Atop
the apex of my list of revered reggae masters is the craziest
dub-meister of
them all, the one who wrote the book, and who revises
dub chapters daily, the inimitable Lee Scratch Perry. I’d
been picking up anything and everything from this Madman since
Creation, and I finally had the chance to chat with him shortly
before Valentines Day 2006, about a week before he was scheduled
to play Baltimore We rambled conversationally along, (how could
one not?) and talked about tour, set, players, projects, and reasonings,
in no particular order.
(Ultimately his Travel Issues delayed his visit here, but we still
a gwaan!)
B: Sounds like there might be some Visa Vampires trying to hold
you back?
L: They are trying, but is only what is to be can be.
B: Yes well we will chant for you and keep our fingers crossed
for you on this end.
The particular tour that’s coming up. Who are you working
with on this tour, Mad Professor, Robotiks still in the mix?
L: Actually I will be using some musicians now in the states, they
call is Dub Is A Weapon.
(Note: Dub Is A Weapon opened for Jimmy Cliff in Fall 2005. Among
others, members include seminal reggae percussionist Larry MacDonald,
and long-time NYC based guitarist Dave Hahn, of Stubborn All-Star
and Easy Star All-Stars fame).
B: Will you be bringing out new material now? Or playing all the
crowd favorites from wayback?
L: Well, we’ll be playing some of the favorites from way
back like Duppy Conqueror, Jah Live, Man to Man So Unjust (Telling
the Story like it is in the past), and a special version of Exodus,
(and it will be on our new album that’s really good). We
also doin Sun Is Shining, Punky Reggae Party and Kaya.
B: So it sounds like
we ‘re gonna hear quiet a bit of Bob
Marley and your dubbed out work with him. What contemporary artists
have you been working with these days, Jamaican or otherwise?
L: I been working with artists like Flabba Holt, Style Scott, one
named Pickney, and Robbie Lynn (on) de Bob Marley songs, and dose
musicians on there are super!
B: How bout dubbin out
any other kinds of ‘world music’ sounds.
Do you work with any international (non-Jamaican) artists?
L: Well I make a new album with a group in Switzerland, they call
White Belly Rat, and the album is called ‘Panic Inna Babylon’ which
will be released in America shortly
B: So I presume that’ll
have a good bit of Swiss barnyard animals noises in the background,
Will you have a lot of chickens
in the mix?
L: Chickens? Oh so yuh heard it? (chuklin)
B: Well, not yet, but I can imagine what kinda sounds might be
in dere.
L: Well it’s like a tape recording session re-winding, and
while it’s re-winding I’m singing, and then it go right
back into the music and everything again start from the top, something
like that.
B: Lee, if I could ask
a little bit more seriously, you often chant of rain and fire,
I recall a mesmerizing diatribe at your
performance in Washington DC in ’97.
Are you a hopeful person, do you have hope for the world, or is
Armageddon truly upon us?
L: Well
the Armageddon is a part that happen at the end of the world.
The politicians
create a world that don’t exist, that
will only be here for a time, cuz the original world is made out
of nature, rain, water, light. fire, whirlwind, hurricane, tidal
wave, And all these things is gonna make up, even earthquake, is
involved in the Creation. And what come back now is the fight against
the Third World and the government form(s) that don’t exist.
The ‘right’ government, what that name is: Theocracy,
Black Supremacy, Imperial Government, that is over the Royal Family.
Yu have an imperial family that is over the royal family. And then
the royal family and all the rest of the government don’t
like that, so they form their own government. So they’re
coming to the end of the government that they form NOW. That’s
why you find all these governments are fighting against each other.
They are not fighting us yuh know, they are fighting themselves
now, because these are the bad luck, the Armageddon, that they
must fight themselves.
So the hope for the world is for the people that believe that there
is a God. That in the Beginning there was a God, and God made man
in His own image. The
image of Man is the image of God. Then, see youself like God, and not see youself
like a Devil, so you can save youself fa di future. Said, I am on the side
of God, and I am not a devil. I am on the side of good, and I am not on the
side of evil. Then God’s words, while you believe in it, will take you
into the future as a child of God.
B: Well it sounds as if you should be invited to the United Nations
a bit more, or at least to Geneva?
L: Well, you haffa make your hope yourself. You see the world is
full of evil, and the Wages of Sin, which is evil, is Death. And
all
the people who create sinful sins and who don’t repent will
face a terrible death. Death is ‘after-life’ also.
If you are sick, and it’s not good for you, and you don’t
want to be (suffering), Death is better. Then you are born again….reincarnation.
So you have hope, and what you believe in is not evil, and you believe in good
an do the ting to prove that you are good, and believe that you are a child
of God, and you are the image of God, cuz God made you in His own image. Then,
once you believe it, you will be saved.
B: As the ranking chief Inspector Gadget, do your derive power
or safety from the amulets that you wear onstage?
L: Well (the) Inspector Gadget to me is like the Sun that is arising
in the morning and setting in the evening, you see, and he’s
walking from Blue Mountain peak to round the Universe and come
right back in time before the day is over, and he was set back
in Negril fe de sunset. So I am seeing Inspector Gadget like the
sunshine himself….sets from heaven to Earth, and with long
extended legs and long extended hands up in the air and sky, and
touch de sun, touch the moon, and touch the stars, touch the rain,
and bring the rain through the rain clouds…(mad chuklin)
The Big Inspector in the Sky.
And all the gadgets that he uses. Most of them are computer, you
know the computer is the Brain, also the Beast where everything
lodge from the ‘A’ to
the ‘Zed’, the a ah zz zzzzu aaazzzzuuu. And so all the things
that he use around the Brain like ‘remote control’, computer into
computer, weather into weather and all those things are mighty sciences. Almighty
God Himself is the greatest scientist.
B: Lee Perry, you’re
a man of many monikers, the Upsetter, Pipecock Jackson, Scratch,
the Madman, What makes you so Mad?
L: Because I know the teachers, they’re teaching the children
rubbish. And that’s why there are too many children with
the high-class education cannot reach anywhere, because they all
know the same thing. Everything this child knows, they’re
going to the same this school, all the children know it, and all
the children cannot get any job. All those education-what them
can get? I don’t think it’s education, I think it’s
a program.
B: Yes, we are like sheep.
L: Yes like being used…like slaves. It’s stupid education,
with no knowledge, no wisdom, and no understanding. Yes. And it
get me really mad to know that people are listening to Pope, Archbishop,
Bishop, telling you about a God that don’t exist.
B: So, between ‘meaningless programs’, and ‘dogmatic
dictates’, what is one to believe?
L: I believe in my piss, because if I didn’t drink water,
I could not piss. And when the water was give to me, it was fresh,
and when water is leaving my body, it is leaving in the form of
piss. So I respect the water that I drink that turn into piss.
I respect my piss. And the teacher don’t tell you that in
school; they just say, ‘don’t say piss, beca it don’t
sound good’. And I also believe in my filth, beca the food
that I eat, it become filth. And before it was stinky dirt-smellin,
it smelled sweet. Oh dear sweet dinner, Oh dear sweet supper, and
after yuh have a sweet dinner and a sweet supper, yuh start to ‘scorning’ (so
the teacher go and tell the children). Don’t! You cannot
scorn your filth, beca you filth was the sweet dinner that you
eat yesterday, and you cannot scorn your piss, because your piss
was the water that you drink and quench your thirst. And I don’t
hear that in school, so that get me mad! (more chuklin)
B: So Lee, when you are not touring, do you live a quiet life?
Do you raise your own food?
L: A quiet life? I live a quiet life. I used to eat meat, I don’t
eat meat anymore. I used to drink wine and the rum, I don’t
drink it anymore. I used to smoke ganja, herbs, and marijuana and
cigarettes; I don’t do those thing anymore. I’m livin
a life and choosing the vegetarian food. And it bring me back to
when I came here first as an angel.
I was eating vegetarian, so I start to copy the cow, and copy the
animals. Because I start to copy animals, I discovered that the
cows are vegetarian,
and that they should be respected, and not to be killed and eat. I am vegetarian
of the highest spirit, the highest knowledge, and the highest wisdom. And there
are things that the animal know… things that the human being cannot know.
Beca human being don’t make friend with them. The human being butcher
them and kill them. And when you kill the cow, the cow curse the butcher. And
the butcher sell the meat. So when you buy the meat from the butcher, the meat
has been cursed. And some end up with a big, fat belly, some end up with big
fat legs, some end up with big fat body.
B: Well that’s how they become, they become the cow.
L: That’s what happen! What you eat, you become.
B: Well I’m glad that you’re
living the very clean life now. That means that you should probably
be with us with your
wisdom for many, many years.
L: I will be, for sure!
B: From Creation, To Eternity!
L: Bless you.
(Lee Perry’s 2006
tour is back on track. His Baltimore/DC dates have been re-scheduled:
in Bladensburg at The Crossroads
on May 21, and in Baltimore at The Sonar on May 22.)
|
