Q: How did this musical come about now, the one titled 'Reggae' (where Max Romeo and Jackie Mittoo also added significant musical contributions)? This came about in 1980. A: The musical in New York? Well, I started writing for that in I would say '75/76, when I met Michael Butler. I wrote for about five years for that. I got to Chicago to hang out there and work with other musicians like Michael Kamen. You know of Michael Kamen? Q: I think I've heard about him, yes. A: But after meeting with them I got to be the musical director for the show, and a leading role in the show. So I spend about five years writing, travelling to Chicago. The whole concept was by a guy named Kendrew Lascelles, a white guy, and the original director with me was Glenda Dickerson, Gul Adrisano and he died during the writing of the play. So, we had to make some changes. But I was just given titles to write from, I wrote like one or two songs, then three songs and there was titles, songs that I would never use. Still, very vivid in my mind, somewhere lost... most of my songs them are still in my head, not on paper. I try to remember them, but sometimes it's hard to recall, to recall them totally. Some of it was written by the guy who did 'Sweetback' ('Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song'), that movie?

Q: Yeah, you mean the early blaxplo film by Melvin van Peebles? I believe that was even the first in that genre. So he was part of it? A: Melvin van Peebles, right. I got my main character by him, which seemed to work very well in the script. At first we wasn't sure who was the main star, if it was me or Phillip Michael Thomas ('Miami Vice'), or Sheryl Lee Ralph. But anyway, I think it was a very good play. But there was a lot of competition, what some seemed to be mostly interested in was to get a fight. People always try to hold us back, sabotage us. We had our share of that too, even on Broadway you find that. Even among the actors, trying to get you down because they're already established, big stars. If you're new to this and get a lot of attention, they don't like that, they try to hold you back. They would try to upset you right before you go up on stage, to get something distracting in your mind (chuckles)! Q: Right, well it was a first for Jamaican music, that musical, even if it didn't get the break it deserved. Then a couple of years after that you released the debut album, 'Seven Seals', on your Rockstone label in 1984. What became of it? A: That was something I did with all the songs, the hit songs I had in the past, in particular, to put together with some new ones, and released this album because I had to do something. That album again, the night we launched the album, I remember Neville Lee saying this was the finest production he ever heard in his entire time in the business, and two weeks after that he called me up and said, "Oh, we broke the stamper! Something messed the stamper up, so can you bring in the other?" Yeah, sure, riiiight! But what I did, I brought the mixtape, the two-track tape, I had it on cassette, so I left it there. And when I went back for it in about three months, he never asked me for another stamper. I never gave him another stamper, I never did anything, right. But every time I saw the guy who works in the plant, the guy tell me "Oh, we just press your stuff the other week, we will press it on Monday again". So I got the information on what was happening in the factory, they was pressing the same week I heard they mess up the stamper, and we never got any statement, we never got any money back from him. He was exporting, and we told him it was only for Jamaica. And in my travels, I've seen the album in many places, and I've gone to people where I have seen it in their collections, the vinyl, and I've never ever up to this day seen the statement, and he keeps on doing it. They're like that, man! So you can understand my frustration!

Q: Yeah, sure. Nothing new under the sun though. A: And not wanting to be reliant on them, they're also afraid if I would make it big, I would come back at them at the same time from doing the interviews, I could be calling their names so I begin with it now (laughs)! Q: Right. A: And then I would be writing about them in my book, so... Q: So you're working on a biography? A: Well, I was about to ask you about that, because this interview is so detailed and I said to myself 'My gosh', y'know, 'you are really into the thing' (laughs)! You are just extra talented at interviewing. Q: Mmm, well I don't think so personally, but thank you. A: So I really during the course of this interview it crossed my mind several times, maybe I should definitely talk to you about doing a biography (chuckles)! Q: (Laughs) Well, it's certainly flattering, and I've been posed the same question by people like Larry Marshall at one point, but I kinda feel my limits, so... have to turn that down. You have a lot of good writers out there, much better. A: I know there's a lotta people who would buy mine, that's for sure (chuckles)! Because people can't just get me out of their minds, 'cos my reputation's still intact down in Jamaica, and also over here too. When the Broadway show opened, my God! I couldn't believe - I was shocked! The amount of telegrams and postcards I got from all over the world, I was totally in shock. Once it got out in the press, oh my God! I mean, my room was filled! There was no space on the walls to put up anything on it. There was all telegrams on it and all kinds of... oh man, y'know, letters and... oh bwoy! People used to send me - it was amazing! I had no idea that so many people knew of me, it was unbelievable. I could see them, y'know, live on the road too, could never forget them. Once you do something they can relate to, the response you get... Until this day, bwoy, I've met so much people from back then to this day - we did a benefit over at Nantucket Island, and some youngsters, they would sing some of the songs I did a long time ago. It's amazing that people could remember some of these songs. I wouldn't say I have a big, wide audience over here in America, but certainly over the years... Q: At least a loyal, steady following. A: Yeah, very loyal.

Ras Karbi. (from the 'Seven Seals' sleeve)

Q: What happened after the 'Seven Seals' album? I mean nothing much was heard at least on record bearing your name until the 'Singer of Singers' album. I think it was released out of Germany in '96 or so, on the SKW label (which is basically the entire 'Seven Seals' recording), wasn't it? A: Yeah. What happened was that I had some political problems in Jamaica I would say. After '83, I went in total disagreement with a lot of politicians in Jamaica, quite a few of them, and so in a way I was a little bit offensive. In other words, I didn't want to campaign for a politician, I was not gonna make them use me as no campaign mascot, so I declined performing at some concerts. Which, looking back, was a dangerous thing to do. I had no idea what I was doing except that I was just disintegrate myself from that. But I realised that I could've been blown away or certainly hurt. There was contacts out, and I was just nowhere to be found, so I went further underground after hearing that. So that was part of the reason why you didn't hear nothing coming out. I was still writing and still performing but not in public in Jamaica, just private parties, night clubs. Yeah, I just survived until that stigma passed, then I set up this business and I had problems with people getting jealous and do something bad to it. A lot of people we thought were friends was something entirely different, more like pirates, things got stolen. So I said OK, instead of becoming violent I decided to join up with a group, and we go off to Europe. Different areas, touring. We went to Germany, Holland, and so I was actually meeting with this company in Holland. But there were some problems with that company, the guy got incarcerated for a while, and I was travelling all over Europe. Then he just released this CD while I was in Germany. They weren't professionals, one of the guys panicked when I approached them about the album. They thought that once you press a certain amount and it sold out and finished, and that's the end of it. That's what the guy actually thought (laughs)! He didn't realise that this was an ongoing thing that can last generations, so they just went out. And by that time I was already - after three years - leaving Europe and heading back to the States, but through Jamaica. Yeah, Jamaica change so much in three years. It change so much, man, that I didn't want to hear it (chuckles)! Q: What about the recordings you did for Fatis' Xterminator label in '99 or thereabouts? A: You know what? I got a message from Dermot one day that Fatis was trying to find me to record for him. I thought I had never met Fatis before but apparently I did. He used to come to my store and sell me records I used to buy from him, but I didn't know it was Fatis. So I spoke to him by phone and he said he was a big fan of mine and wanted to record me and I said OK, we should look into it. I never actually record for anyone, I tried that and it didn't work out. I went there and laid some tracks down but their idea of recording, the way they do, the way they put their business is far from what I want to associate with. So I just kinda quit, I didn't like to finish anything further with the songs. Q: Did he ever put them out? A: Uh, no, he never did. Then we moved on, 'cos I had a portion of business to do elsewhere. Yeah, living in Jamaica you can't travel and that's the only hope you have, to be able to travel, and I didn't just want to sit back and relax.

Q: You put out 'Healing of the Nation' (Quantum), these two chapters compiling most of the tracks from 'Seven Seals' along with some new stuff. When was this? A: OK, I would say that's been a couple years now. That's because on this market I never had any CD's available on the market. So there was some tracks that I was working on that in a way I kinda felt that I got them sabotaged with the guy I was working with on these tracks, we did some things that I didn't think I was too happy with. But anyway, that's what I had to work with, and I brought the hits I had from the German CD, I felt I should separate them and put some other songs and make it into two CD's instead of one. So I had all these tracks that I was working on that was unreleased that was quite different, so I kinda squeeze them in-between which works for some people and for roots lovers, they just like to hear roots. Q: Exactly. A: It don't work for them, so some people say 'Hey, make one roots album and one with the other songs'. You always hear all kinds of different opinions, everybody wants it their own way (chuckles)! It don't please everybody. Q: I was gonna ask you about the possibility to reissue the original recordings of 'Discrimination' and 'Promised Land', and if you had anything else laying around, unreleased, from the seventies period that should come out. And, perhaps do a proper reissue of the 'Seven Seals' album on CD, plus maybe some bonus tracks - like alternate takes, or dubs attached to it, is the prospect good enough for it? A: Well, the answer to that is, I got a lot of things stolen from me in Jamaica, including some tapes by a very famous, well-known artist, and I will call his name because I'm not afraid to - Mutabaruka, he was a... you know? I wasn't aware of that, I was trying to help him out, and his family. But a lot of my stuff was stolen and the original 'Discrimination' tape is here, I thought I lost that years ago. But somehow it turned up and somebody here in America gave it to me, and I know I lost that in Jamaica. So, I still have that and I pay special attention to these songs I lost. I also had other tapes that I was working on, just experimenting, different periods like in the eighties also that was never released. Good stuff, y'know, but they need to be mixed, with todays mix. I have nobody else that I'm working with, so it has been for me - over the years when I have the money to do it, I'll do it when I can afford to do it. It might never happen if I never have the money to do it, 'cos the longer you wait the more expensive studio costs get. So I'm always working on different songs, recording the songs here and there as I write them, and so I do have quite a few in the can also that is incomplete, need mixing or voicing. And of course I'm trying to find some money to finish them up and I'm looking about currently for some money to set up this whole thing as a business, and to have my own studio, and all of that. So if that comes through, then I'll be able to do that. If that don't happen, then I can only say that I am hoping to find someone interested to work with this project, then we could probably do it together. Because there's no room anymore for independents unless you have a lot of capital to invest. So I try to look for that now so I can move forward.

Ras Karbi backed by Rebel Souls at IJsselpop 1998, The Netherlands.

Q: You are sitting on some unreleased recordings from the seventies too, stuff you haven't mentioned so far? A: From the seventies? Yeah, I've got two songs here from the seventies, the other tape I would have to go to Jamaica and definitely demand it from that Chin-Loy man. That was '77, a whole album. I have to get a good lawyer to write him a letter so he quickly could turn it over. But a lawyer costs a lot of money. I'm also a family man and I have kids that I have to take care of on a daily basis, they're not here with me, they're in Jamaica. There's an African saying that 'A man with many children can never be rich' (laughs)! So I got my share of that. It's a big struggle, but hopefully something will happen. Q: So what's ahead for you, you mentioned the other day that you're writing on a musical, wasn't it? A: Well, actually I have been talking to some friends of mine - you know the movie 'Rockers'? Q: Yeah. A: OK, I have a kind of idea to get a 'Rockers 2', and I've been talking to a friend of mine from the first one, that maybe it is time to do 'Rockers 2' with different music now, and different people in it. Because right now a lot of man catch onto 'Rockers' here. That's one of the projects I'm looking into. But I've been working on a few scripts that I never got finished, and by the time I look around somebody steal them. So what I need to do is anchor myself in one place, 'cos I move a lot, I have to. That's probably one reason why I'm alive today, because I didn't stay at one place so I can become productive. I have a lot of ideas for that. People have been demanding that we turn up that 'Reggae' show, I had a meeting quite recently and discussed that so it will be a smaller production with another cast, and with my music. Maybe that will happen. I'm not sure which one will come first, but something gotta happen (chuckles)! Because it's a big demand right now, so I just need to find the right people, then I can get into this.

Ras Karbi Photo: Bryan Cummings

And hopefully he will succeed in bringing out a good script for what could be a really interesting project, certainly not an easy task. 'Rockers' captured a very dynamic era of the music and to do a follow-up in these times when things have changed so much from the golden period, it is indeed very brave, and it becomes more of a challenge to make it credible and as lasting as the original movie became, that's for sure. Fingers crossed that it goes well. This man has paid his dues (more than) long enough by now, Karbi's time should truly come and the time is now. The problem is that his music is scarce nowadays and it could be easier to find, but it isn't. The limited edition of 'Healing of the Nation (Part 1 & 2)' remains the only available CD on the market and is a good start for those who didn't pick up the original 'Seven Seals' LP back in the day, as it consists of mainly the hit recordings done with Sly & Robbie, The Wailers band, people like the Tamlins and Israel Vibration on backing vocals, and many others in the instrumental line-up. My only remark about it is the below-standard R&B-ish tracks he included, they work more as 'filler' than representing the best side of Ras Karbi, and that is within the reggae format no doubt. But he is an artist and an artist is supposed to be versatile, which he's always been, so why should you stay within one format, it can limit you if that continues for too long and so the next step was to cross over to the R&B style. Take a listen and make up your mind how that is working for you, you might agree with him that it was the right step to take. He has the artistic freedom to do it anyhow, and that goes beyond all criticism. What I hope Karbi will do for the future though, is to clean up those masterful singles he cut with Horsemouth and Peter Tosh and make them available for the first time since they originally saw issue in the mid seventies, along with scattered tracks from the seventies and eighties that remains unreleased up to this day. That would be a treat. A new generation is waiting to hear this music again, so let them hear it.

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