I am going over photos from the ‘Free Your Mind’ video shoot at Hope Gardens & Zoo, Kingston Jamaica. Director of Photography Delroy Ledgister did me such a solid by sliding away with his video shoot’s second camera to get me some much need solo photos.
It’s such a beautiful park on a such a perfect looking day. Then again the nice thing about a rainy day in Jamaica is that at least in February the rain passes quickly. But we didn’t find the rain until we reached the top of the Blue Mountains where I conveniently slid in the mud immediately after my outfit change. Thankfully our director, Roy The Cuban was able to work his magic with combination of well water and sun to have my outfit camera ready in the nick of time.
But back to this shot. It’s a lovely set up. A nice moment. But I told Delroy that I could only imagine the PC police of Seattle reacting to posting next to a beautiful sculpture portraying what imagined at first and third glance was a slave circa the 19th or early 19th century. England ended slavery a generation before America did, and that even that took our greatest bloodbath to decide it, to the tune of 600,000 dead. But that’s another story.
But a good shot is a good shot is a good shot. I’ll still send this to BJ DjSticky to see if it’s the photo Dope Magazine needs.
It’s funny what goes through your mind making honest art. I imagined the reaction of certain people in the Northwest saying the very act of going to Jamaica to work with Jamaicans is appropriation, as if the concept of appropriation were as simple as segregating everyone based on their alleged identity and nationality. The fact is Jamaica desperately needs more musicians from other cultures to come and allow them to do what they do so well. That is producing music with the stamp of their culture.
I absolutely understand and enjoy discussing the pros and cons of cultural appropriation. But there are pros. And Jamaicans maybe among the greatest cultural appropriators and adapters of all time. But even in terms of appropriation, not all cases are that of the so called culture vulture. The story of Prince Allah told me of watching the very young Wailers learning harmonies in Trench Town Joe Higgs copped off soul records by great like Curtis Mayfield is a heartwarming and truthful.
Shallow people, pretending to be genuine liberals go around saying you appropriated this from that, but they wouldn’t do so if they did not know how freely, deftly and wonderfully cultures learned from one another to create the genuine documents that such shallow folk exalt as PURE.
Nothing is PURE except that which has been appropriated. The truth is that we must all work harder to give credit and cite our influences. We must give to those we borrow from. But even better, we must make it our own and pay the debts to the ancestors who left these gifts on earth for us all to rediscover and fashion in our own true voice.
Really ‘Free Your Mind’s ultimate power is that it wasn’t a reggae or dancehall song when it came through Sly & Robbie‘s door at One Pop Recording Studio. Nobody is quite sure what it was except as song I wrote with a nod to Toots and the Maytals, as if I was answering Toot’s cry.
We still aren’t quite sure what ‘Free Your Mind’ is. But what happened to the song as the credits of Anthony Cameron, Sly Dunbar, and Robbie Shakespeare were added was that it became a hit. The song was a perfect template to add Sly & Robbie’s Dancehall sound they cooked up in the 1970s and have adapted ever since as dominant sound of an island, that dominates the vibrations of the HUMAN RACE. So of course it resonates. But around that rhythm Anthony Red Rose and guided Lenky Marsden through an arrangement that turned a sketch and an almighty groove into a mansion.
So when some shallow hal quasi Liberal tries call this song and my West Indian Rock album appropriation, knowing nothing of my roots in the West Indies and my Taino and Yaruba bloodline, I am just going to laugh. It’s no matter that my ancestors in the 19th century were slaves in Puerto Rico, or that my ancestors are the native ghosts that haunt, Xuymaca, the island they left behind. I don’t care if you are a ginger from South Dakota. Go to Jamaica and make art. Shoot videos. The musicians and studios and filmmakers are waiting for you.
Inspiration is there. But you can come as an outsider and bring inspiration. That’s why it’s still there. Because Jamaica is listening.
Be a part of the World Music economy. Because hey country boy, when you leave the lower 48 you are world music too and your twang is your own patois. Just please cite your influences and give credit where credit is due. We can all be true.
Everyone has a culture. But some cultures just invest more in it. Some cultures lack the infrastructure, but instead give themselves and the ancestors become their Atlas.
This photo is by Delroy Ledgister. He will be touching it up for print soon. This photo is from Hope Gardens in Kingston, Jamaica. Free Your Mind began in Scott Rowe & Lou Johnson‘s English Garden in Brighton, and in Anthony Red Rose’s hand, it became a product of Jamaica.
Now go forth and make and borrow, but even better, buy art.
Davin’s new song has been released and is fast becoming a dancehall hit. Listen here on Reggaeville: DAVIN MICHAEL STEDMAN & ANTHONY RED ROSE – FREE YOUR MIND FEAT. SLY & ROBBIE WITH LENKY MARSDEN
