I had gone to the Bahamas to do some work in ’78 or ’79, thereabouts. And myself and Third World were together, we shared a little house together. They were recording ‘Now That We Found Love’, that LP of theirs. I recorded actually when I left Compass Point (Chris Blackwell’s famed studio) in the Bahamas coming over, that track was written. I had a Walkman and I was thought apprehensive of flying and I still don’t love it too tough, but at the time I wasn’t too keen on it. So I started, I got the inspiration, y’know, ‘flying 30 000 feet above the sea, can’t be anywhere else but in yourself, you might cast your reflections here and there and everywhere, but you still can’t be nowhere but in yourself’ (chuckles). So that was it. I got the entire song and captured it on my Walkman. But the idea was that I was flying back from Compass Point, Bahamas, to Jamaica. And I recorded that at Tuff Gong. Trust me, that was a very, very big music. I’m sorry I can’t find it.
Yet another loss.
Quite likely, I don’t know if down the road it might appear. Because I left some tapes in England and there’s some that is in Santa Monica, Los Angeles also. I was there in 19-… what time was it now?
I think it was ’84 or thereabouts.
’83 to about ’86. And I recorded a track for a guy called David Kulik.
Kulik. David Koolrock, ‘Koolrock’ was his alias, right.
Kulik, he had recorded at Music Mountain and other places with the best of Jamaican artists on an LP, and he took different local artists and made… gave them each one a song, Dennis, Gregory, Joe Higgs, so they choose one for me and I did one called ‘Champs Elysee’ (chuckles). Yeah, promenade down Champs Elysee, a French song, hook up a French thing. So I did that one, and at the same time I took some of my tapes to maybe clean up and do some work, and they start… how you say now… ‘stripping’ the acetate? Started stripping on the machine. When it went on the machine, my tapes started ‘stripping’, the acetates started stripping, meaning that they weren’t pristine, they were getting old. And I was advised then that they couldn’t be used, because all of this wax was coming off on the head of the machine. So about four of my two-inch tapes was sorta disposed of, which is unfortunate that I did that. Because I mean ten, fifteen years afterwards the technology of ‘baking’ came about.
Or ‘cooking’ them (chuckles). True.
You ‘bake’ the tapes and transfer it. I’m done now with a number of my tapes, because even this Japanese who is releasing a compilation of some of my earlier works, a number of the tapes were also in the same state like those I used to have in L.A., and I thought were disposed of. But on baking them you are able to transfer them and recapture the music, so it’s unfortunate at that period of time we didn’t have this technology of baking, or know about it so we could’ve maintained some of those music that we had put on. So in that area, well, I lost quite a bit of music that time too.
You’ve lost a track called ‘By the Sweat’ as well?
‘By the sweat of ones brow, Jah Jah live…’. That one, yeah. That was done in ’72, with ‘Careful How You Jump’ at Joe Gibbs. Yeah. But I wanna tell you that the original two-inch tape, I gave it to Jack Ruby to cut some dubs, off a dub-plate after. It might’ve been about ’76 or ’78, some of the tape there. And I never did take it back from him. So I don’t know if that tape could be still in his sons’ position or somewhere, but that was actually the first two-inch tape that I recorded on. ‘By the sweat of man’s brow Jah say we shall all eat bread, but not when the sweat’s for someone else who wants it all, Lord I’ve been sweating all my life for this ya man who has it all, sweating in his canefields, coalfields, goldmines, by the sweat for all the money that now adorned his desires, while we owned no homes, got no car, cannot the dark sheep keep a shelter from the rain, I see no justice, by the sweat of man’s brow, Jah said, Jah said…’ (snaps fingers). Yeah, that one.
Boy, that’s some memory.
Mmm, that’s it. A powerful song at the time. I saw it did – I took some parts of it and did an update of a track called ‘Mr. Too Fat’. No, not ‘Mr. Too Fat’ – ‘Who’s Gonna Pay’ (titled ‘Better Equity’). ‘Who’s gonna pay for the restoration of the world today, ’cause the world was fresh, fresh, fresh, streams were running, rivers flowing with a whole lotta fish a jumpin’, and the lakes were laiden, but you destroyed this bout by polluting everything in your sight, tell me who’s gonna pay for the garbage dump on the world today, for this earth wherever you are has been worked for many thousand years, and throughout the age of the workers cry, hey, can you accume in, can you listen to the voices crying out…’ (chuckles). Heh, yeah!
Right, that’s one of the tracks on the new album, or part of the lyrics at least. Great track by the way.
Part of… yes, yes. Similar, yes.
Yeah, I was maybe at the time – he had more respect for me I would say than maybe ninety percent of other artists. Because even in his transition, when he was using the famous ‘x’ as the missing letter, and crossing out using the ‘x’ to ‘x’ out everything. He had all portraits of pictures of every artist in the Black Ark studio. I mean, I found it significant that he ‘x-ed’ everyone out, and the only photograph which wasn’t ‘x-ed’ out was mine, so (chuckles)…
Yeah, y’know he came and even told me that hey, everything wha’ ‘appen I must come down, I’m still… Yeah, different to everyone… Yeah, we had a vibes, had a vibes. And even when I went to New York, when I left New York Scratch wanted to come and stay and I’m going home for about a month, and I spent about three and a half month I think before coming back home. So he lived by my place in New York for that period of time. And we still hang out. Last year I was down by him when he come home to Jamaica, and we still go and have a talk an’ t’ing.
Who played on those sessions, for ‘Security, ‘Too Fat’, ‘Crying Wolf’?
Most of the time I took in my musicians, Chinna (Smith), a guy called X Sweeney who used to play lead guitar for Zap Pow, Robbie Lyn…
On keyboards, yes.
Yeah. Mikey Chung playing guitar. Bass, I used Robbie Shakespeare, ca’ Robbie was a member of…
Sons of Negus.
The Sons of Negus when we were together. Winston Wright, keyboards. Horns was like I use Deadly Hedley with Zap Pow horn section most of the time, percussion might’ve been a Sticky or one of our guys from Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, or I would play. That’s about it, basically, for the Scratch Perry recordings. I think I used Tyrone Downie a lot also, y’know.
You felt the need to take Perry’s raw four-track recording to transfer and remix at Harry J’s, that’s where some overdubbing took place on those songs?
I took it to Aquarius, to Aquarius and did other overdubbings, because Perry was limited. I mean, you could only do so much if you wanted to do anything over them. So at the time I wanted to fill my music in another area around certain things, and at Perry you find that the drum and the bass would’ve been tied in to one track, so if you wanted to make any separations otherwise around it’s a bit difficult. Or two other tracks tied in with maybe horns and something else tied together, voice separate. So if you wanted to put… yeah? I mean, the sound – Perry’s a genius, the masses at the time used to call him the Upsetter, very creative and, yeah, a scientist in a sense. But a four-track recording was – while it worked very well for certain type a t’ing, but some things that I felt I needed more than Perry’s tracks. For overdubbing, I overdub a Binghi drum bass, funde, repeater, when you would’ve already laid a track without it. If you wanna do it is going to make you combin’ on certain things, so just separate it by putting it on another track, and they mix it in. So this is why I overdub drums, guitar, Binghi drums on a couple of the tracks. I might’ve done some little background harmonies on some of them. But that’s mainly it. On one or two of them, Tyrone Downie might’ve played a little more to fill in here and there.
Who did the final mix on them?
At Aquarius? Steven Stanley worked with me on that.
Another single that saw release from the Perry sessions on Shepherd was ‘Crying Wolf’.
Yeah, we did that at Lee Perry too. That was overdubbed at Aquarius too, drums – the Binghi drums, the background harmonies – which was Congos and myself, was overdubbed at Aquarius.
Is this a track you’ve lost as well along the road?
That’s quite likely I think that might’ve disappeared too, with ‘Security’ and a number of other… yeah. I can’t find maybe about nine or eleven of me two-inch tapes, some of them was destroyed beca’ we throw them out. But five of them might’ve been stolen. About four in L.A. … yeah. I left a couple of tracks at Inner Circle’s in Florida, about two two-inch tapes. Those also got mixed up, I can’t find them. So that is about eleven tapes, maybe another two to three in England and… yeah. So I lost a lot of music, I lost a lot, trust me, I lost at least two LP’s worth of music, two or three LP worth of music.
Tapes scattered all over.
All over. I don’t know if maybe down in the future somebody… Because some of those things on LP, I really didn’t dump them, I never leaving them. I thought they were no longer in a good… But I didn’t throw them away, I left them at somebody’s place. I can’t find that person. I don’t know if they might got rid of them or if maybe a year or some from now I could possibly find them and they might still have it, it should be great. I hope that it is so. And those in Miami, I left them somewhere, the person died. Well, two I know for sure, possibly two more which Inner Circle might have that, and they say they couldn’t find it when they transferred some of them. So, who knows? I mean, maybe they might still have it somewhere down the road, somebody might come up with hidden treasures.
True (chuckles). You have to employ a detective to track them down.
Yes (chuckles).
I would like to know how you developed that vocal style, which is in parts similar to Willi Williams, the man behind ‘Armagideon Time’. You both sound more like an American west coast rock singer, more so than a native Jamaican, or having an obvious soul/R&B influence, but I find rock music being closer to you both. How did that evolve over the years?
Yeah, I suppose I build up my own style from whenever, I never copied anybody or anything like that.
Kiddus I – Crying Wolf
Kiddus I- Security In The Streets
Kiddus I – Too Fat
But I never tried to sound like any local artist per se. Foreign artists, never tried to copy anyone of them either. But I mean, there’s songs from all different genres of the music which you liked, and which songs you liked you sing. I mean, like I said in ‘People’s Army’, when I was a young boy growing up, I used to like Edith Piaf.
French, classic artist.
Yeah, which is a French singer. Maurice Chevalier (was very popular on Jamaican radio) which was an asshole in certain areas of life, but a wonderful artist and performer. Even his sound (coughs) had a couple of songs which as a young man we liked. But my parents used to listen to blues, jazz, opera, classics. You know, Mario Lanza was one and what have you… Perry Como and the Bing Crosbys in American style, the Nat ‘King’ Coles, the Louis Armstrongs, the emerging sixties coming up with the rock’n’roll type of… the Fats Dominos, the Lloyd Prices, the Sam Cookes, the Jackie Wilsons. You know, a whole host of different artists, Ella (Fitzgerald), Sarah Vaughn, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae. Ah! I mean, trust me, we heard it. What has always been played through the airwaves over in the fifties and sixties coming up, which had a good melody, good rhythm. I enjoyed any music, any form of music. I couldn’t say I was one-dimensional in that I wouldn’t have liked this music, but any music. The Cuban, merengue, the cha-cha, the South American feel, the Afro, the high-life, y’know.
I think in some way it shows in your music, the diversity, a wide range of influences, even if the foundation is roots.
All right. Yeah, this is what… I really can’t put a finger and say ‘this is it’. Because, have a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I mean… I’m grown into the Rastafarian – the roots music. But then I go into a trunk, and this trunk from the root assimilate all the different music three-sixty degrees that you take into you, and then you go into a musical trunk and when you grow up in that t’ing you start spreading branches. And your branches a gonna spread three-sixty degrees right around, like the roots at the bottom. So what is gonna come out from that fusion of, yeah, everything that you have – has fed you, fed you musically over the years, that you drink. You know, it’s gonna come out and blossom from the branches of your tree, if you have ears. Now some people might only assimilate and put it into like a railroad – one track, and they a run with that whether they do a blues feel, a jazz feel, a reggae roots feel – whatever. Or whatever, rock’n’roll, funk – whatever, some people just go into that, on that two-track and continue. I’m not like that, I tend to go on a two-track for a particular feel, then what I’m motivated by or influenced by. And then another day it might be a different – a morning which have a sunlight morning and a different feel, so you express it differently. It might be a grey or a wet, cloudy morning so you express it differently. It might be a happy, happy mood or it might be a reflective mood, or a somber mood in a different sense or a harsh reality which just came out and stopped you in your head and shocked your system, so you come out in a different vibes or feel. But music is just music and a part of the history my brother, and I’m not gonna say that I’m one, a this or I’m that, because music a flying through the heaven and you pick up a different feel and it comes in with a totally different, y’know, melody. Sometimes it come in a different sense, a different feel. But I can only depend on what I feel, anywhere that I see it and understand is that its never one dimension, right. I open up myself to all form of music. But I make sure that whatever I do, I put it as positive I can in being honest so that I don’t undermine, mislead any entity, any child, any person, that my music is for positive upliftment in whatever area it is, whether I’m speaking of love or destruction of mankind. So we use music as basically to enlighten, to untangle, y’know, uplift, enhance, and be reflective. Food – thought-food for a person or a people who listens to music.
Some people refer to you as some sort of ‘intellectual singer’. Whatever you feel about such designations, if you could put your lyrical inspiration into some kind of perspective, where that stems from so to speak, which basically shaped your generation of songwriters into what you are, what you became?
Yeah, music is a way or vehicle, one has access to put on it lyrics or words. Words are very, very, very important – because you can mislead by words, you can present false by words, and you can at the same time stimulate ideas by the very word. So if you’re using a vehicle for a mass of people throughout the world who might possibly get the opportunity to see what you’re saying, well, I feel an obligation to make it as straight and as upful and true as I can, so that I don’t mislead, misdirect, caused by use of word to entice or set somebody on a wrong track, wrong track and mislead them in any way, right. I think music owes – or the individual who use that vehicle to express yourself – should use the words positively, whether it’s a simple thing of saying ‘I love you’ – the truth, or saying ‘hey, careful a that walk over there’. If you do that, that might come back, y’know. If you spit in the sky it’s gonna fall back, if you put out negative things then negative things will come back. If you put out positive things which served and enlightened to help a set of people who, trust me, this world – as it is, if it would be correct then there wouldn’t be any need for words of truth and right and certain things. But when you have artists who, y’know, this is a part of Prophecy now; when it was said that a third of the Angelic Choir, right, led by the most – the Archangel, fled and took with him a third. So if a third of the Archangel Choir is in the earth using music to misuse and abuse the psyche of mankind, I’m not one of those. Because I think I’m the Master Computer on the Databank of Life, the Father has an instant replay button which the Master Computer upholds each entity’s life from then until now. So if I’m gonna put on vinyl – or CD – something derogative, undermining, not upful, not in oneness, not in harmony with the creative sources, then I think I misuse, abuse, and would be one of the false in the Angelic Choir, I don’t see myself in that. To misuse words and music is so powerful, that if one use it properly, trust me, it will elevate and take care of a lot of the problems that mankind is going through, y’know what I mean. Yeah, if I had to answer for what I have said on vinyl, I think I can face whoever, the Creator, whatever force in life, and say ‘Yeah, I said those things’, right. I don’t wanna mislead as I say my brother, if you use music wrongly to just mislead one entity in creation, I think that’s a great, great, great, great crime. So for me music is inspirational and should be used as such.
As a guide for the masses more than use it for a selfish purpose or to just express vanity, wants?
For selfish reasons or for just money or whatever. I mean, what is that, if you understan’? I mean, it don’t have to be abrasive to society, or to people. Music can be simple without putting anything that is gonna mislead, y’know what I mean? So, that is my… Yeah, that is me for music, that’s what I think music is. It’s a tool to express to the world upfulness, right.
If you look back on the era you came from, the seventies, you felt it was a collective feel or spirit in conjunction with what you said now?
Yeah, it was an inspiration that taught I and I and I within the scene at that time, and even the artists around – I mean most of the artists around, were using it as a positive feel of expression that could enlighten and strengthen certain people in stress or whatever situation they were in in life – morally, spiritually, physically. But when you use it regressive and then in decadense now, it don’t do anything – it don’t direct, it don’t lead. It just leave people out there in a coal-sack, y’know what I mean, a circuit that is going around, going after their peers, like a dog trying to catch his leash – no direction.
I was in the studio two years before recording the same song.
‘Graduation In Zion’ (aka ‘It Won’t Be Too Long’)?
Yeah. I was doing that, and Ted Bafaloukos had come out and met Jack Ruby, and Jack took him to the studio and when he came in that’s what he saw, he saw me singin’ that song. I was actually laying the voice then. So, two years afterwards that was just a repetition of what he came in and saw, and he said wow, he would love to use that song in the movie, but it was to be released. So I didn’t, I kept it back and didn’t release it. I didn’t know it was gonna be two years. And then I re-record it again live for them in the same studio that he came and saw me working.
Which was Harry J’s. You had some co-production thing going with Jack in ’76, what was it?
Myself and Jack was working together, Jack Ruby was one of the first… He was the first producer who heard me and said ‘Hey man, wow, wow, wow! Let us gwaan, ready we ready, wow! And let’s go!’, right. And I liked Jack because me and Jack had a good rapport at the time, and so I started doing some recordings. I did about four recordings at Harry J. So again, I think Jack should… did I have those…? No, I think maybe it was my tape, my music still, beca’ we were doing a co-production, it wasn’t a total production where he was producing. So I don’t know, I should go down in two or three weeks and check and see if his sons have any of them tapes, because that would be two tapes on thinkin’ back now that Jack should have.
So ‘Graduation In Zion’ was the only one he made available with a proper mix of these songs, the rest was unfinished, unreleased in any format?
No, actually none was released from it, I think he played them on his sound system.
Dub-plates.
Yeah, dub-plates for sound system. But the only track which was released is the one from the movie.
How come that was the only one that saw release?
I dunno, well, that was just put out because the movie wanted it. So we did that, I produced that. Actually in the time when they recorded me in the studio was on my studio time at Harry J. So, just never the get-around, because after that I was busy. I lived in New York for a little bit, I lived in L.A. for a little bit. And when Jack died I was actually in England.
The ‘Rockers’ movie soundtrack has remained in print over the years, as the classic score it now is. Have you received any compensation over the years?
No, no, no. I’m possibly this weekend meeting a lawyer, or next week – I’m not quite sure, to find out about my royalties and stuff. I have not received a penny from Island Records or Ted Bafakoulos released it, right.
You haven’t met the director since shooting that film?
Yeah, I met the director a couple of times in the early eighties up in New York, ’cause he lived there. But I think he has moved back to Greece now, I’m not quite sure. And the producer I was quite close to, but he’s sick right now, terribly sick.
What was his name again, Patrick something?
Patrick Hulsey, yeah. He’s terribly sick, he has what is… no, what you call it… hepatitis, yeah. One or two of them, I’m not quite sure if its A, B or C. So he needs a lung, he’s seeking a lung-transfer in some hospital in New York now.
Sad to hear. How do you look back on the work on that film, you were expecting a bigger part than you had there?
Originally I was supposed to have been maybe the main act in the movie, but when the Black Disciples (Jack Ruby’s studio band at the time) went up to New York after they had come down and seeing me in the studio, and they decided that we would have another sister called Faybiene Miranda…
Of ‘Prophecy’ fame.
Yeah,’Prophecy’, right. We were – actually the first idea was that both of us would have been the main lead in that. But when Burning Spear went up to New York with the Black Disciples, Horsemouth was playing drums, Dirty Harry was on sax. So they met with Bafaloukos and whatever and whatever, there – from there it change, yunno. And they became the… yeah. But at first that was the idea, with Jack at first, that I should have played the main lead and Faybiene the second. But we weren’t around, ’cause I only spoke with Bafaloukos the time he came in the studio.
Oh, afterwards? Not satisfied with that… that would’ve been after the movie would have changed direction, and Horsemouth was now gonna be the main character, and Dirty Harry. Because the format she was in before, she would’ve been a different thing totally. But it’s gone out there and it’s all right.
Yeah, but you said somewhere, probably to Buckland, that you were a bit displeased that it lost the original plot and ended up like a slapstick comedy instead of something constructive in its original conception?
I was disappointed only in… That wasn’t what I was disappointed in. I was sort of disappointed, not in my being even playing a more important role, that was like I was disappointed for myself. But just that we could have possibly used it – that medium – to say a little more, yunno? Because I might’ve mentioned it seemed like a ‘slapstick comedy’ (chuckles) in a sense, yes, because the main values that we were projecting at the time, right, in a seriousness weren’t actually aired on the film. So I thought that we could have used that vehicle more positively to spread information, on the music industry and on our lifestyle, and the Rastafarian involvement and what we were hoping for the future. Yeah. But otherwise from that, I don’t really have anything… I don’t have anything against the movie or what, I just think we could have used it a little more positively. So hence it seem to be more like a slapstick comedy in a sense, right, y’know what I mean?
OK. But the original script, was it intended to be more like a comedy, originally, or this was the way how it turned out along the line there?
No, well, it wasn’t much of a script, there’s not much of a script. It’s just everybody more or less played an idea that came up and they said ‘OK, use that, use that’, and everybody sorta were normal, I mean, natural.
They could shape their own roles pretty much as you went ahead filming scenes or sequences, whatever?
Sort of, yeah. But this is in a sense now where I’m saying that hey, we could have even have the same movie but quietly acquiring running right through it with a main theme which would’ve been more positive, yunno. So, I say all right, maybe we might make ‘Rockers 2’.
I was talking to Ras Karbi…
Where?
He’s in New York, at least he was.
OK, I haven’t seen him for how many years.
He mentioned doing a script for a second ‘Rockers’, especially now when the reissue of the original movie has been so popular on DVD. It was a while ago so he might’ve done a good portion of that script by now.
Mmm.
So there has been some talk about doing a second ‘Rockers’, the follow-up.
That has been on my mind for the last twenty years or so.
You haven’t met up with any other parties who might be interested to produce it?
Well, even the director of the movie, even the producer seemed interested about some six years ago when we spoke. The idea was there, that Horsemouth wanted too at one time and I think he was pretty close with some people who might’ve been… so I don’t know what that would have come up with. Because each individual idea might be different towards – if Karbi is even writing something, I don’t know what would have been his main theme, per se. But for the music industry and showing the realities of certain things, the Rastafarian spirit moving through the music, because in a sense certain Rastafarian brothers frowned on the idea of even reggae music and this music movie. Because the medium was not as upful and straight as the pure Rastaman faith sees. So it’s been a deviation from the Nyabinghi and Rastafarian true music, a movie which showed that root value, that seed value that is coming out of the Nyabinghi, going into and fusing into the reggae but not just totally reggae, because it’s music. On the theme of expression that we spoke of earlier, and I’m saying that anyone who use it for posterity, defend who is your word. And if your words is not upful and directive but misleading and confusing to the ear and don’t help to, y’know, untangle knots in the heavens and free the spirit in a sense, then it’s not working in a positive sense. So a movie now again I would now feel or envision, is that it would be an enlightening story showing the reality of what has occured and is happening; misuse, abuse – the whole contrast, but at the same time, yeah, a true spirit that when if you leave the movie you see where you should go, what you should be doing and the reasons for doing it. Yeah.
Not in the original, not in its original, no. What I had been expecting to project on it, that wasn’t what became the overall theme. Yeah. The intriguing spiritual value that we wanted to put on tape, that would have been an endurement to mankind, not just the music and ahh, y’know, a happy-go-lucky form of lifestyle and rey rey rey, no, that wasn’t what we had aimed for.
After the movie you released ‘Love Child’, the last 7″ on Shepherd, and went to the States. You settled down in New York – or was it L.A.?
I lived in Florida and I lived in New York for a while.
Yeah.
How come you moved out, you felt the hostility of increasing political violence coming too close, or what was the reason – the situation got too ‘tight’?
No, not really. I had always been close to that side of it while coming up, y’know, not being involved with either side of the parties, because I’ve never voted in my life for any politician. Well, I happen to work with both sides at different times. I was just observing the politics and the misuse and abuse of the masses, the promises made by people who never planning keenly on any promise but to give everybody a straw to hold on, because he’s drowning and a person grab on to that straw. So, using words and not making words live and not making words true, which a lot of these people were doing over these times, y’know, still doing.
Nothing much has changed in that regard.
Nothing much change, trust me, it’s just a different way of expressing it. But the guy at the top still wants it all (chuckles), and he’ll sell you any story to get what his desires fulfill, and the misuse and abuse still continues. When you get into governments now you get a different view, if you get into the corp. guy’s head it’s a different view, and overall the view is not for the mass or of the people’s, right, it’s just like the scraps that fall from the table is for the masses. Physically and spiritually, yeah, they don’t wanna work with, they are just misusing, that mass is just a fodder. Enshackled slaves, is work-force that you bridle and harness to do. But kids aren’t taught properly, right. They don’t make sure that they learn if a some can’t read, write properly, go get a good education, then you can tell them anything and they’ll accept it. Because if you teach them, if they learn and they are aware, you can’t give them shit and they accept shit. They will say ‘fuck off, that’s shit, I know that!’ But if you don’t show them what shit is, and they don’t realise, then you can give them shit anytime and they’ll take it, y’know what I mean. And this is what the governments and the leaders throughout has been using man and misusing and abusing, so…
I guess this is what you would refer to – that can be heard on the new album – as the ‘mind cannibals’, right?
Ahhh! You’ve got a version of the acoustic one?
Yes.
OK, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly that! You see they reach their peaks, because you see the corporate of the governments and the various institutions which control…
It’s just there to maintain what they already have.
Ah, all right. They put on a different cap at times and maybe a little more soft here and what not what, but ultimately its the same. So if you see them man deh reach their peaks and you hear the same rethoric, right, talkin’ (chuckles), because its not the truth they see. But still misuse by how they speak, ’cause its just money and power, man. ‘No mind-cannibals control your mind to sabotage or re-programme you…’. Yes.
Moving to L.A. in the early eighties, you ended up being a guest on the ‘Reggae Beat’ radio show? A pretty influential show at the time.
Yeah, I’ve done… Roger Steffens I did a couple of shows with, I did a few shows in Los Angeles.
I suppose you were a bit surprised that you had an audience over there, right?
A little, a little I was, yeah. But quietly I found out that there’s a certain underground set of people who really checked for what we were saying, y’know. And I guess I was a bit surprised, yeah.
And this is when you hooked up with this guy you’ve already mentioned, David Kulik, or ‘Koolrock’ as he called himself.
Koolrock, you know of him?
I haven’t heard what he did, but I know you recorded some tracks over there like ‘To Toil’, ‘Stagger Lee’, ‘Jah Love’ – all these were done for Koolrock?
No, it wasn’t actually with him, those were my tracks. Yeah. But Kulik is a good guitarist, musician too, and he is a songwriter. So, he produced this LP as I said with all different artists singin’. And his wife she liked my voice and she told him, so I did one of the tracks, ‘Champs Elysee’.
Was this included on the soundtrack to the ‘AMA’ movie I know you were involved in?
No, ‘AMA’ is a different movie, which I produced a girl who did ‘High Wire’, a track called ‘High Wire’. I did a track called ‘Steppin” and one called ‘Brave’, and I had written a song and produced Ken Boothe, a song called ‘Inside the Night’. Those four tracks was pre-released on this movie.
It was in ’91 I think it was, 1991.
Out of America?
England. Yeah, it was done by a Ghanian I think it was, what’s his name… Quatty? Neo Quatty was it…? He did it for Channel 4, sponsored by Channel 4, or BBC.
I figured that was the case, I heard you were getting more involved in writing songs and scripts for films, drama, theatre and all that while living in England in the late eighties.
I did some of that. I started writing some tracks for an animated fusion movie, but I thought that was all set too. I wrote and recorded this track. But what was the movie that come out now, was it ‘Robin Hood’ with this guy… was it Adams, from Canada? Did this song which won the Grammy that year.
Bryan Adams?
Bryan Adams, yeah, with (whispering)… what’s the name of the track again… ? Oh gosh! I loved that song too. But after that, that was the track which licked the whole movie industry into using soundtracks, right, so for the animation movie that I was doing, I think ultimately what they did was they went for a big name to do the track instead of an unknown name, right. Because as I said Bryan Adams had made this song to this movie, and it had propelled the movie into mega, yeah (chuckles), because of this song. So the people since then has if you noticed the soundtracks of the movies have gotten better and better and more involved, because a marketing tool now to sell the movie if you have good music behind it. So that was what I was told, really, by this guy that hey, they’re going to use I don’t know what name-artist it was to do it. But I did write some stuff for movies an’ t’ing.
I met a guy some twelve years ago who mentioned that you had recorded an album while living in England, but I have never seen anything to confirm this. Was it ever put out, if you ever cut an album there?
A track called ‘Steppin” was released and ‘Love’s Bite’ was released offa that, yeah, only two tracks were released off that.
As singles?
This one was released on a twelve-inch with myself, Junior Reid, and two other guys. Four artists on two sides, two on one side and two on the other side. That was a track called ‘Love’s Bite’, and ‘Steppin” was done on a twelve-inch. Yeah.
After this there was certainly a longer time-gap before people heard you showing up on Cat Coore’s solo album. The first I heard was on a ‘Cutting Edge’ tape in the mid nineties with ‘Jah Sun You Rise Again’, with you and Cat trading vocals, ballad style.
OK, yes. ‘Jah Sun You Rise Again’.
And ‘Tricks of the Trade’.
‘Tricks of the Trade’, yeah. I wrote, co-wrote with him but both of them were my ideas, ‘Tricks of the Trade’ was my line and ‘Jah Sun’ was my line. And yeah, I did some harmonies, back-up harmonies, and put in a few lines in another song that we did too.
And ‘I’m Still Waiting’ for Chinna’s High Times imprint as well.
Ah, yeah you have gathered… Yeah, I did…
That’s the same Wailers song I guess?
Yeah, I did a copy of that for Chinna. It was for the ‘Ghetto Youths’ project, which what everything was, it was using a number of Bob’s songs and different artists sung some of them on a compilation, to see if they could get some money to help in Trench Town for the ghetto youths, y’know. So we did that. But I don’t know, that Ghetto Youths project, Damian and them is supposed to be still involved. I don’t know if Chinna’s really working with them again an’ t’ing. Yeah.
What about this rumour that you were cutting some soul/funk, music in that vein, and this was ready for release a couple of years ago, but never came out.
Let me see now, its dance, a little experiment of music I worked with in London, with the drummer and keyboard player for Linton Kwesi Johnson. All right, there were some youngsters who were like the hottest young group that Matumbi, which is Dennis Bovell, and Eton Blake had this band. Well, Eton’s younger brother and Henry Holder and John Green were three classy musicians, terrible, terrible, terrible musicians. So I did some experimental music, not per se reggae I would think. I wouldn’t really name or label it funk or t’ings, but its sort of dance clubby. Yeah, I did maybe about four tracks offa that. None of them were released. Actually ‘Steppin” was in that vein, yeah, and that was put in the movie, and ‘Brave’, it was also in that vein and that was put in the movie. Those were the only two tracks that came offa that. But there are two other tracks which, yeah, would have been more dance/club feel.
Yeah, Dub Store International is releasing for me in another couple of months time.
(Coughs) It have all of the old stuff, it have about thirteen or fourteen tracks of my old songs, seven of the released 45s have been released on it, and about five or six other tracks which weren’t released. He came to Jamaica, saw me and left and eventually got in touch with Chinna and them, so Chinna had called me. We had reasoning, he came back out, we met and he said he would love to release the compilation, so we just worked out something.
So basically this is what you have remaining of the seventies tracks up to the eighties recordings with Kulik?
No, not Kulik stuff. But this is just some of the ’79 stuff, about four tracks offa that LP which I had recorded to release, I had found about four tracks. So that’s another four there, and I had another tape on some music I had done in ’80. So I just compile some of those with the seventies and gave him from seventies to about ’80, 1980, possibly one track from ’81.
If this album goes well in Japan, what about some European distribution for it, and America as well? It seems a bit ‘limited’ to only have it for the Japanese market, it should get a wider circulation.
All right. He’s coming here for this show I’m doing this weekend (in Paris), we’ll see, maybe Makasound might do some distribution for him here. I will try to see if I can line that up, so they can work together for promotion and whatever way. So hopefully there will be somewhere here that you can pick it up, easier than get it from Japan. He will ship, but it will be easier per se if there’s a center in Europe that it rotates around and whatever state it’s coming from, Japan and them.
This acoustic, ‘unplugged’ album you’ve done now, the ‘Inna De Yard’ CD from France, what can you say about it? It is in fact your full-length debut after almost thirty-five years in the business.
It’s something we’re doing always, we playing like that. It showed up someone saying that it would be good to capture some of that. But that’s just a natural feel that we have when we’re together, jamming a vibes. So it’s just capturing that authentic natural spirit. This is not rehearsed, that wasn’t rehearsed, apart from actually one of the songs was like a little rehearsing, that we played it before a couple of times. Me and Chinna had worked out, worked it out a little bit. But all of the others were spontaneous and the lyrics I had for, y’know, lyrics them that I had in my head but songs that I hadn’t been singin’ for years. So that was just done in that moment, and we just voiced them and captured some. It wasn’t rehearsed, it was all natural as it is, y’know what I mean.
You mentioned at least one old tune, ‘By the Sweat’, being worked into the lyrics of these acoustic songs, so a mixture of new and old?
Let me see now, well yeah, there are mainly old tracks. Let me see, the newest one which I did about four years ago still, ‘(If They) Reached Their Peaks’, I wrote that about four years ago. All of the others were like songs that I had been doing sometime.
So you did something for Fatis too, you said?
Fatis? Yeah, we started doing some work back in 1994 or ’95, something like that.
And what became of it, he shelved the material?
For some time I really wanted to do something with Fatis, because Fatis is a good, close friend of mine in a way deh. And I know he wanted to do an LP with me, so I figure maybe next year because he’s got some good riddims too, and I might go and do a couple of tracks. Yeah, I have to go and give him something, because I started and I never did complete it. He would not like it to know if I would go and work with other people and I never do something for him, and although I no work with much people he was actually the only person outside of Chinna who I – like the one track for Kulik I’ve done, everything else I’ve done for myself. Yes, but I’ve done some work with Caveman International.
Right, the sound system.
Yeah. He’s coming out with his own catalog and label shortly, ’cause they are making a lot of good riddims too. Yeah, he have recorded quite a lot of riddims. I heard a couple of them which I liked, so I’ve done three tracks with him so far. And there’s some other ones, I’m supposed to voice a couple of other tracks them, sounds interesting. So I’ll maybe when I go back down to Jamaica, by the end of the year write a couple more tracks and do for him. So I will – at that time somewhere – maybe go do something for Fatis.
Good. So you said you are planning to reissue some of those mythical tracks from the seventies, music that has been out of print for more than twenty-five years by now, to give that a good try and reprint them again on Shepherd as well?
Yes, I’m planning on putting… Yeah, I’m revising my label, it was at the printer, printery, and I found it. So I will make a number, cut off some labels there, stamper. I suppose to when I get back home by August, September or so, I should press up a number of my old 45’s with some of the new ones. I’m releasing a song, I just shot a video the week before I came up for a track I recorded three years ago. I sort of scat on that tone, with a sort of blues/jazz feel, like. And there’s a guy named Marcus – you know Marcus from Switzerland?
No, Marcus is into filming, he’s a young Ras. But he’s into filming, I wanna find him because he shot a video for me for a track called ‘Today’, and I’d like to get in touch with him. I suppose maybe Chinna can find him still. But I lost his number so I just wondered if you might know him?
Nope, nothing of that sort. Sorry. I’m sure a lot of people wondered what happened to you over the years, at least after the time in Los Angeles and you dropped out of the scene for a while at that point. It’s just the sort of inconsistent career that a lot of artists have when the market and demand is changing, you come and go. But you left England in the nineties there and stayed in Jamaica since?
Yeah, I moved back in ’92.
Got tired of Europe (chuckles)?
Oh, yes, I had been off for three years, almost, and that’s the longest. I’ve never stayed outside of Jamaica for longer than three years at anytime. Normally I’m like a six months, five months, four months, go-and-come sort of thing. If I stay a one year at one time, y’know, it’s – yeah – I don’t like staying out too long at a time. But I’ve been a six months, I spend a eight months, and if possible a year in them time. Not again, I don’t think I will be doing that, just go out and spend a two to three months, then I wanna go back home.
This concert you are doing this weekend coming up, this is the first show you’ve done in, what, ages?
From 1990, what – or thereabouts, I haven’t done anything in Europe at all, so this is the first show for about fourteen years.
By the way, did you do any stage appearances back in the seventies, or you just basically focused on recording at that time?
I worked on a few shows in the seventies, I’ve done two Sunsplash in Jamaica. I’ve done a few others at the National Arena, and other venues in Jamaica from Negril right up. I worked in L.A., I did shows in New York, I worked in Florida, and I worked in London.
You never came along when the Sons of Negus went to England on tour in the mid seventies?
No, no, no. I had left at that time, I became a solo artist in that period.
How do you look on the music being made today? The dancehall music has switched over the past ten years into a more conscious state and more one drop riddims are built as well.
Yeah, well, everything have a cycle and it seems as if it is turning around, because the rest is decadense and slackness and duttiness which is still there. But it’s not as it was in previous years, right. There’s a consciousness coming out from the artists in a different way, and while many of them a giving you a consciousness, them still giving you a little bit of the slackness on the side which I’m not into, I frown on that because I say, y’know, you can’t cut two ways too tough. If you’re dealing with positive, deal with positive. Some of the artists suppose his money or suppose his crowd-piece in one hand, they will be positive this minute and the next minute you hear a little negativeness and what-what, or slackness to a certain degree coming from them. But I say there’s an improvement overall, y’know what I mean. Because when I came back to Jamaica in 1992, trust me, I came back to release that LP which I mentioned, beca’ I had it mixed down on DAT tape, but the people weren’t ready for my music, so I just didn’t. I mean, they weren’t interested or nutten like that, it was just pure slackness and… yeah. So, after a while, maybe about five years and the slackness got so… it was reaching into Mr. Big Man’s house across the way, the government and everybody was starting to be aware that, really, it was getting outta hand. So they started making statements. And then you had like Luciano coming up, which had break away, you had like Buju Banton making a little break away, you had the artists, some of the deejays them making a little effort to change the music and say more positive things. It started changing and little by little continued changing, while a lotta them on the underground scene was still putting out a certain amount of slackness and duttiness, nastiness. But at least you had the two areas of it being represented when previously it was more one area of it represented. Like the only positive music you hear ninety percent of the time was a man who playing it on him house or some of the radio station was bombarding with the fuckeries, and some of the dance sessions an’ them t’ing was bombarded with the same slackness. So, it has changed and it’s working positively with some of the slackness still going on but much more positive music is on the air.
What about the approach to recording with classic equipment, real drums and bass, an acoustic setting, is there enough ‘space’ to do that now?
You know, musicians aren’t musicians. There is less musicians learning to play instruments properly, so the simplification of using a computer and what not, what to make a riddim, y’know, that also was a lickle negative spin on a certain aspect of the music.
It certainly was, and is, though it is debatable that some of the computerized rhythms has destroyed more than filled the music with new life, new invention and the new ideas it needed to continue its development into the future, it certainly came at a time when the music stood still. Kiddus I represents another era though, and that era has never left. Just give a track like ‘Security In the Streets’ a spin, if you’re lucky enough to own it, and you are convinced of the enduring quality and talent of this particular artist. His music doesn’t fear time. It became even more apparent when the long overdue debut ‘Inna De Yard’ popped up from nowhere a couple of years ago, and Kiddus was as sparkingly bright as he ever was on ‘Graduation In Zion, ‘Security’, ‘Harder’ or ‘Love Child’, only that it showed him in a new, acoustic setting. And the record is a success, a truly creative success. It spells timeless all over it. Somehow ‘Inna De Yard’ was destined to become his first real album. It had to be. Peeled off, stark but still beautiful music, with some very tasteful guitar playing by Chinna. Roots music from its very root of how all the foundation music is actually created; acoustically, vibrant and naked. You couldn’t dream of hearing him in a more intimate, raw environment than this, and this is music which should be heard by many, trust me. Food for thought, music from the heart. Lyrics with a lasting quality, inspirational and thought-provoking soul-food for many generations to come. And thankfully, his voice hasn’t lost much of its original timbre either, an instrument he still handles with skill, style and class. Just listen to ‘Only Jah Jah Way’ and you’ll get an understanding of what I’m talking about. A sample of Kiddus I’s work in Los Angeles during the mid eighties, ‘Viva La France’, can be found on David Koolrock’s CD anthology ‘Crossfire’ (Kool Rock). Look out for represses of Kiddus’ Shepherd singles in a near future as well. There are also a series of albums to come from Japan’s Dub Store International label. It will contain the cream of the uncollected music he made during the golden era, what is still available to us anyway. And I, for one, can hardly wait.
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