With a name like ‘Exodus’ there
just had to be some reggae – and there was indeed. Jah
Rock from Liberia offered a powerful African reggae style, influenced
both by modern digital
sounds and by the classic one drops. After his short performance,
as he sat with his charming family, I took the opportunity
to
find out a little more about him:
“I’m Jah Rock from Liberia. I got to the UK because
in my country there was problems and what I did was to find a
place for asylum. Luckily I found myself in the UK; I arrived
at Heathrow Airport with my family. That was on 28th October
2003. The British government take good care of me. They keep
on telling me to go back, but as soon as possible I wish God
can make my music to speak to them, so that I can build and take
care of me and my family, so I can pay all the things what the
government pay for, I can take care of that. I wish that God
will hear my message. My music is a kind of reggae from Liberia,
and it’s a music that has taken me through. It’s
a part of me. It have inspired my life, it have changed my life.
I wasn’t a musician in Liberia because of the political
situation and the custom – the way we were brought up,
it doesn’t allow us to do certain things. I have had the
privilege to change my life and I thank the British government
for that. The songs I just did, the first is ‘Watisylla’.
It talks about when the time reach, nothing you can do about
it. There’s time to be baby, time to grow up, there’s
time to die, there’s time to enjoy, there’s time
to suffer, there’s time for education, there’s time
for other things. So when the time reach – nothing we can
do about it. The second music talk about Mandela, give thanks
for Mandela and what he did for us, to make people to be equal.
Let us be free and live a better life. My album is due in August
but that’s a difficult time I am facing, so come August
or maybe roughly November there – so I am trying my best
now to come up. My favourite reggae performer? That would be
Bob Marley, because I love his lyrics, I love his beat and I
love his message. He is a great encouragement to my music.”
Another
act that included reggae in its set was the young band Heritage
Survival from Zimbabwe. They have a strong and attractive
guitar based sound, typically Zimbabwean, but I was intrigued
that they also included a very Bob Marley-ish number in their
all-too short set. Afterwards I got a little background from
bass player Jekanyika Norman Muza and singer/ guitarist Zivai
Guveya:
(Jekanyika) “We are the Heritage Survival, from
Zimbabwe. We just grew up doing music together, and then when
we came over
here, we wanted to continue with the band. Zivai is the bandleader,
leader of the band.”
(Zivai) “Our songs are talking about the way people live.
That’s our message. All those songs that we are playing,
we are talking about the way people are living. We have a little
bit of love songs but we don’t play them much. Yes, we
play a little reggae. The reggae influence, it has been there
in Zimbabwe for a long time now, since Bob Marley came in 1980.
People, they started to like reggae a long time ago, so we do
what we call Afro-reggae, like the one that we played. We have
only made one album. We are waiting on another album that we
want to record, which that one is going to be mixed songs like
Ndebele songs and Shona, yeah. My experience is that I have played
with Thomas Mapfumo, Oliver Mutukudzi; the Heritage, we played
the WOMAD festival as well. We want to pass the message to the
people, what is happening in the world, or the way people are
living. This is what we want to do.”
(Jekanyika) “I just want to say we want the support of
the people. We want to try our best. We don’t want to stop,
we want to pass the best!”
It was nice too to bump into Jamaican reggae singer Stix
Dan enjoying the festival; he informs me that work on his new album
(recorded in Paris) is well-advanced – so watch this space!
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