Q: I met a guy some twelve years ago who mentioned that you had recorded an album while living in England, but I have never seen anything to confirm this. Was it ever put out, if you ever cut an album there? A: A track called 'Steppin'' was released and 'Love's Bite' was released offa that, yeah, only two tracks were released off that. Q: As singles? A: This one was released on a twelve-inch with myself, Junior Reid, and two other guys. Four artists on two sides, two on one side and two on the other side. That was a track called 'Love's Bite', and 'Steppin'' was done on a twelve-inch. Yeah. Q: After this there was certainly a longer time-gap before people heard you showing up on Cat Coore's solo album. The first I heard was on a 'Cutting Edge' tape in the mid nineties with 'Jah Sun You Rise Again', with you and Cat trading vocals, ballad style. A: OK, yes. 'Jah Sun You Rise Again'. Q: And 'Tricks of the Trade'. A: 'Tricks of the Trade', yeah. I wrote, co-wrote with him but both of them were my ideas, 'Tricks of the Trade' was my line and 'Jah Sun' was my line. And yeah, I did some harmonies, back-up harmonies, and put in a few lines in another song that we did too. Q: And 'I'm Still Waiting' for Chinna's High Times imprint as well. A: Ah, yeah you have gathered... Yeah, I did... Q: That's the same Wailers song I guess? A: Yeah, I did a copy of that for Chinna. It was for the 'Ghetto Youths' project, which what everything was, it was using a number of Bob's songs and different artists sung some of them on a compilation, to see if they could get some money to help in Trench Town for the ghetto youths, y'know. So we did that. But I don't know, that Ghetto Youths project, Damian and them is supposed to be still involved. I don't know if Chinna's really working with them again an' t'ing. Yeah. Q: What about this rumour that you were cutting some soul/funk, music in that vein, and this was ready for release a couple of years ago, but never came out. A: Let me see now, its dance, a little experiment of music I worked with in London, with the drummer and keyboard player for Linton Kwesi Johnson. All right, there were some youngsters who were like the hottest young group that Matumbi, which is Dennis Bovell, and Eton Blake had this band. Well, Eton's younger brother and Henry Holder and John Green were three classy musicians, terrible, terrible, terrible musicians. So I did some experimental music, not per se reggae I would think. I wouldn't really name or label it funk or t'ings, but its sort of dance clubby. Yeah, I did maybe about four tracks offa that. None of them were released. Actually 'Steppin'' was in that vein, yeah, and that was put in the movie, and 'Brave', it was also in that vein and that was put in the movie. Those were the only two tracks that came offa that. But there are two other tracks which, yeah, would have been more dance/club feel.

Q: Now, you mentioned in that phone conversation to me last year that you had a project coming with a Japanese company, Dub Store International? A: Yeah, Dub Store International is releasing for me in another couple of months time. Q: What is the content of that album? A: (Coughs) It have all of the old stuff, it have about thirteen or fourteen tracks of my old songs, seven of the released 45's have been released on it, and about five or six other tracks which weren't released. He came to Jamaica, saw me and left and eventually got in touch with Chinna and them, so Chinna had called me. We had reasoning, he came back out, we met and he said he would love to release the compilation, so we just worked out something. Q: So basically this is what you have remaining of the seventies tracks up to the eighties recordings with Kulik? A: No, not Kulik stuff. But this is just some of the '79 stuff, about four tracks offa that LP which I had recorded to release, I had found about four tracks. So that's another four there, and I had another tape on some music I had done in '80. So I just compile some of those with the seventies and gave him from seventies to about '80, 1980, possibly one track from '81. Q: If this album goes well in Japan, what about some European distribution for it, and America as well? It seems a bit 'limited' to only have it for the Japanese market, it should get a wider circulation. A: All right. He's coming here for this show I'm doing this weekend (in Paris), we'll see, maybe Makasound might do some distribution for him here. I will try to see if I can line that up, so they can work together for promotion and whatever way. So hopefully there will be somewhere here that you can pick it up, easier than get it from Japan. He will ship, but it will be easier per se if there's a center in Europe that it rotates around and whatever state it's coming from, Japan and them.

Ras Michael and his Sons of Negus - to the right: Kiddus I - at Rebel Salute 2005 (Photo: Sis Irie)

Q: This acoustic, 'unplugged' album you've done now, the 'Inna De Yard' CD from France, what can you say about it? It is in fact your full-length debut after almost thirty-five years in the business. A: It's something we're doing always, we playing like that. It showed up someone saying that it would be good to capture some of that. But that's just a natural feel that we have when we're together, jamming a vibes. So it's just capturing that authentic natural spirit. This is not rehearsed, that wasn't rehearsed, apart from actually one of the songs was like a little rehearsing, that we played it before a couple of times. Me and Chinna had worked out, worked it out a little bit. But all of the others were spontaneous and the lyrics I had for, y'know, lyrics them that I had in my head but songs that I hadn't been singin' for years. So that was just done in that moment, and we just voiced them and captured some. It wasn't rehearsed, it was all natural as it is, y'know what I mean. Q: You mentioned at least one old tune, 'By the Sweat', being worked into the lyrics of these acoustic songs, so a mixture of new and old? A: Let me see now, well yeah, there are mainly old tracks. Let me see, the newest one which I did about four years ago still, '(If They) Reached Their Peaks', I wrote that about four years ago. All of the others were like songs that I had been doing sometime. Q: So you did something for Fatis too, you said? A: Fatis? Yeah, we started doing some work back in 1994 or '95, something like that. Q: And what became of it, he shelved the material? A: For some time I really wanted to do something with Fatis, because Fatis is a good, close friend of mine in a way deh. And I know he wanted to do an LP with me, so I figure maybe next year because he's got some good riddims too, and I might go and do a couple of tracks. Yeah, I have to go and give him something, because I started and I never did complete it. He would not like it to know if I would go and work with other people and I never do something for him, and although I no work with much people he was actually the only person outside of Chinna who I - like the one track for Kulik I've done, everything else I've done for myself. Yes, but I've done some work with Caveman International. Q: Right, the sound system. A: Yeah. He's coming out with his own catalog and label shortly, 'cause they are making a lot of good riddims too. Yeah, he have recorded quite a lot of riddims. I heard a couple of them which I liked, so I've done three tracks with him so far. And there's some other ones, I'm supposed to voice a couple of other tracks them, sounds interesting. So I'll maybe when I go back down to Jamaica, by the end of the year write a couple more tracks and do for him. So I will - at that time somewhere - maybe go do something for Fatis.

Kiddus I

Q: Good. So you said you are planning to reissue some of those mythical tracks from the seventies, music that has been out of print for more than twenty-five years by now, to give that a good try and reprint them again on Shepherd as well? A: Yes, I'm planning on putting... Yeah, I'm revising my label, it was at the printer, printery, and I found it. So I will make a number, cut off some labels there, stamper. I suppose to when I get back home by August, September or so, I should press up a number of my old 45's with some of the new ones. I'm releasing a song, I just shot a video the week before I came up for a track I recorded three years ago. I sort of scat on that tone, with a sort of blues/jazz feel, like. And there's a guy named Marcus - you know Marcus from Switzerland? Q: No, you mean the Trinity label down there? A: No, Marcus is into filming, he's a young Ras. But he's into filming, I wanna find him because he shot a video for me for a track called 'Today', and I'd like to get in touch with him. I suppose maybe Chinna can find him still. But I lost his number so I just wondered if you might know him? Q: Nope, nothing of that sort. Sorry. I'm sure a lot of people wondered what happened to you over the years, at least after the time in Los Angeles and you dropped out of the scene for a while at that point. It's just the sort of inconsistent career that a lot of artists have when the market and demand is changing, you come and go. But you left England in the nineties there and stayed in Jamaica since? A: Yeah, I moved back in '92. Q: Got tired of Europe (chuckles)? A: Oh, yes, I had been off for three years, almost, and that's the longest. I've never stayed outside of Jamaica for longer than three years at anytime. Normally I'm like a six months, five months, four months, go-and-come sort of thing. If I stay a one year at one time, y'know, it's - yeah - I don't like staying out too long at a time. But I've been a six months, I spend a eight months, and if possible a year in them time. Not again, I don't think I will be doing that, just go out and spend a two to three months, then I wanna go back home.

Kiddus I & Earl "Chinna" Smith (photo: Sandra Daveaux)

Q: This concert you are doing this weekend coming up, this is the first show you've done in, what, ages? A: From 1990, what - or thereabouts, I haven't done anything in Europe at all, so this is the first show for about fourteen years. Q: By the way, did you do any stage appearances back in the seventies, or you just basically focused on recording at that time? A: I worked on a few shows in the seventies, I've done two Sunsplash in Jamaica. I've done a few others at the National Arena, and other venues in Jamaica from Negril right up. I worked in L.A., I did shows in New York, I worked in Florida, and I worked in London. Q: You never came along when the Sons of Negus went to England on tour in the mid seventies? A: No, no, no. I had left at that time, I became a solo artist in that period.

Q: How do you look on the music being made today? The dancehall music has switched over the past ten years into a more conscious state and more one drop riddims are built as well. A: Yeah, well, everything have a cycle and it seems as if it is turning around, because the rest is decadense and slackness and duttiness which is still there. But it's not as it was in previous years, right. There's a consciousness coming out from the artists in a different way, and while many of them a giving you a consciousness, them still giving you a little bit of the slackness on the side which I'm not into, I frown on that because I say, y'know, you can't cut two ways too tough. If you're dealing with positive, deal with positive. Some of the artists suppose his money or suppose his crowd-piece in one hand, they will be positive this minute and the next minute you hear a little negativeness and what-what, or slackness to a certain degree coming from them. But I say there's an improvement overall, y'know what I mean. Because when I came back to Jamaica in 1992, trust me, I came back to release that LP which I mentioned, beca' I had it mixed down on DAT tape, but the people weren't ready for my music, so I just didn't. I mean, they weren't interested or nutten like that, it was just pure slackness and... yeah. So, after a while, maybe about five years and the slackness got so... it was reaching into Mr. Big Man's house across the way, the government and everybody was starting to be aware that, really, it was getting outta hand. So they started making statements. And then you had like Luciano coming up, which had break away, you had like Buju Banton making a little break away, you had the artists, some of the deejays them making a little effort to change the music and say more positive things. It started changing and little by little continued changing, while a lotta them on the underground scene was still putting out a certain amount of slackness and duttiness, nastiness. But at least you had the two areas of it being represented when previously it was more one area of it represented. Like the only positive music you hear ninety percent of the time was a man who playing it on him house or some of the radio station was bombarding with the fuckeries, and some of the dance sessions an' them t'ing was bombarded with the same slackness. So, it has changed and it's working positively with some of the slackness still going on but much more positive music is on the air. Q: What about the approach to recording with classic equipment, real drums and bass, an acoustic setting, is there enough 'space' to do that now? A: You know, musicians aren't musicians. There is less musicians learning to play instruments properly, so the simplification of using a computer and what not, what to make a riddim, y'know, that also was a lickle negative spin on a certain aspect of the music.

Kiddus I (photo: www.jahsound.net)

Kiddus I (photo: www.jahsound.net)

It certainly was, and is, though it is debatable that some of the computerized rhythms has destroyed more than filled the music with new life, new invention and the new ideas it needed to continue its development into the future, it certainly came at a time when the music stood still. Kiddus I represents another era though, and that era has never left. Just give a track like 'Security In the Streets' a spin, if you're lucky enough to own it, and you are convinced of the enduring quality and talent of this particular artist. His music doesn't fear time. It became even more apparent when the long overdue debut 'Inna De Yard' popped up from nowhere a couple of years ago, and Kiddus was as sparkingly bright as he ever was on 'Graduation In Zion, 'Security', 'Harder' or 'Love Child', only that it showed him in a new, acoustic setting. And the record is a success, a truly creative success. It spells timeless all over it. Somehow 'Inna De Yard' was destined to become his first real album. It had to be. Peeled off, stark but still beautiful music, with some very tasteful guitar playing by Chinna. Roots music from its very root of how all the foundation music is actually created; acoustically, vibrant and naked. You couldn't dream of hearing him in a more intimate, raw environment than this, and this is music which should be heard by many, trust me. Food for thought, music from the heart. Lyrics with a lasting quality, inspirational and thought-provoking soul-food for many generations to come. And thankfully, his voice hasn't lost much of its original timbre either, an instrument he still handles with skill, style and class. Just listen to 'Only Jah Jah Way' and you'll get an understanding of what I'm talking about. A sample of Kiddus I's work in Los Angeles during the mid eighties, 'Viva La France', can be found on David Koolrock's CD anthology 'Crossfire' (Kool Rock). Look out for represses of Kiddus' Shepherd singles in a near future as well. There are also a series of albums to come from Japan's Dub Store International label. It will contain the cream of the uncollected music he made during the golden era, what is still available to us anyway. And I, for one, can hardly wait. 7" single information courtesy Roots Knotty Roots. Also check: www.myspace.com/kiddusi.

	Page:  | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
	[ Previous ]      [ Next ]

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