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She asked
me where was ‘Judgment Yard’ and I foolishly
replied that I thought it was regarded as 'a state within
a state'. Bloodly stupid of me really ( especially since
I would never try that shit in England where I would be
instantly carted off to a room and anally probed for weapons
and drugs );but since I'm an IPOD carrying WHITE MAN ,
over 40 and wear baggy light-blue camouflage pants, I
figured there wouldn't be any problem acting like an annoying
smart-ass hippy at some third world airport!
And
so another officer was called , and after some debate
( during which I punctuated all my sentences with "YAH
MON" ), I was finally able to convince him that I
was just an 'entrepreneurial creative' who had come to
interview a Jamaican artist called SIZZLA!
At
this point the officer shrugged and stamped my passport.
I got my knapsack ( the same one I used when I visited
my wife's mud-hut village in Ghana in 1997) and repeated
the whole debate with another immigration officer who
asked exactly the same questions except that he also wanted
to know if I wanted any 'nose-candy'?
Due
to various travel issues of my host ( Peter said he was
in Cuba ) , I scored some Jamaican dollars ( whoa 72 dollars
for a pound!!! hahahaha!) , and exited customs to wait
for his friends who he said would drive me into Kingston
and not shoot me until he got back.
On
the way from the airport I noticed things that I had only
dreamed about : car stops by body armored police officers
with automatics rifles ; people selling fruit on the road;
black girls looking twice at me! On thru Mountain View
and a noticeable presence of more heavily-armed police
and militia where the PNP meets the JLP and they shoot
each others grandmothers with bigger guns than what the
police have! ; and then use the police for target practice!
; and have bloody riots almost every week because of the
unfair prices of Gasoline and chicken; and bleach their
beautiful cocoa skin because of lower education in the
ghettos due to the crushing debt incurred as a result
of the IMF.
A
meeting with Sizzla in Judgment Yard didn't’ seem
like a tall order when sitting in a South London basement
listening to my most hardcore CD's ...
...but
it did begin to dawn on me as we arrived at a place that
had the feel of a fortress with a Ghanaian flag on it
-- and over the wall -- what was clearly a snipers guard
house designed to kill all unannounced white people! For
THIS is also home to some of the Bobo Shanti Rastafari,
a devout, militant practice of the Rastafarian faith with
strong ties to Ghana in West Africa ( where my black wife
sends my Trace Magazine money so her family can buy new
mud every year )
In
order to respect those of this faith I removed all 16
of my body piercing's including my dollar sign earring
and and left my cocaine in the car. I also reacquainted
myself with local means of respected address ( say 'YAH
MON' and 'BIG UP' a lot just like in THE HARDER THEY COME
) although I never quite managed to sound authentic (
even though my wife is a really BLACK woman who used to
fuck TIM WESTWOOD ).
Upon
seeing me, the Bobo's ( all of them smoking giant cannabis
cigarettes or 'SPLIFFS" ) hoisted their M16s high
into the air and shot coconuts out of a nearby coconut
tree. Sweet water spurted forth and I drank heartily ,
exchanging high fives and 'pounds' with some of the soldiers
as I waited anxiously to meet the King himself --SIZZLA
KALONJI ( track 16 on VP'S REGGAE GOLD 2003 ) .
My
misapprehensions were soon dispelled on entering Judgment
yard which is practically a self-sufficient community
which strives to retain it’s own culture despite
white liberal hippies like me from the foreign media and
black people like my wife who thinks Jamaicans are 'backward
homophobic savages' for not allowing their children to
'experiment with gender roles'!
As
I continued to wait, one of the BOBO ASHANTI'S asked me
if I was going to 'leff a ting with him"? I glanced
down at my palm pilot which I had previously uplinked
to http://jamaicans.com/speak/index.shtml
,
....
within two minutes I had given him all the money in my
wallet as well as the wallet itself and my new Jamaican-themed
Puma trainers. A small but justified tax, I thought, for
being allowed to hang around in a place like JUDGEMENT
YARD --a camp where white people seldom venture without
being chopped up with machetes and/or burned alive with
tyres and left to rot in the sun.
But
I had no fear today, for as I continued to show all everyone
my name in a copy of TRACE ( a 'transcultural' magazine
with lots of pictures of ALEK WEK ) , I could see that
the soldiers were beginning to understand that I was no
typical Englishman. Not a racist. Not a classist. But
someone who insisted on finding beauty in ANYTHING , even
poverty, suffering, straying pigs and the decayed appearance
of nearby buildings. As long as it was HERE...BLACK and
JAMAICAN it was charming to me.
Three
hours and three plates of raw vegetables later, I was
ready to give up on the idea of meeting the great Sizzla.
After all, two carloads of Japanese sound boys had been
sleeping outside the gates for three days with over $40,000
USD hoping to get a few dubplates but nobody had seen
or heard from him. As I approached the gate with the Ghanaian
flag to make my exit, I heard gunshots beside my ear.
It was the BOBO ASHANTI WARRIORS , firing M16's joyously
into the air to celebrate the arrival of 'DADA" ,
the great one himself --SIZZLA !
Of
course, I was elated and as SIZZLA entered the yard, I
smiled and lifted one gun finger into the air and made
"trigger" motions in unison with my newfound
brethrins. And then he looked and me.... and spoke:
One
of the soldiers quickly introduced me as "GERRARD
or GERALD OR SOMETING..HIM COME WID DI PITCHA MAN fi do
some interview". In awe , I fumbled around quickly
for my miniature tape recorder and held my hand outward
to greet him.
Well,
to be quite honest, Mr. Sizzla's tone caught me a little
off guard. After all, I HAD come a very long way and waited
over 7 hours in some dirty garage on the side of a hill
just to meet him for the sole, unselfish purpose of giving
him some much needed press ; quite possibly on my own
website AMMOCITY.COM ( AMMUNITION FOR LIFE! )
Not
just anyone gets on AMMOCITY either you know mate!? Its
very, very political and has over 30 - no - 50 million
hits every day ( 5 million pageviews) and I make little
Quicktime Movies to promote it and even have T-shirts
and other things with AMMOCITY'S acclaimed 'RECYCLY' LOGO
on it :
| REGULATION
WOMEN'S BRIEFS $25.00 |
REGULATION
T-SHIRT $25.00
|
|
REGULATION
MOUSEPAD $25.00 |
Obviously,
I soon concluded, the BOBO ASHANTI didn't know too much
about the mindblowing power of INTERNET RADIO. A fact
which is somewhat understandable considering the legacy
of slavery and stuff ....
....but
I still thought it was rude that as I stood there trying
to explain the great opportunities of having SIZZLA played
on stations like SOULBREW , that he saw it fit to interrupt
me by answering his cell phone and ignoring me for the
next 30 minutes ...
...as
I stood there turning bright red in the hot Kingston sun...
Who
was this SIZZLA anyway? Did he know that I am the same
person who once interviewed Linton Kwesi Johnson in a
bar in Herne Hill?!! Yes , THAT Linton Kwesi Johnson--the
same W.E.B Dubois inspired Black Panther who organized
poetry workshops in some of the most dangerous ghettoes
in England?
Linton
never made me wait around like this. He knew about the
internet. He knew about AMMOCITY and INTERNET RADIO STATIONS
( he even had an IPOD!). No such luck here I thought as
Sizzla continued to talk to everyone who called him. Perhaps
it was time to draw out the big guns. I reached into my
knapsack and took out my copy of TRACE. Opened it to the
credits page and shoved the magazine under his nose:
But
then his phone rang again...
and
then... , without another word, he got on his motorcycle
...
...and
rode through the gate with his friends without even signing
my STRICTLY THE BEST Dancehall compilation CD:
After
Sizzla rode away, I felt a profound disapointment. Not
only had I failed to ask him any of the questions I had
so eagerly prepared after watching Stepping Razor :Red
X and re-reading selected chapters of Laurie Gunst's masterful
'BORN FI DEAD' ; but I also missed an opportunity to record
him blessing AMMOCITY.COM. A recording that over 55 million
people would have heard --even if it meant personally
E-MAILING the recording to 55 million people!
I
was just THAT commited to the cause.
Indeed
, as I ventured back onto the main road to hail a cab
it began to dawn on me that perhaps it was time to face
the same harsh reality that one of my American counterparts--Rob
Kenner--had once pointed out in his brilliant monthly
analysis of the reggae world ( BOOMSHOTS : VIBE MAGAZINE
) :
THE
END.
Based
on a TRUE STORY and the sad, sad writings of GRAHAM
BROWN-MARTIN
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