Reggae is a music that has plenty fight. But only the music should fight, not the people.
--Bob Marley
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up stand up
Don't give up the fight.
--Bob Marley
Well, reggae music is a music created by Rasta people, and it carry earth force, people rhythm...it is a rhythm of working people, movement, a music of the masses, see?
--Bob Marley
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. ----Karl Marx
By MTV trying to visualize the music they automatically stripped it of most of its natural mystery and depth.
--Neil Young
When you left me it was like a bullet to my chest,
I felt like I was living in the Wild Wild West
Thus the love I had for you I live to regret...
--Damian Marley
My owns
You wave under glowing sun
Brightens so bright that night’s eliminated--Jahri
You can only have nightmares about the things I’ve been through in life. ---Jahri
Music is what the individual makes it. Music is life, the rythym of your heart, playing of the soul---Jahri
The ones who you associate yourself with can tell you a lot about who you are. No one is perfect; therefore if you are not perfect, you are normal. If there are some bad habits that should be changed to better your self…you know. I guess when one doesn’t realize this they find others that are just like them, in that way. Only to mask themselves, to hide in the shadows of insecurity until they are freed by themselves. ---Jahri
This harsh and aggressive way
To have their way with youngsters
Not even thinking that day by day
They grow older, life flips the pages
These life enfolders, gone away by the ages ---Jahri
Output facts, and that was that
Lacked resources, lacked teachers,
But devious preachers, who abused authority
Lacked encouragement and positiviTY.
The psychological part constrained.
And strained, it tamed them NEGATIVLY. ---Jahri
Uniforms pressed to pressure them
Oppressed them and not treasure them
The subject English done only
to cut off their life’s sentences,
Write their stories, control their souls,
For prison and death sentences ---Jahri
what's still worst
If you don't have anything good to say
Shut up
But out
Coming up to my face
Like I'm some kind of disgrace
I'm a human being
Seen?
Between all the lies and
Byes,
The taunts,
and flaunts
my guide cannot be denied.
Cannot be lead,
Instead
I give my hopes to a bunch of
Nopes.
Why bother
My brother
My sister.
Stay together
Shoulder by shoulder
I cannot fight for just my
Right.
Indeed
I feel
It must be
Together forever,
Eternity.
Learn you see
Learn you be.
Forget your petty issue
When they are many blisters
Third world countries
Worst for mercy.
Foremost than this
Not just Jamaica.
Africa,
The weather
Heavier and leading
Bleeding
To whatever your ignorance
You must stop.
Don’t flop.
You do not know
The show
The flow
And so
You must realize
Never minimize
The scandalize
Is yet to come and make you
Wise.
They âre people just like us
You making fuss?
When you haven't experienced
Deliquesce.
For your information
You must take into
Consideration
Not imagination---Jahri
She Bawled
She bawled
She crawled
Not another, not another
So she fell on her knees
Begging please
Held her hand out to the above
-----Cried----
The way of life had lied
Fell to the ground
Atmosphere of no sound
Sobbing, throbbing
Heartfelt, sorrowful tears
Down heart tears weren’t drops dripping from her cheeks
They were floods and she was drowning in them
Her wails echoed the whole-of-the-world
They looked in her direction
----Then after----
They paid no attention
A love taken away
As she viewed the body of her diminished boyfriend
Once so vivacious
Yet now lifeless young man
----No words to say----
Only from this heart, that never moves lips
Words cloaked up inside
Only for looking onlookers…
Who still never grasp truly the
----Words her heart say----
For she bawled, she crawled
She use to tell him
If you have a weapon, latter is your weakness
Couldn’t find enough tears to cry
So she rode a wave in the ocean
To let out these bleak and black emotions
To express her devotion
To the man she loves
She found enough tears
Enough to relinquish all fears
---Jahri again.
Bob Marley's youngest: Damian "Jr Gong" Marley live! at AOL sessions. 'Welcome to Jamrock!'
Note Jamrock refers to the corrupt Jamaica that is excluded from the tourism advertisements. Also... The rampant gunmen and druglords around here...
Self-Translated near-English version of this song seems more soft, don't ya think?
Welcome to Jamrock, the place where the thugs camp
3 pounds of weed in the back of a van
it's in her handbag, your knapsack, backpack
the smell is giving your girlfriend (beep)
Some dudes don't notice; they come around here like tourists
on the beaches with club sodas, bedtime stories...
they pose like they're Chuck Norris
and don't know the real hardcore...
B/c Sandals...
The thugs will do what they got to
And wont think twice...
don't let them spot you
unless you carry guns alot too
pure thug things come at you
Chorus
Welcome to Jamrock
Out in the streets they call it murder. East coast, West coast
Don't ask me how a Marley that grew up in the upper-upperest class knows these stuff...
I get more emotional day by day especially after my sociology classes where there are always heated discussions about race and race relations. The book assigned to us was entitled "Black Like Me" by John Griffen. Many things I've read I never knew before such as when Griffen who is a white man undergos medical tranformation--change his pigment to another --to a darker color to know and experience what it is like to be black in the south. So he was disguised as black man and he was on his way to different areas in States. Whites would stop near him to give him a ride; he was shocked to discover that the blacks were seen as a way for whites to express their deepest, darkest, devilish and sexual desires. The black man was not seen as a human being, but something below one. The white guy had all these degrading labels and stereotypes about the black man as sexual, wild, uncontrolled and animal-like. One thing I knew but resurfaced was when one of the white guys who drove Griffen admitted to Griffen that he forced black women to give him sex by paying or not paying them. And the only way these black women could live was by having sex with the white man for a little bit of money to take care of children or to merely survive. Some of the experience that the Black Griffen faced I had heard about and read about in US history, but the social interaction amongst whites and blacks were new to me while reading the book. He stated that when he was a white guy, whites would react to him friendly and courteously and the blacks would look at him in hatred but when he disguised himself as black guy whites would look at him with utter contempt and scorn. He noted that he was still the same person when he switched from black to white but that the only difference that existed was both blacks and whites reactions to him and the cultural and racial characteristics they attributed to him on the basis of skin color and nothing else. It shocked me that human being would judge people by skin color only, it deeply disturbed me how the black man is degraded and not even seen and treated as a human being. And it also shocked me that racism was so blatant and obvious, and how culture, such as a culture where whites were brought up to be racists, can trap people. What stood out to me also was Griffen's lesson about how culture can imprison people, and not allow people to think outside of themselves and realize what they can do to make life better for not only the ones around them but for themselves. That the black man's freedom is intertwined with the white man's freedom out of his cultural imprison, and culture that values racism for no logical reason. So I learnt a lot from that book, and it struck me how alike we are as human beings but that people can fail to see this and focus on what they believe to be differences. So this book will remain in my memory for the rest of my life. It is still applicable to contemporary American society and even to Caribbean society where the culture that exists there today is as a result of decades of colonization, slavery, and structural and institutional racism.
Anyway, I'm happy for all the help I've been receiving at this college, I am extremely grateful for it. I know that I will graduate and a much better person than I was when I arrived and not just a better person but someone who has grown.
So college life is going great so far. Apart from feeling like I don’t belong and seeing a personal counselor every week. When I get personal counseling I feel like I let something that I have been storing inside of me out.I feel better, to know that some of the pain is still stored inside of me and it’s good to cry about it. When I cry during counseling, I’m learning to be more in touch with my feelings and to differentiate them and recognize them. This is good for me because all this pain that I thought was gone and I pushed to the back of my mind still haven’t been dealt with. It just creeps up on me unexpectedly and I just cry during counseling. She says it’s normal and gave me Kleenex. Now at college, I’m learning more about myself by applying the things I’ve learnt in my courses to my life. Especially my sociology class that is the most penetrating. Both because of the content of the course and the professor. My brother was right though, everything is about black and white. I can’t go into a sociology class without a discussion entailing black vs. white, or talks about racism with emphasis on white racism against blacks. I’ve studied the reactions of the students in my class and they get all emotional and personal about this stuff. This is one difference I noted about a sociology class at that college verses one in Jamaica. In the latter, no one talks about race it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. Though no one can deny that it does, but no emphasis is put on race. I haven’t figured out the reason for this yet. One reason may be that most of the population in Jamaica is of African descent and there isn’t a White population for Blacks to compare themselves to that will then result in an emphasis on Blackness and Whiteness. I think of a sociology class as a mini-society except the views of the students in the class, may not fully represent the basic views of the society itself. It’s like a statistical sample, but it may not be accurate. It does provide some information. This is the power of the American educational system that I wish the Jamaican educational system had.
