Ode to Tanya Stephens

Thank You, Tanya Stephens: The Sunday a Song Under the Tree Forced Me to Look Again

As I write this I passed a sign this morning enroute to the beach showing Tanya Stephens will be at Sunday Soul at Harbour City tonight. Serendipitous I thought as this article has been stewing in my psyche for a few days. You know music is the soundtrack of our lives. For me it is kind of like reading the news or maybe the tea leaves, it's a way to keep abreast of the public psyche and general consciousness of the nation. So granted am not a fan of girly songs and girly music, I have many female artists I think were monumental, Melanie Safka, Nina Simone, Tracy Chapman, Randy Crawford, Alanis Morrisette, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchel, Tina Turner... you have some women that moved as they seemed to speaking deeply to social circumstances or to personal issues of womanhood that demanded an ear. Tanya Stephens I find has been Jamaica's most intellectually challenging female artist for me. I know she doesn't like comparison or particular artistes but I found Lady Saw to be an intimidating challenge to male sexuality and sexual energy, Tanya was an intimidating challenge to the male psyche, locally.

We treat music like background noise most days. It drifts while we smoke, while we sit under trees pretending we already know everything about women, about fucking, about what makes a body answer. Then one lyric walks straight into the middle of your chest and refuses to leave until it has rearranged the furniture.

That is what Tanya Stephens did to me one Sunday noon at UWI.

I was under a tree, smoke curling, mind half-gone. From a flat called Belgique the music floated across the yard like it owned the place. Then her voice cut through clean:

Have you ever stop to think a wah make a gal cum?

I answered in my head right away.

No.

Not because I was inexperienced. I had stacked the answers high. Christian puberty books that talked around the thing. My mother’s Cosmo with its twelve sex secrets every month. Penthouse spreads and elaborate if not exaggerated literature. And the real curriculum — dancehall. She want it hard. Me wuk ar mek she moan and groan. Agony a wah the young gal want. That was the gospel I took in full. We have a motto or moniker I learned in my community, "Give gal backaz and so so crackers!" and "Hammer, hammer, hammer, constant knocking!" Now I know to some degree those were funny exaggerations but it had a the kernel of truth about Jamaican sexual reality.

My first real tutor at eighteen sealed it. Hard backshot. Deep, driving, no-mercy strokes that pulled bomboklaat straight out of her throat. She used to beg for it. Request it. Love the way it slammed the air out of her and left her shaking. I learned that language fluently — the pounding, the force, the wet slap of skin, the way a woman’s body could be made to curse and open at the same time. I thought that was the full map. It would be years later before Bounty Killer would instruct us that "Sex is like art so mi have nuff pattern!" Then I had only one pattern. The school of "one cent, five cent, ten cent dollar dollar dollar!" that continues to this day as the School of Daggering!

By the time I reached university and women started telling me I wasn’t sensual enough, I heard code. I translated it as eat the pumpum. I never heard the actual plea underneath: slow down, feel me, stay present, stop treating my body like a drum to be beaten until it screams. I had been trained in impact. I knew how to make her say bomboklaat. I did not yet know how to make her melt without the pure force.

Until that Sunday. On Preston Hall. Sitting under a tree. Between Amsterdam and Belgique. A little up from Porto Santo.

The lyric did not scold. It simply asked the question I had never asked myself while I was busy performing hardness. All the books, the magazines, the dancehall anthems, the early nights of requested backshot — they had taught me how to make a woman react. Almost none of it had taught me how to make her feel. The difference is not small. One is performance. The other is presence. One is force. The other is attention that does not flinch from softness.

Tanya Stephens specialises in that kind of interruption. She walks into the room where the men are loudest and asks the thing they have trained themselves not to examine. She does not remove the heat. She just refuses to let the heat stay stupid.

I did not become a different man under that tree in one afternoon. Real change is slower and more stubborn. But the song drove a permanent crack into the certainty I carried. It forced me to notice the gap between making a woman curse from the impact and making her open because she feels held, wanted, studied. It made every earlier complaint from women land differently in memory. What I had dismissed as coded requests for tongue had often been something far more demanding: be here with me. Feel what I feel. Stop guessing.

Music that only entertains is easy. Music that corrects you while the bass is still rolling is rarer. Tanya Stephens gave me that correction on an ordinary Sunday while I sat under a tree thinking I already knew the full shape of pleasure. She would later give all my sidekicks ammunition when I was in the party and some selector would drop "It's a pity". Man I tell you it can be creepy you in a dance with your woman and that song drop and three pairs of eyes jook you one time, and everybody a sing the song with meaning and put in an extra wine, for your viewing pleasure or sorrow. She even armed wives and women with "these streets don't love you like I do!" A song that I am sure seduced many a man to stay in, and who knows maybe save their lives. I just know it could be a nuisance when you a hunt money for the tribe and your woman a bludgeon you with that song. Anyway she has been a true intellectual combatant, not one I necessarily agree with all the time but one I respect her lyrical craft and how she infuses clever lyrics with deep philosophical enquiry, that still carries deep sexual tension and energy.

So here is to "have you ever stop to think was make a gal cum"... For the question that still echoes every time assumption tries to replace attention, for the way it made me look again at the hard backshot my girl used to beg for and ask what else might live beside it — I remain grateful.

Thank you, Tanya.  

You did not soften the truth.  

You just made sure I finally felt it.

Ode to Beres Hammond

Give Thanks, Beres Hammond

How “Putting Up Resistance” Taught Me About Love, Sacrifice and Resilience

We often talk about music as entertainment. We remember the songs we danced to, the ones that soundtracked first loves, heartbreaks and celebrations. But some songs do something quieter and more lasting. They prepare us for life.

One of those songs, for me, is Beres Hammond’s “Putting Up Resistance.”

I grew up in Montego Bay in the 1980s in a house where music mattered. My mother adored Beres. His albums sat in a place of honour alongside Air Supply, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel and Sam Cooke—on vinyl and cassette. “Putting Up Resistance” became part of the soundtrack of my childhood.

What still strikes me is that, unlike so many songs we only grow into as adults, this one spoke to me right away. The message wasn’t beyond a child’s understanding. It made sense because I was already watching it unfold every day.

My father would leave home at three or four in the morning, driving deep into the Jamaican countryside to buy produce and goods before the rest of us had opened our eyes. He was supplying hotels and customers, working tirelessly to build a business and create opportunities for his family that he himself had never had.

As a child, I missed him when he was gone.

Then I heard Beres sing about wanting to stay home with his family while recognising that staying home would not make things right. Those words helped me understand my father’s sacrifice. They taught me that love is not always measured by the hours spent at home. Sometimes love looks like leaving before dawn so your children can have a better life.

"Blow wind blow, blow wind blow

I want to stay home tonight

I long to spend some time with the family

But staying home won't make it right

Sometimes the pressure make me feel like bawling

When every sign says no way out

Breaking my back to make an overtime dollar

That just goes from hand to mouth"

That was the first lesson.

The second proved even more enduring.

The song acknowledges something every Jamaican knows but few songs express so plainly: there are times when it feels as though unseen forces continually frustrate honest effort. Bureaucracy, economic hardship, disappointment and circumstance can create the sense that the odds are permanently tilted against ordinary people.

"No I never can understand it 

The way the system goes, (pressure) 

I don't know how they do it 

There's only one way things flow 

'Cause every time I lift my head above water 

And try to save myself from drown 

There's an overnight scheme all worked out 

Designed to keep ah me down 

 Still I'm I'm putting up a resistance, yeah"

Yet the brilliance of “Putting Up Resistance” is that it refuses to stop there. It does not deny hardship. It does not pretend the system is always fair. Instead, it insists that surrender is not the answer.

Those words have echoed through every stage of my adult life.

As a journalist, community activist, husband and father, I have encountered enough setbacks to become cynical. There have been moments when it would have been easy to conclude that nothing changes, that hard work is futile, that integrity is for fools. Every time those thoughts crept in, I remembered the spirit of that song.

It taught me something invaluable: I could recognise injustice without allowing it to poison my character. I could acknowledge the difficulties of the Jamaican condition without becoming bitter about them. I could keep believing that honest effort still matters.

That is no small gift.

We celebrate artists for their awards, chart success and sold-out concerts. We speak less often about the quiet ways they shape the moral imagination of a nation. Looking back, I realise that while my father showed me what perseverance looked like, Beres Hammond gave me the language to understand it. He put melody to discipline. He gave rhythm to resilience. He transformed the daily struggle of ordinary Jamaicans into something dignified rather than despairing.

I suspect I am not alone. There must be thousands of Jamaicans who unknowingly carried lessons from his music into adulthood. Songs like “Putting Up Resistance” were more than recordings. They were companions. They reminded us that endurance is not weakness, that perseverance is not naïveté, and that hope is itself an act of resistance.

So this is simply an expression of gratitude.

Thank you, Mister Hammond, for reminding a young Jamaican boy that life would be difficult without convincing him it was hopeless. Thank you for helping me understand my father’s sacrifices while he was still making them. And thank you for proving that sometimes the greatest gift an artist can give is not escape from reality, but the courage to face it.

Ode to The Killer

Why Bounty Killer, the Ghetto Gladiator, Is Jamaica’s Greatest Modern Artist After Bob Marley

Before Bounty Killer, modern Jamaican music barely registered for me.

I was steeped in the older currents — Bob Marley, the ethics and weight my parents played on repeat: Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Sam Cooke, Michael Jackson, Hooked on Themes, Hooked on Classics, Luther Vandross, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. My sister ran New Kids on the Block, Madonna and George Michael.

That teen-pop brightness never touched me.

I was the morose Star Trek kid, hopped up on the moral codes those earlier records seemed to preach. Music, in my young mind, carried a social obligation. It had to mean something larger than the riddim.

When dancehall first reached me through Yellowman and the rest, it sounded like ABC kiddy rhymes. The slackness that did catch my curiosity remained at a distance. I had not yet stepped fully into that world.

Then Bounty Killer arrived, and the obligation found its voice in dancehall.

I discovered him somewhere around eighth or ninth grade, somewhere between “Excuse Mi Pass Mi Cellular Phone” — that hook that seized the Jamaican consciousness, naming an object of fascination and ambition in one clean stroke — and the emergence of that now-legendary moniker: People Dead.

An Image I made when I dreamt of writing the Killer's Biography

By ninth grade, the class was divided clean down the middle: Bounty versus Beenie. Daily clashes at every missed session and lunchtime. Desks became drums. Aspiring deejays stood up and represented.

I was Team Bounty.

No hesitation.

For me, he was Jamaica’s Batman and Punisher rolled into one body. The Ghetto Gladiator. The Poor People’s Governor.

In the same way that 1930s Superman became a champion of the working class, Bounty stood for the corner, the lane, the youth who had no champion outside their own families. He gave me a modern Jamaican vocabulary of freedom — and, more importantly, the courage to be myself, to stand up and fight.

If Bob Marley said “Get up, stand up,” Bounty was the living enactment.

He was the ideological marriage of Tosh’s fire and Marley’s call, brought down to street level and set loose in the dancehall.

The Killer would excite imagination when he connected with The Fugees who I had been hearing about from my conscious cousins. Bounty brought them to my ears live and direct. Then there was Busta Rhymes, Wu-Tang, Jeru the Damaja whose signature I'd see in restaurants all over Brooklyn in the 90's when I stay with my Uncle Junior and his division of the family. Bounty felt like and was the real grassroots artist, linking with other global grassroots artists, and that felt massive to me.

Years later, around 2001 or 2002 at UWI Mona, Bounty came to speak at the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre.

I went with a placard.

It read:

BOUNTY KILLER FOR PRIME MINISTER.

People gave me the side-eye. There were quiet suggestions that perhaps I should put it away. Fan-boy. Groupie.

This is an incomplete drawing of Bounty I did a few years back

The lecture began with a slow burn. Low energy. Bounty seemed almost timid in the academic setting. Carolyn Cooper worked the room, managing the rising undercurrent. It felt as though the audience was approaching some threshold beyond which the room might overwhelm him.

So I waved the placard harder.

Someone showed it to him.

He smiled.

And something changed.

From that moment, Bounty took command of the lecture hall and never gave it back.

Afterward, Ibo Cooper stopped me and a Barbadian sister, Amanda Lynch Foster. He introduced himself. I recognised the face but did not yet place him as the man behind one of my favourite songs, “96 Degrees in the Shade.”

He asked what we thought of the lecture.

Amanda gave a somewhat half-hearted answer.

I dived in.

I was determined that Ibo Cooper was not going to leave thinking we were soft or that we did not understand the Killer.

I told him Bounty was the greatest thing ever.

Ibo looked at me and said, in essence, that Bounty was singular — the greatest of his generation.

It felt like winning a prize.

Like answering some deep question correctly when a Rasta elder or shaman tests you in the road.

I carried that moment with me.

Then the industry shifted.

Another incomplete piece of the Killer in his youth!

Back in Montego Bay, Bounty’s hold began to loosen. Kartel rose. I was mentoring young people, doing street activism, and the youth around me began saying, Bounty time done.

One Sumfest, with Gaza at full strength, I found myself down the road arguing Bounty versus Kartel.

They butchered me.

Big man and youth alike were telling me Bounty was going to die that night.

I was dejected.

Then one youth gave me the only piece of hope I had to hold on to.

He said:

“Rasta, Kartel a me artist, but me nah go follow him and dis Bounty. A him gi we computer and computer lab a Albion Primary. A him make me know how fi use computer. Mi cannot dis the Killer.”

That sentence has stayed with me.

Because there it was.

The part of Bounty Killer that the mythology often misses.

The part that exists beyond the lyrics, the clashes, the gun salutes, the feuds and the spectacle.

Impact.

Inside the festival grounds, a friend announced that he was going to boo Bounty. Before the set, he aimed his fingers at me, miming blanks and gunshots — your artist dead.

Then Bounty marched out.

The crowd erupted.

And the same man who had been firing imaginary bullets at me moments earlier was now firing them into the air, giving Bounty one of the biggest forwards and gun salutes of the night.

I could hardly believe it.

Everybody who had spent the day burying Bounty in conversation was now resurrecting him with their voices.

The media said he took the show that year.

To me, it was something bigger.

It was Bounty being Bounty.

Because this has been the strange, almost mythological arc of his career. He gets declared finished. Then the people prove otherwise.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Bounty Killer did not simply entertain me.

He personified a fight I already carried inside myself and gave it a public face, a Jamaican vocabulary and a volume loud enough for everybody to hear.

He transformed the social obligation I had once attached almost exclusively to the older music of my childhood into something that could live inside dancehall without surrendering its spine.

That is why I place Bounty Killer where I do.

Not because he is flawless.

Not because every lyric is profound.

Not because he has the smoothest voice or the most commercially successful catalogue.

But because Rodney Price became an institution of Jamaican consciousness.

He made the street intellectually and politically consequential.

He made struggle audible.

He gave generations of young Jamaicans a vocabulary for resistance, ambition, defiance and survival.

And sometimes, crucially, he turned words into material action — like the youth who remembered that Bounty Killer had helped bring computers and a computer lab to Albion Primary School and therefore could not simply “dis” the man because the musical tide had changed.

This album was my religion from grade 9 or 10 to near cxc's end!

That is the thing about greatness.

It is not always measured by sales.

Sometimes it is measured by what remains in people after the song ends.

For the cellular-phone moment that first caught my ear.

For the classroom wars.

For the desks that became drums.

For the placard that changed the temperature of a lecture hall.

For Ibo Cooper’s verdict.

For the youth who refused to dis the man who had opened a door into the digital world.

For every time Jamaica declared the Ghetto Gladiator finished, only for the people to rise when he walked back onto the stage.

Give thanks.

Rodney Price.

Bounty Killer.

The Ghetto Gladiator.

The Poor People’s Governor.

After Bob Marley, perhaps no modern Jamaican artist has embodied the fighting spirit of the Jamaican street — its anger, ambition, contradictions, intelligence, humour and indomitability — quite like him.

He didn't just tell a generation to stand.

He showed them how.

An Open Letter to the Five Star General- Bounty Killer

Greetings to Jamaica and the Five Star General Rodney Basil Pryce in particular,

 I remember somewhere back in 1993, I had held this notion that Reggae was the God and Dancehall was the bastard demi-god who had inane chatter gibberish and nonsensical if not simply whimsical lyrics and rhyme schemes like "zungy zungy a zunga zeng"! ABC 123... nothing too intellectually challenging or vocabulary expanding... zeen come again, wah di clock inna London name big ben, missa chin money name yen! Shabba and Super Cat weren't so bad but Dancehall as genre lacked definition and umph! Then comes PEEEEEEEEEEEOPLE DEAD! A man who would become the archetype of what a DJ and social commentator in the Dancehall should be.

I remember in 9 grade at the esteemed Cornwall College in 9-1 to be "pre-xact" every session a teacher missed was an opportunity for aspiring musicians. Long before the age of rising star, the class would be a riot of drummers banging desks and chairs as we cued up the main acts, those days the class was divided in two, the school of Beenie-ites, and the House of Bounty. The best representatives from the competing sides the likes of class mates named Clive Lawrence, Romaine McIntosh, Winston Brown... they would represent the factions and vocalize the discographies of Bounty which would be pitted against the catalogue of Beenie ballads. I happened to be in the Bounty camp.

Why some may ask? At the time I was a comic book junkie, whose favourite hero was Spider-man, but in terms of social development and coping with the teen world, and the Jamaican social context... well "with great power comes great responsibility" as a mantra wasn't cutting it all the way. And Spider-man a teen with superpowers and a horrendous social life and the guy that everybody hated wasn't gonna save my psyche through to 10 grade. So when you need a local Superhero, and a most verbose character, fearless, Jamaican, garbed in all black like Blade, Punisher or the Black Panther... A man the people dubbed "the poor people's governor" "the ghetto gladiator"... Titles not unlike "The Uncanny X-men" or "The Spectacular Spiderman." Bounty Killer became to me the very first Jamaican Super Hero, equipped with grand titles, monikers and mantras, secret identity Rodney Pryce, with his Justice League or Avengers, known as The Alliance. "Yeah Yeah Yeah" "Huh!" Bounty was the Jamaican icon from he became one of the local champions of that Patrick Ewing 33 sneaker, Jamaicans at home supporting Jamaicans abroad!

It is no coincidence then that his 1996 album My Xperience impacted fans at home and abroad spending six months on the Billboard reggae chart. Personally that was my favourite album, and I didn't even realize it till one day when a friend of mine Gavin Carey called me at home... yeah back in the land line era... and when he called he said... "my yute a one cd you have, and a one song deh pon di cd, caah everyday mi call you, all mi here is 'dem get gun dung inna miggle of guntown, well mi silent gun will emit no soun'" I then realized I had to rotate my musical diet... not that it wasn't varied... I grew up on Bob Dylan, Melanie Safka, Sam Cooke, Beres Hammond, Simon and Garfunkel... in he 90's I met Alanis Morrisette, Sarah Mclachan, Goo Goo Dolls, Alternative Music from D. Shadow and Rick Dee's Top 40, interspersed with Jungle, Techno World Beat... so my diet wasn't bad but in Jamaica Bounty was my boss. At the same time he also expanded my musical ear... The My Xperience album would introduce me to The Fugees, Busta Rhymes, Wu-Tang and many others... subsequent albums in the 90's would introduce me early to Kardinal Official on "The Bacardi Slang."

Bounty's career too has been as layered and textured and storied just like a comic book series, with arch-nemesis manifesting in Beenie Man and eventually Vybz Kartel, clashes as epic as any Ridley Scott film, feat and accomplishment that echo on in the perpetual street dancehall discourse. I can only imagine the day when teens and adults read a Bounty Killer comic book or graphic novel. Maybe when Ziggy Marley gets time away from Marijuana Man he can bust me on the job fi draw and write a Bounty Killer Comic. Once somewhere in 2005 I had wanted to write a Bounty Killer Biography titled: Badman Bible! Even when close friends debated that Bounty's Tale is not best seller material, I have absolute faith to this day that it would be a mega success, accompanied by like a documentary... the legend of Bounty would be immortalized.

Anyway... this ratings of mine for Bounty Killer progressed as I entered into academia, when while I was in KGN, Bounty was in my backyard in Mobay donating computers to Albion All Age, giving public lectures at Mobay's Civic Centre and generally impacting the youth of Jamaica in a major way. His prolific work would not be forgotten by youth of Norwood, Paradise, Albion, Glendevon even unto this day. I remembered when Carolyn Cooper had held her usual Friday Dancehall Artiste lecture up by UWI, Mona... I will never forget the particular Friday when Bounty Killer lectured... as a Bounty fan since his career started... I would be present at that lecture with my placard and signs BOUNTY FOR PRIME MINISTER! A memorable biographical tale, topped off by a fan request performance, nothing beats that.

Now flash forward to current day Jamaica... 2016... Dancehall ain't what it used to be! Today we watch the acidic career of Alkaline as he spits nasal inflections of mundane lyrics on the hottest dancehall and pop chart rhythms. There is even today an analogy in the dancehall that I think originates with Aidonia... "mi bad like 90's dancehall," which to me Ithink is testament to the current state of dancehall. The only saving grace for Jamaican music is reggae revival as Kartel tries to holler from his cell "Dancehall can't stall, woaheee dancehall can't dead yet"

But there are some critical things I have been waiting to see in the dancehall still... Maybe I am idealistic and a dreamer... but I had imagined Bounty Killer having many more years... I was waiting on Bounty Killer and Linkin Park, an era where Bounty's social commentary taps into global youth angst and pain. Bounty and Eminem, Bounty and P.O.D. (remix Youth of the Nation), Bounty and the Trini version of Bounty... Bunji Garlin, I think they would make a booming earthquake combination that would shake from both sides of the Caribbean and quake the world. The romantic version of Rodney Pryce that was on "It's Ok and It's Alright!" with the like of Emily Sande. Bounty from those 90's Jungle Cd's on rhythms that Major Lazer builds, Bounty with Calvin Harris, Bounty with those European producers... dubstep Bounty, Bounty on some Ancient Tomorrow rhythms like Protoje, as a matter of fact mi a wait pon Bounty-Chronixx, mi await pon Bounty and Kabaka...

I am not from that school that says Bounty's days are over, I believe those that say that have a failure of imagination. I see much more work to be done by Bounty, Beenie, Sizzla, Capleton, Buju and the entire generation that made the 90's great.

New Poems...

And since I can find no other outlet right now... seems no one is interested in my material at current... why not just toss them on the blog and make a vain hope that something germinates and catches and excites some literary type out there to gimmi a chapbook, or shudder... a full fledge publishing deal. Ha! This one is to wild dreams and aspirations...

Left Behind


...And it seems,
When it is you came to mind,
You'd moved on,
And I've been left behind.


Yannick Nesta Pessoa
Copyright ©2007 Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Run Away Thoughts on Love and Cost

What it is about you,
Sometimes I just can't tell,
Maybe it's your purple pheromone,
Or the fact that you wear it so well,
My favourite flavour of green,
My flavourite smell,
What it is,
I just can't tell.

Maybe it's how your scent,
Pricks my nostrils,
Until...
Memories arise and I am aroused,
Yet constrained by what time and space allows,
Dying to linger and to carouse.

Yes, yes, yes,
I must confess,
I am left...
Feeling like less,
Saddled with the still life images,
Of when I would sipple,
On impurpled neck, lip and nipple.

Maybe it the tip,
Yes the tip of your lip,
Or the convex curve of your hip,
That brings that moth in me fluttering to life,
Like being drawn to light,
Ending if only temporarily my turmoil and strife.

Yes, yes, yes,
I must confess,
I am left...
Feeling distress,
Saddled with the still life images,
Visions of us living in rural seaside villages,
Prisoner of passion in times passages.

Likkle Ms Red Riding Hood
 
Back to reality I said,
Fantasy worlds she explores instead.
So if you must go...
to the real world as it were...
Which of your fairy tales am I?

Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White...
And she names quite a few,
In a haste and in a rush she asks...
Which am I to you?

Hold on nuh, hold on nuh,
Stalling for time,
Ploughing and rooting through my mind,
Trying to get one through...

She had hurtled her questions,
With Matriarchal Supremecy,
She brimmed with a hubris of one certain of victory...
This I knew.

Hold on nuh, hold on nuh!
Now finding the one to get me through,
I found my stone,
Now in memory of father's face let my aim be true.

And like a shepherd boy and a giant,
I am that which you had not suspected,
The one she never knew,
In coy shy dry wry humility I sail one bullet,
Now let my aim be true.

And like a King before me,
I am the wolf in shepherd's clothing,
The big bad wolf,
And before she can finish hoisting another
which am I to you?

I respond...

You are...

My Likkle Red Riding Hood.

My Gospel

My dearest dear,
My fair-est fair,
It is you I invite to read my Gospel,
To be enchanted by my god-spell,
I'll be your Jesus,
And make you my dearest apostle,
My acolyte,
Secret place at night,
Cleave to me,
Let your thighs show belief,
And hold me tight,
I make miracles and set things right,
I am the golden child,
Brilliant and bright,
Touch the hem of my tattered garment,
And I'll undo yours.
 
Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Christmas

I had dream where Jesus turned in his grave,
Christmas consumes the souls he came to save,
Money and mammon are masters and many are slave,
Picking up their crosses and forgetting his cross and all he gave,
Neon signs on the road to future we pave,
Commerce and WWJD is all the rave.

The cock crows thrice on Christ's mas Eve,
Many celebrate not knowing what they believe,
Content with meager salaries and bonus the receive,
Merchants peddle and use fat red saints to deceive,
Tell strange and compelling stories about how a virgin did conceive,
Always forgetting the truth of how the King does grieve.


MY LOLITA

So, so, so...
I've be lulled by the way you loll,
By big bottoms and dimpled thighs,
Imperfect skin like mine and coy smile,
Unrevealing eyes.

Here I am in my secret place,
Cursed in the strangest of ways,
By you my Delores Haze,
Captivated, I simply look and gaze,
...And view,
You.

Sixteen,
Young fresh and not so green,
Black velveteen,
And me the Natty libertine.

Bubbler bubbling in...
Her Rapunzel room,
Her Board House Bordeaux,
Secret smiles,
With secrets in eyes,
Do you realize,
You are my Lolita.


Left Over Wine

I must have been forgot,
In his Majesty's schemes and plot,
For I am king too...
Am I not?

It seems in the grand design,
I was left behind,
For after lesser mortals do dine,
It is I who must suffer sipping the left over wine.


She Greaves

Some how...
I failed to expect such vulgar and hostile silence,
An uncommonly profound and intangible sort of violence.

She left and still leaves,
She grieves,
Because I deceive,
She couldn't believe,
In the web of lives and lies this dreamer weaves.

Was my presence so bitter and so vile...
Such a nuisance all the while,
That now...
Not even a smile.

And has my doubtful path,
My unwavering course of majestic disasters,
My penchant for being the dirtiest of pretty things...
Caused this harsh and parched and caustic... exile,
To the periphery of your embattled existence,
Have I compounded the blighted years,
Add green bottles of tears.

I don't know...
But I do understand...
That though she ...
I'll never See Moan or mourn,
I now know she Greaves.


Rahab: Into An Harlot's House

She has eyes like fire,
That dance and flitter with desire,
She had harlequin lips,
Soft subtle hips,
Coy postures and quirky quips,
She shimmers with the danger and legacy of hollow tips,
Black and comely,
She is a lovely... thing,
And oh how the crescent is alive with whispering,
Rumouring... that you might be inviting,
The neo libertine... The Herlequin King... in,
And oh isn't he tempted to prolong this legacy of sin.


Seekers of Dreams

Across the blank, white landscapes,
We battle the vapid and mundane,
Lexical mancing and lexical graphing,
To paint images to bland minds,
To link soul to art,
We make works of heart,
Searching the caverns of the brain,
Ever yearning for the pinnacle of the mind,
We battle on a deep, silent plain of white,
Spilling ink with ever slash,
We tie yesterday with memories,
Bound to honour beauty,
Love and art are our duty,
We are the seekers of dreams.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa


Turquoise Sea

…And I see it clear, 
It’s fluid, 
somewhere in here, 
whispering of something, 
I should know out there.

It’s the world I want,
it’s mellow, 
With the girl I want, 
supple and spirited,
I need to reach yet I can’t.

My eyes burn with clarity, 
As I am immersed in briny waters, 
Sky blue and teal,
Colour the world I can feel...

Yannick Nesta Pessoa


Silence On All Frequencies

I won't speak,
For to speak is to lie,
I won't listen,
For to listen is to be deceived,
I won't think,
For to think is to make belief,
I won't be touched,
For to be touched is to hurt,
I won't smell and taste,
For to smell and taste is to remember.

AM, FM, I'm dead on all frequencies,
I'll take it on mono,
I'll take radio silence,
Fly solo,
Its hard to determine,
Did I dream a belief,
Or was it that I believed a dream.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa


Middle of Nowhere Restaurant

…I sit amongst devils and a whore, 
Exactly where I’m not sure,
The Middle of Nowhere Restaurant most certainly.

The children of the damned scamper here at dawn,
The wretched of the earth stumble in,
Here is home and haven to sin,
The elderly are imps of darkness,
Bent and crooked and thin.

I’ve heard it said,
That the rapture must come,
The good ones must go,
While the rest will reap,
Hell in the evils we used to sow.

The light shines here,
But it’s still dark,
It mourns of a yesterday with a hope and spark,
But its all gone now,
The Beast has left its mark.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

The Wandering Jew

I wash the dried saliva from my face,
I hope the scent of sin will wash away too,
I look out the window and see the world by night,
Pastel designed in mellow moods and tragedies,
While stars, watchers, sing melodies of memories and maladies,
I search the sky for David's star on my way to my very own beloved Bethlehem,
And I wonder...
Are the stories true...
Is there really a long lost wandering Jew.


Ode to Idle Thinkers

For all those who stare out the window,
Beyond the mountain and beyond the tree,
This poem connects all those who think like me.

Holding on to all those... though,
Shackled by people's alleged reality,
Still manage to look pass the ocean and deep into the see.


Unleaded

The sunsets and the evening sky is period red,
Simon Garfunkel's Cecelia is playing in my head,
I unhear all the things she said,
I only wish the succubus were dead,
She said she liked me cause I was unleaded.

My Current Playlist

1. Mavado - On the rock
2. Jr. Gong - The Mission
3. Mykal Rose ft. Jr. Gong - Shoot Out
4. Mykal Rose ft. Busy Signal - Real Jamaicans
5. Regina Spektor - Samson
6. Regina Spektor - Hotel Song
7. I-Octane - Poverty
8. Black Judah ft. Warrior King - Mercy Please
9. Busy Signal - Pon the Edge
10. Demarco - Duppy know who fi frighten
11. Serani ft. Bugle - Doh
12. Erup - Click My Fingers
13.Busy Signal - Unknown Number
14. Royksoop - Remind Me (Geico ADV. theme song)
15. Sean Kingston - Take you there
16. Kanye West ft. Chris Martin (Coldplay) - Homecoming
17. Alaine - Sacrifice
18. Alaine - Sincerely
19. Alaine - Prayer
20. Etana - Roots
21. Etana - I am not afraid
22. Shaggy ft. Sizzla - Mad Mad World
23. Sizzla - Take myself away
24. Twins of Twins - How come (How come Natty an 3 gyal inna room, so wah, Babylon nuh badda doom???)
25. Lupe Fiasco - Superstar

In defense of Munga... Debating RASTA and Jah Cure returns

Rastas blast Munga's 'Gangsta Ras' image

A group of Rastafarians who feel that dancehall artiste Munga's promotion of himself as "the Gangsta Ras" with attendant image, is a perversion of the integrity of Rastafari, say they intend to pursue the use of intellectual property protocols to protect and preserve the culture and symbols from misuse.

JAMAICA OBSERVER the official article


Really and truly I find this line of argument distasteful. Rasta a cuss and a quarrel and washing the proverbial dirty linens in public. For someime I have seen this sort of thing brewing, it was bound to happen. Especially with a agenerational baton pass at hand, even in the Rasta community we see a generational ideological battle, with what maybe called or what I call the Rasta IDEOLOGUES, you know them, the brand of excessively, overly intellectual Rastas, the ones that continue to invent and re-invent terms like socio-politico-econo-enviro-psycho (yuh know the type that continue to invent So-Sci terms) that are the 'blackest," most vegan/vegetarian, most conscious, most holy, sexless, most fire burning, most overly intellectual... that seem to think they make up a grand council of Rastafari, that seem to me, a sort of ras-neo-nicaea council. When did one group become the guardians and gatekeepers of Rasta, who chose them? Are they elect of the King? Are they fit to be a council or governing body, are they objective? Are they the vanguard? Do they represent a particular house or one house? Do they represent the young or the old? Are they for this generation or just the last?

For a long time though, these issues have been on the back burner simmering and now are seemingly close to the forefront. These are volatile times, with lots of social upheaval and change. Not only is society changing but the so are the concerns and issues of the people as does society contend with the rise of rampant homosexuality, blatant sexuality, guns, violence, crime, poverty, health, governance, self reliance, so too must Rastafari. However I don't think the answer lies in the suspicious auspices, vague authority and grand decrees of a central organization, that seemingly hasn't substantiated their authority. Does this group represent just the ideologues or does it represent or is it representatiive of every Rasta, the ones inna bush, the ones inna country, the ones most people despise the carnal kind in Negril, the ones with guns waiting on revolution, the binghi house, david house, the coptics, the bobos, etc? I doubt.

It seems odd to me that Rasta, a system of commune, community and common goals and such, would begin to speak of intellectual property, copyright and ownership, a very western notion, an idea that pins and hinges the globalisation process together, that furthers the imperialist agenda. No one has copyrights, or ownership of Rasta. Did this group invent Rasta, muchless to claim ownership? And are we to stay stagnant? No Rasta will evolve, does evolve and has evolved and will not remain what confined to anyone individuals ideas or and one group.

On the matter of Gangster Ras. Weren't Coptic Rastas one of the most armed and militant sets. Has Rasta always and only held the peaceful image, haven't we been revolutionaries at times, warlike... long before the advent of MUNGA? The petty argument and debate needs to stop.

It is these same petulant pedantic, me/we own Rasta Ideologue vibes that have certain Rastas under LUTAN FYAH skin just because him seh "Big up Bounty caah him buss artist, and Rasta need fi do more fi buss the yutes caah a dem a carry the fire" You can believe big man like Luciano and Capleton BEX ova dat. A pickney vibes that. Caah he is a Ras he can't make any critique of Rasta. And it wasn't them he was refering to literally or individually. BBwoy that look like backra master business, tryiung to cow down yutes and tell we in essence "hush your mouth nigga." By the way nuh Capleton buss Munga, where is his defens... is he defending Munga any.. haven't heard, but then again, a this man seh "we nuh trust dem, even if we buss dem"

ANY WAY BIG UP IYAH-CURE... dem free up the boss since week and MoBAY happy. I wonder if I can get an interview. Then again mi might nuh have a life if enuff Rasta read this...

My Letter to The Editor - Trinidad Express: CSME

Bring ordinary folk into CSME foldTuesday
October 24th 2006

I am a concerned Jamaican. I am concerned that with the advent of the Caribbean Single Market Economy (CSME) the governments of the Caribbean have failed to plan our way forward, glossing over the details and intricacies that the merger of Caribbean will bring. This initiative is the only way forward for the region but, we must examine its social ramifications. The governments have only examined the CSME and Caricom in terms of economies and broad macro policies that don't exactly reach to the average Joe, and don't exactly have clear manifestations in everyday life and reality.

This has occurred mostly because of the lack of media attention and government initiatives to stimulate awareness in the broader cross-section of society. Such an awareness can generate ideas for opportunities in business and education, opportunities for individuals to explore and generate ideas beyond those that propagate the myth that USA is the land of opportunity and the only option for feasible living and generation of wealth.

Integration can only become sustainable if individuals see benefit to it; it can only function if we capture the imagination of individuals whom the society and government rely on to keep the wheels turning - John Public.

Most members of the public know very little, if any, about the societies, the mores, the norms, the values, ideas and cultures we are about to meld and mesh with.

We are more exposed to North American media than we are to Caribbean media; we need regional newspapers that come out regularly and frequently, we need TV (beyond the efforts of HYPETV and Tempo) to carry messages and ideas from around the Caribbean to us, to expose us to the variations in terms of language, ideology and ethos. We need to see more of our Caribbean neighbours in order to awaken us to the new possibilities, cultures and opportunities that lie before us. We need to also explore Caribbean radio, a vector that can ignite or further ignite the musical interactions occurring across the region. We also need further interaction in sports, not just cricket and football.

Governments need to set up cultural exchange programmes for everyday people, not diplomats and such - exchange programmes like sending students, both rural and urban, prep and primary, to other islands to experience schooling there. Children are the future, and if we are to have a joint Caribbean future, we ought to start with the children.

The need to energise the social dimensions of Caribbean integration must come soon or we may fail economically, because at the end of the day an economy, for all the maths and models, can't exist without the human factor.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
via email

TRINIDAD EXPRESS

Current mood: busy
Category: Music

Tanya Stephens VS Lil'kim

Thief or Loan ?

Lil Kim faces again the court ! After her stay in prison where she was imprisoned for perjury. Here she is again facing justice as the rapper is accused of stealing a song of Tanya Stephens.

Indeed, Durty, extract of Naked Truth would be a copy of Tanya Stephens track "Mi and Mi God" released in 1997.

The lawyer of the former convict declared that it was not a thief as the song was modified. The lawyer also added that it would be something usual in the hip hop industry.

Tanya Stephens demanded the entire passed and future royalties that were gained from the exploitation of the song Durty.

TAKEN FROM TRACE TV now my fave Magazine and TV station since they now offer TraceTv on Cable in Mobay...