Q: As someone brought up with 'European' values but of African descent, it's important to keep the Afrocentric type of thinking or mentality, and not stick to colonialized, western thinking, isn't it? You can't do it differently if you reach that level. A: Right, to know who we are it would change the world, you see. Beca' we are responsible for changing it morally, but the corruption of the world is everywhere, and that's why people can't be united. Beca' them buy out the people with money and easy life. People don't know how fortunate they are at the expense of the poor and unfortunate people elsewhere. And so they continue to support their leaders who lie to them. And so with this experience now, especially in this part of Babylon (Great Britain) where you become much more educated as to what's going on, then that's why I think music is important, beca' I can use it. I would love to be in a position like one a dem top, well-known artists, and then I would do something. At the risk of my life, that's not important, beca' man cyaan even dead, you understan'. So we need to be corageous, beca' once we know who we are and what we are here for, we can mek a step in the right direction. And just by talkin' to people, you leave a good impression with them, and then you continue making the music. I might even play you a lickle part of a tune, to show you how I arrange a song? This one name 'Jah Warrior'. Q: Sure (he then switch on the tape, playing a sort of Binghi based tune). A: Yeah. I just give you an idea of how I put my tunes together, you see. Is not always easy, but I do it. (Chuckles) Yeah man, the foundation is there. You see, with the bass line now, I don't waan anybody just to give me any old bass line. If I go with some musician in Jamaica I would trust and hear what them have, but if I don't in particular like that bass line I would give them my own to play, you understan', beca' I know it fit in very good. Like this tune I wouldn't want anybody play anything else but that particular bass line, ca' it mek it stronger. I've tried others, too. This is how I create my music is by puttin' the singin' to a strong bass line and then you can hear other parts of the music. Especially musicians who are well versed in playin' in general reggae music. And maybe I wouldn't even go to the old musicians so much like before, I would go to some of these newer musicians. Beca' you have some good ones still, I like a lot of the music comin' out now. Some of it, there's good music comin' out now still. I like what I hear from Pressure (a St. Croix based artist) and I hear some good things from I Wayne, and one or two others. Some production is good. Not sayin' I would want it exactly like that, but dem have the new ear of melody. I like the way of how them workin' with the reggae music, it's more modern. Q: It's kinda rare to hear a more dirty, organic feel in modern records. There's a digital foundation in some of this music too, what did you strive for? A: Yes, there were five tracks with a particular engineer, he was playing most of the instruments. And we didn't have a drummer, so we just used that. And that's important, but that's why I left and went to the studio where I could use a live drummer. Yeah, it was good, it can be good to how you waan the music now. If you want to mesh with the music now, you use a drum machine to give the kick-drum at certain points, and when they're droppin' the kick-drum with the bass line, just like funk music. So them would give it like four beats instead of two, or three beats instead of one. Like the one drop is just 'boom-boom-boom...' y'know, and so it give it more impact. So that is something I think musicians over the years should listen more to. Is just another creation in reggae music, more with an American feel. Q: Do you hear anything, any music now on an underground level which you'd like to capture too? A: Yeah. Well, I hear a lot more kinda flavour in the music, RnB flavour, and more of that kinda playing in the guitar and some of the keyboard sounds. But for my music, I would just use live instruments, 'cause I like that idea of the musicians together making the music. The one man t'ing or the two man t'ing, it's not the best. The vibes is lacking. But when you get a five band together and dem play everyt'ing. We rehearse it and then we play, everybody know what they're gonna play. It's different. Beca' everything create from a feeling, it's more than five musicians. When you get five together it maybe increase the vibe to about, with me as the singer, to double the number. It's like it's much bigger, because everything was multiplying, so the sound jus' work out more rich and live. Yeah. So I think we just have to continue using the live musicians as much as possible, and use the same instrumentation. But I like the musician who have a feel for the current style of music as well, you see. Q: To quote someone: 'All great art is informed in the environment and social climate where it's created'. A: Yeah, I can safely say that's down to me. Because, as I said, I arrange each track, minus one or two lickle piano parts that wasn't my ideas. And I built it with a feel for today's music but firmly set in the music of my time, message-wise, and trying to keep the feel. But you know what? I think the music, the tempo of the music increase. I don't think you find the slow reggae music, the strong roots music of the late seventies, like some a dem Max Romeo, you don't find that style deh. But you can still keep it slow and put playin', but you have to have good musicians fe play it in between the riddims' beats, y'know. And to put somebody, like a feel in the sax player, like Bucky Leo, he's an Afro-Jazz musician, he played on 'Queen of the Streets' and 'The Remedy', to put someone like him an' mek him play. You just give him the reggae feel and tell him fe chop in and chop out. And just get good musician and put them in where you feel them, where you hear them. That's how I've done it, and I would still have to do it a lot like that in England. But in Jamaica now I can have more service from a group of musicians, more accomplished. But you just keep it up top date, really. You go by the music you're used to listening to, when you make music. You go by the music you like the most I guess, so you keep it in that frame. But at the same time you have to take account of what's going on now and make an attempt at it. And as I said, everybody so far really like it, they find it different and very listenable.

Carl Gayle aka Carl I

Q: A track like 'Neo Colonial Africa' describes a continent ripped to pieces by colonial forces and the west. Even if it's hard to predict, do you think that Africa will ever be rebuilt properly? A: Well, it can be if the way is fe just stop plundering it. That's the trouble. You see, Africa is so rich, it got so much mineral wealth that anyone who wants to be a big nation, powerful nation, have to go to Africa, and that's why especially Europe and America are there. And that's what's causing all the strife that's going on, all the corruption - everything. It's economic slavery, it's economic colonisation. Africans might be the heads of government but they're just puppets for the west. So now I think Africa need to unite and, just like China, close their borders to the west and everywhere else, except the deal with African brothers. But the west won't going to allow that. So the strife will go on. Q: It was OK to exploit what they could, but it's not 'OK' to take responsibility to pay back and rebuild what they essentially owe these countries for exploiting them, even up till now. There's no excuse for pushing down poor and defenseless people, but I guess that's how the 'human' mind is working; greedy, take what you need by any means necessary, and so on till the break of dawn. A: Yeah, but we want it to change, so we do whatever we can. That's how mankind is, people not gonna just change like that. But that's why we have people who oppose them. But everywhere you go people are ruled by money, greed really, and so they can be easily bought out. So, because if Africa didn't have anything worthwhile to take under the earth and people to use as cheap labour, no one would be interested. So we know that it's just greed though, because this globalisation of the world means that every individual country cannot actually be individual. They can't do their own thing, they can't create a different type of or way of living 'cause it would be a threat to the western way of thinking of profit making. So people have to suffer for the profit making machinery, which is what we call Babylon, and those that keep it up, y'know. And that's why I sing that song, 'Neo Colonial Africa', I wrote that song somewhere in '79. Yeah, and it's true for now, with just a couple lickle changes. It's the same song from that time I write it, after reading some reports in Newsweek or I think it was Time Magazine. And it's been gettin' worse. As you know, all those black prime ministers or presidents, they're just puppets for either the ones who will do what the west want them to do, unlike someone like (Robert) Mugabe. And then someone like Mugabe is demonised so that they can go in and do what they want. Just like they did with Saddam. He may not be an angel, but they used him and if he decides to no longer co-operate with what they want, then they get rid of him just like anywhere else. And they try, the only people they cyaan do that with is China and Russia. But as I say now, it's globalisation, it's countries with big business banks, multinationals with the co-operation of certain heads of families that always gather up in the west throughout this industrial revolution. And before that, the money-lenders, y'know (chuckles). Yeh, so everything is politics. So music them waan fe escape that, them just want it to be nice music. Beca' people are affected by the politics of governments and rulers and pay the consequences of their actions. And the masses of the people suffer and cry out through music. So, they couldn't ignore that. But if you're young you can only sing what you know about. But I've been conscious and feel that conscious music will really tell what's going on, going on behind the music. I mean, I'm a mature man so I want to be quite a well versed person in the world and know what's going on so I can talk about it. Q: You have to check things with a critical eye and ear at almost all times. A: Yeah, because you have to check it out properly. There are not some things being written and being said. Things are going on, but of course the media not gonna let you know about... they gonna hide everything that has been said against what they're doing, or make it look like some kind of imaginary story, or like it's not real - conspiracy story, y'know. And people who go out and find out the real truth of what's going on. You see, 'cause like I keep saying, people are suffering everywhere and they're my inspiration. What else can you do? Ignore it? We're Rasta, we have to live by what we know, as much as you can. That's why I do this, why I sing 'Neo Colonial Africa', 'Heart of Darkness', 'Keep My Fire Burnin''. And everytime I sing I might not sing only about that, but I will sing about justice and the struggle, the sufferin' and the struggle that people will have to go through just to live on the earth. Earth don't like it, but these people don't care. The living earth itself don't like the way how man treat it. So, I think the living earth itself will do something about it eventually. But until then we can still decide what's truth and rights and justice for those who are in need.

Q: 'For every action there's a reaction', right. A: Yeah, beca' the earth itself is a living being, and people are not just too conscious of that. Being a living being, I'm a livin' being, so are you, you got small lives of things livin' on your skin, and sometime them create a itch or a rash and you have to do something. You get rid of them, well, that's what the earth will do. We're all sattellites, y'know (chuckles). So the earth must reac', beca' the unnatural forces they use - they use force, the western world have this trait of using force and aggression to achieve everyt'ing. And it's in their history, it's a very short history, European history. But they waan to mek it look like all of the history is jus' Europe's, and they had to do that in order to justify slavery. Yeah, slavery itself. So all those t'ings are still, black people in this country, everywhere, realised that they are the people who are always at the bottom of heap, always suffers. All the suffering in the world, is not really white people in their European countries, they might think they're suffering with governments and officialdom and bureaucracy and too much high prices for gas and rent and whatever, houses, our economy - but that's nutten! You know, compared to what black people suffer everywhere in the world, on every continent. Whereas they were the original people and their land have been taken away and used just for the benefit for the white man. I'm sorry to say this, but that's how it is (chuckles). We know this, a lot of people are findin' out more and more what's going on. But you see, is apparently just Europeans who are not sufferin' in this way, and that's why Europe is in the middle east through Israel, that's why Europe is there, to take everything that they can to have an outpost there. Because with globalisation they have to have military bases everywhere to do everything by force to control the area. This is not the way the world should run, man. And it concern me and plenty more people too. So whatever we do, we always talk about it. Q: Do you think people are addressing and communicating these issues through music the way they should? A: It's not encouraged, is it? It's not encouraged at all. People just want to have a good time, they encourage you just to have a good time, just to want to have fun and indulge your senses an' all dem t'ings. But in order for the world to change, everybody just can't keep doing that, you haffe sacrifice. But people don't really wanna do that. They could do it if the media was fully wanting them to do that, the media can achieve so much, yunno, by brainwashing. (Chuckles) But they could brainwash people to live a different way completely, but people not gonna do that because it doesn't mek money. So it won't change. Q: In an increasingly stressed, cold-hearted, capitalistic, imperialistic, materialistic society, how do you keep your soul surviving and sane when there's so much cynical, evil and cruel vibes around? A: Beca' as a Rastafari you don't need nutten, all you need, y'see - and you get to realise that - is food, clothes and shelter. You don't waan nutten else. Life itself is the blessing, and the people who have the most things, they're the ones most worried about losing them! Even if God's protecting it, and God is protecting them (chuckles). We're Rasta people, and whatever they want to call them, all over the world, is people who can live without the need for plenty material things. 'Cause I know, I didn't even have to go to Jamaica to realise that I myself don't need nutten to live really. That's why I sing 'Nutten I have in this material world, nutten is mine at all'. (Chuckles) Because the realisation of that mek you feel happy. 'Cause there was a time when I didn't have nutten at all, not even somewhere fe sleep.

Q: You lived like a hermit for a while there, in Jamaica. A: Yes, but before even that I was walkin' the streets in Jamaica (chuckles). Not many people know that. But you know, walkin' around, we were being displaced, me and my wife, and we walk and sleep at people's house, y'know, until we actually find somewhere and get some money. But I don't even remember how... yeah, I think I sell my car. I did have a car, it was stolen an' all kinda t'ing. But you know, eventually I did start do Jah Ugliman and it was all right for a while, but it never last long. So, like I said, life become very difficult in Jamaica, so I had to seperate from my family and go in the hills. And going in the hills I get to even - it was something I wanted to do, but not exactly like that. It was forced upon me more than anything. So it wasn't the greatest environment. But I cope with it for a good few years, where I was growing my own food an' jus' livin' like a hermit, living by myself at the mountain top. (Chuckles) It was wonderful really, but it's a very hard life. Q: So it's not with great pain you look back on those days? A: Yeah, some of it. Beca' it's not the hard life so much but the emotional... the cause of it, y'know, to do with relationships and those t'ings. But you've got to go through those things to learn that you don't need that kinda relationship that you think you need. You can do without. So, to me, the whole point of life is to come here is to learn to do without, and when you learn to do without then you see everything for what it is. 'Cause all you take from life is what you absolutely think you need to live. But I'm not saying that I'm at that stage now, I take many extra things. But the thought there really for the world is to do without so many things. 'Cause it's too much material! Anyone's house you go to, they got many more things than they need. Much too much, they're always full of things. Useless things (chuckles). Yeah, and so this is, you see, what the western world through the media force you to do, to get used to, to become a habit of acquiring things that you don't really need. And you get money for that, when you get money you go on holiday and spend two weeks in the sun and come back and be a slave for the rest of the year... Q: (Chuckles) A: So, that's not life. Life shouldn't be like that, life is about co-operation - love, y'know. The love is the co-operation between people and nations, that is the big question that people should have on their mind: how to work this, how to make this happen. But instead it's about going to work tomorrow and what you can do at the end of next weekend, y'know, to have some fun. Q: And look towards the pension... A: (Chuckles) Yeah, and the mortgage and so on. You see, that's not how life... Because civilization is not like this, this is not civilization, y'know! Because they're killing too many people and making too many people suffer. When I read about people getting blown up, I mean it's both sides but we know who is really the chief, the evil in this matter. Like in the middle east, like in Palestine, the people have been robbed of their land! And that is the question, they want to avoid that question. And now you have people living like they're cut off from... they cyaan go anywhere, yunno! In Palestine, the Palestinian people, they don't tell you this on the news, that they will be living in certain shacks and they have to pass guards all the time, they can be shot any time. People are raped all the time. Soldiers do what they want. You know, this is going on, and as you know in Iraq, terrible life they're livin' there. They can't even leave their homes. And it's everywhere. I mean, in Africa, I don't have to tell you, it's things you don't even hear about. So really, everywhere, in Indonesia, all over the world. But you will find that it's the dark-skinned people mostly suffering, the non-Europeans. So, we recognise this, we cyaan ignore it. And also, this matter of race is always a strong question that have to be addressed. Because that's why His Majesty did make that speech about racial inequality, with the one whe Bob Marley talk 'bout. Others too, but He was the only one who would make such a speech. 'Until the philosophy which holds one race superior...'. And you hear no other leaders make a speech like that. Q: What's significant for this album in particular as you see it, for those who haven't heard it? A: Well, I would say the firs' song is the firs' song, because the first track is about love. (Chuckles) So, it's there, 'love is the King of Kings', that's the first song you hear from me. Yeah, we waan love. But you see, it's not achievable if man continue fe think the way they do. It's greed which breeds strife, racial hate and everything else that is bad. So, 'love is the King of Kings', I have to preach that message also. And faith, the hope is Rastafari fe we who know HIM. 'Cause a humble man, you see, the only people who people love to lead them is a humble leader, not an aggressive one, really. That's why we love the King of Kings because He is the humblest man we find. And is the same man who always come every time in thousands of years to lead the people, give hope to the people. Yeah, the hope is that Rastafari will spread, the word of love. But them say 'One love, One heart', but there's no other sentiment until there's justice, you cyaan really have love. People's mind have to change from the way how they're thinkin'. Beca' we have to keep singin' that song and people will still do wicked things, so people's minds have to be changed. And we always still have to be strugglin', because if we're not strugglin' then everybody just doing what they're told. So it's always have to be an African liberation struggle. So at the same time we waan love, we waan justice too. Beca' you're not gonna get no justice without truth and rights. So these are the things we really want, and to point out iniquities, and iniquity work.

Q: There's a part in the booklet to the album which points to so called 'black supremacy'. And I just wonder if the issue of racial and cultural differences between people will ever bring us any tolerance and understanding or unity if we keep on talking like that, 'white supremacy', 'Chinese supremacy', whatever, in the long run. A: Yeah, that's why I think about that speech. Because 'until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior, finally and permanently is discredited and abandoned...', any idea of supremacy is hiearchy. Hiearchy, you see, is not the hierachy itself, is not the supremacy, is the humility is what's needed from the leaders, the ability to serve and not to dictate. Anything, is jus' humility. So supremacy and humility don't go together. The supremacy that we want is love to rule. I think you might've heard people say, or the Nyabinghi say 'black supremacy', but really it's in reaction to the white supremacy world system. And it really means for us to rule ourselves to be in charge of our own destiny, not to be ruled by other people. But this is what's going on at the moment. But black supremacy really, if you hear it spoken by Rastafari people, it mean 'we must be in control of our own destiny'. Master of our own fate and architect of our own destiny. Is not to rule other races and other nations. So really, we're not talkin' about racial superiority, we want liberation for Africa first of all. And if the liberation is going on - whenever there's liberation struggle going on and they're winning, other people fight for their own struggle too. So if we're fightin' for our own struggle without much arms - because we're the least armed people in the world, we don't have no weapon factory (chuckles). We have to buy it from Europe, they sell us guns to keep us fightin' against ourselves so that they can control the wealth in the earth and 'pon the earth. And that's what's going on all over Africa. So you have a lot of Africans who don't waan give up the position that the western world have put them in, as their rulers. They're not our heroes. The heroes that you find, the black heroes that you find that the west promote and speak about, they're not our heroes. Never. Including Nelson Mandela and anyone a dem like that. Nelson Mandela is not our hero. We who are conscious and know about what's going on, we know that he sell out his people (chuckles). There's so much that we can speak about, and I know I can do it. If I get the chance right now to get a nice deal with a record company, to just promote my album, I will go into the next one. Ca' I have many album. I mean, I could put out ten albums right now, the amount of songs that I have. So I won't stop, but it's very expensive the way I did it first. People are freer now to make music but is a standard that is required. And you need to be conscious of who you are in this music business and what people waan to hear and how you gonna mek them hear it. But I must say I haven't done enough work on that side. Beca' the musicians really, as I said the people who play on this album, they really were with another band and they have a singer, they actually played on one or two of the earlier songs, and then I asked them to play on the other songs that we did at the studio, with the drummer and the full band. So it was his band. And if you notice, the bass player was a Polish guy, he's a jazz player. He never played reggae music before, but I show him bass lines and him get into it. But him wouldn't play with the more measurement and the feel, full feel, but he was quite good. He likes reggae music, he's not with the band no more, but he do quite well. He play on about nine of the tracks. We rehearsed the tracks twice, that's all. Not for too long, we just go through them. All I do is jus' give them the bass line and singin' the right key, and everybody jus' play. And then after that I carry other individuals, more than individual at the time to add things to the music, trying to keep a... Q: A 'live' feel'? A: Yeah, a live feel, but a concep' in my music as well. So the mixing was important to get that kinda consistent mix, like we do certain t'ings with the drums and stuff, the reverb and so on. Q: Especially the bass is so clear and upfront and pushed forward, and kept kinda 'raw' in the mix somehow. A: The old style, yeah. Q: In 'Light of the Universe', it's clear that you wanted that thing to stand out. A: Yeah, I did. There was special attention to put on the kind of dubbin' on 'Heart of Darkness' for instance. Yea, it do very well. But I was the Master of Ceremony at all times. And it's a bit different sometime when you have to be tellin' somebody something one time, it take a lot. Q: What you hear in your mind is not always what will come out by others in the studio. A: Sometime. Definitely, yea. Q: Frustrating? A: It can be, beca' it can be expensive too. Because if you cyaan get what you want and get something else, then you have to go back and change it. But I think overall we get a good sound. Q: It's more of a 'live' feel throughout, and I think this music is crying out to be heard in concert. A: Yeah, sound really effervescent live. (Chuckles) It sound real good live I tell you. Q: Is that something you... A: I waan to do that, but you cyaan do it and nobody want to hear you. Everything is working if you're well-known and people waan come see you. You have to have a hit record. You have to be known, you have to be heard on the radio. Q: The first attempt at recording that I realised you did, was the 12" of 'Ice Cream' on your own imprint about fifteen years back. Honestly, it felt a bit uncomfortable and something not totally hanging together, even if the ideas, in parts, had some potential. It was done in dub poetry style as well. Maybe you weren't totally clear about what you wanted, but it was at least a start. A: Well, it was all I had at the time. I had done 'Heroes' in Jamaica, and I was just coming to England. But everyone liked that tune deh, yunno, because it was even a little ahead of its time. But it was very musical, and I came here and I wanted to continue doing stuff. But I didn't know who to work with, but I found these guys named Red Ninja. And I did that tune 'Ice Cream', because I had been working on that in Jamaica too. But it was a different feel. It was just a style at the time. Q: What are you most proud of on the album? A: 'Closer Than A Brother' come across very well, 'cause I remember how I did feel when I was singin' it. Q: And what was that? A: I just feel on top of it one hundred per cent, and I find me voice by singin' that. And it was as far as I can go. Yeah, I know how forceful I can be. And I was just there alone with the engineer that day, and I just get into it. Because I always chant Nyabinghi, within the 'Binghi camp. I don't go 'mongst them now, I have different issues with them, but I always lead chant. I get used to chantin' in the hills. Q: Growing up in Jamaica, how much did you sing back then? A: I didn't sing at all, but I used to dance. I used to live at St. Joseph Road off Waltham Park Road in West Kingston and I used to dance in the bar next door. I get money for it, too. At the time it was early R&B, it was American music really, comin' from America. Most of the music on the island then was American music, and Cuban and so on. Merengue. Q: Not a choir boy? A: No, no. Well yeah, but I wasn't even thinkin' about it, it was such a long time ago. When I was singin' in a so called choir I was about seven or eight, about seven. A lickle Sunday school choir. So I really wouldn't count that, because everybody used to do that. I never really see myself... You know, when I started to become interested in music and start writing songs, was when I was living in Englan' firs', very first. When I hear the music that was put out in this country, rock'n'roll, rock music. Music of the sixties, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks, all them other English artists. Beach Boys, Bob Dylan was one of my favourites because of what he stood for. So you see, even then I was very interested in Bob Dylan, having seen him on TV doing a concert on the Royal Albert Hall. And he was just standing on stage blowing harmonica and singin'. I don't know if you ever see it?

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Article: Peter I (Please do not reproduce without permission)