Positive Vibrations
Norml News 1994 Spring
Photo: Graham Hoopel
Rastafarian hardcore group Bad Brains came to New Zealand recently for their first stop on a world tour. NN caught up with singer Israel Joseph before the gig...
New York - it's a shitstem fe true, jus' like Peter Tosh say". Israel Joseph looks up, eyes black and shining with light. "New York is the head of the runnings yuh know, it's like Babylon fe real. We just happen to exist in that place, right? So check that man, I tell yuh its jus' some runnings."
That Bad Brains grew out of a place New York is no stranger than the band itself. Playing some of the fastest and heaviest hardcore music around, they've been spreading the positive vibes of JaH Rastafari for the past 17 years. Their albums, and their concerts, alternate headbanging music with deep-roots reggae, a living example of how youth and youth can unite.
But their stance is not a religious one. "Rastafari is a way of life. So we all try to live a certain way, yuh know, and this happens to be what is called Rastafari.
"In my life I really like to tune in to the righteousness and alla that. Me just living and try to understand what is peaceful amongst people. I think that it is the nature of people to be natural and to be have to be peaceful to one another.
"Many groups and organisations, even magazines like yuhselves are promoting the consciousness and right truth. That's what we have to jus' keep on doing. Remember that we all affecting the youth. It's the youth coming up to run the arrangement. So we have promote the right runnings.
"We can't go out there and talk about, yuh know, like bringing violence down upon people. Positivity is the only way. If everyone else gon' be violent, then so be it and JaH will it, yuh know. There is a purpose for that, but I and I always gon' stand our ground for a positive life."
Joseph was born in Trinidad, but moved to New York when he was 14, just when hip hop was first beginning to come to light. "I started rapping when I was about a year in New York. But then I heard Bad Brains and I heard Jimi Hendrix, I heard different style a music so I wanna like branch out a little.
"But I'm a devout follower of hip hop music. I think it's the last crucial voice of positive people in this life. That's why people try to fight it down. It's about the youth, what the youth is thinking."
Even so, Joseph praises roots reggae music. "Even the dance hall musicians will tell yuh that the roots music is the irey state of mind. It takes yuh places within yuh mind state I don't think no other music can take yuh. Sometimes yuh just listen to a certain song, yuh know, and yuh don' have to be smoking no herb or something, I tell yuh. It just takes yuh there. It's just like that. It's like the wind, with the birds and the sea coming at yuh. Ain't nothing computer about it. It's just vital".
It is their speedcore sound as much as the reggae beats that most people go to see the band. Their record company EPIC has just dropped then from the label, reportedly because the band won't fit into easy pigeon holes for promotional purposes.
But Joseph doesn't see the two as a contradiction.
"We look at it this way. When thunder and lightening crack and roll, it crazy right? But it's a creation of God, right?
Not everything that sound loud and mad is loud and mad and above reason, yuh know what I mean? It's purposed, Yes I. Then the rain come like a dub now. So we try to like reflect nature. Cos we got to be natural."
Although this was the first time the band have been to Aotearoa, Joseph admits to having wanted to come for some time.
"We been looking forward to coming here, cos true some positive vibes coming from these lands. And I tell Yuh, no matter what development come up on a land, yuh know, there is certain land yuh can trod on where the earth is resounding with positivity from its inner. Like look at how the man a come a stay positive yuh know. It affect the people in certain ways. Check the vibe.
"Yuh have different thing across the world, like volcano. I stood at the mouth of a volcano yesterday. Well, I never did that before in my life. The wind was just rushing up man and I just lean out into it iyah and it is held me straight yuh know. I wasn't afraid or nuttin', and it was nice I tell yuh."
Joseph admitted to having had some "nice herbs" during his stay here, but was unwilling to make comparisons.
"I think that the crucial thing about herbs is that everywhere yuh go it have different vibes, different feelings yuh get from when yuh smoke it and when yuh get higher. So I think that understanding that, it's just a different thing. It's not really like which one is better or not.
"Some people like to go Amsterdam and smoke green herb and get really high, but me nah like green herb. Me like some browners yuh know. Green herb is too, too... I mean all respect due cos true' me know the green herbs is nice for some people, but ah not me. I just like my brown herb still. So I like my herbs to be positive, yes I."
And does herb encourage positivity?
"I definitely agree with that. I would much rather have all of the youth in the world smoking herbs than smoking crack or drinking liquor.
"In America, like on the west coast, there been a little change in the youth. Them don't drink so much no more, they all puffing blunts. Positive. There's still a lot to deal with, a lot there to break down, but it's a start. Herb is the catalyst".
Besides understanding that JaH created and ruleth and guide all things, I think the second most important thing to understand is positivity. The key to understanding and wisdom, the key to longevity on the earth, and peace. Yuh must strive within yuhself. And that will be like a rippling effect. Yuh throw a pebble in the water and soon the ripples will reach all the shores. So I and I are the pebble, yuh know.
But positivity doesn't mean turning your back on reality.
"I want make a thing understood. I man deal with all people in truth and honesty. I man don't look at and prejudge no one. Everyone is a creation of JaH and a beautiful creation of the Father. But facts is facts and runnings is runnings and I and I can't deny those things. In America the black man, the people of colour, are downtrodden. They stick them in the ghettoes, they put them in these housing projects, and they say 'well the black people can move all in here'. In school they can't get a proper education so they drop out. So the poor man can't get a job, what does he do? He pulls into the street and try to rob somebody. And he kill off his own people because he can't go into the white man community and rob.
"So there is a whole cycle going on of self-destruction. And the American public is really hidden from that cycle. People have come out and talked about it, like Malcolm X. They called Malcolm X a racist. He wasn't a racist. He found out that white man and black man can live together, found out the ultimate truth before he died, but nobody talks about that. They talk about when he was" bit lost, when he thought that all white people was racist.
"You need radicalism. Its crucial - the youth is killing each other because of the perpetuation of racism. So I believe that what Louis Farrakhan and brother Khalib Mohammed (of the Nation of Islam) and these different brothers are saying are definitely on point. Some things I don't agree with but I support them, as an African living in America. Understanding how bad the racial problems is there and understanding that now jus cos they don't beat us in our skin, they still beat us in our minds."
One way that Joseph sees black people striving to mentally free themselves is through reclaiming words like 'nigger'.
"I think that the phrase 'nigger' got started as an awareness factor, when a black person sold out. Like 'Yo nigger, whats up, why yuh sell out?' Or if it is that case where he being say what this white man want him to be, then he truly is being a nigger. An ignorant person.
"But then everybody just became that because yuh begin to realise that in this country nobody is free from being a nigger. We all slaves. And to remind ourselves of that fact every day, within the music and within the culture, is something that keeps us not downpressed, it, keeps the conscious aware of how we're looked at, who we are, how we're judged. It keep us motivated inside because, yes, we know what we're dealing with.
"I just want to make this really clear because I don't know what the American media is perpetuating across the world about black people. It's like a balance in America that the black man got to deal with. It's a scary balance. It's frightening every day. Words like 'nigger' trigger certain things in people's minds. Its a very psychological thing, like 'what's up nigger?' People like 'Yes 1, that's my nigger man, word' but it's a POSITIVE vibe. We call it white bredren yuh know, but its like just knowing that 'yo, we the sufferahs'. It's like saying, 'yo, what's up sufferah? Yes I, me know yuh sufferah but you a strive, yuh know. You a sufferah still in Babylon". So that's just the American way of saying stuff like that."
Joseph doubts that the L.A. riots had any real effect on the situation of Black people in America. "I think the America public has been fooled by what they shown on TV. You guys probably saw more of the riots than we did. They keep the American public sedate, and so nothing really change. They never really show yuh the crucial runnings.
"I and I give thanks to JaH that we blessed to travel into certain places and so we get to see different versions of television. We watch the CNN runnings all about Rwanda, the starving, and the people getting cholera. The scenes that they show on the TV is so graphic and so real, that they don't show yuh those things in America.
"That's the problem with Americans. They blind man. But yuh know, America is like a thing where yuh have the best and the worst. It really is like the greatest impression of what Babylon is. For instance, New York is some runnings where the people all of them speak different languages. Nobody understand one another. And they building towers like the towers of Babel to touch the sky, right? And New York become just like Babylon on the earth because everybody look to it and try say 'well we got try to be like America', and they don't understand that America base a lot of its runnings upon negativity.
"People really need to suss through, pick out the positive things. Me no want to sound like me is just anti-America. It's just the people have to wake up and check for the positive light.
"I think that the people in America are good people. It's just that there is a certain sect of the American community - it's like a power structure that controls them, controls their minds. The media in conjunction with the school system in conjunction with the churches in conjunction with the military in conjunction with all of that, controls people's minds. It leads them to be subdued and reflect on negative attitudes. But it's not the people. I tell you 90% of the American people are positive. It's just changing that 10%.
"But break it down like this: you have the 5%ers right? The 5% of people who teach truth and righteousness, and who overstand that positivity is the ultimate truth. And then there's the 10% who fight against the 5%ers, who control the money and wanna conquer the 85% who have no understanding of truth and righteousness. So that's the 5% system and true it work soyuh know. So the 85% stay unknowledgeble, the 10% fighting against the prophets of our generation, they fighting against them, and it always stay a small 5%. But I tell yuh: the small is sometimes the strongest."
Rastafari is first in yuhself. Is first in yuh heart. No book or nothing can tell yuh about Rastafari. When yuh look at life, when yuh look at existence, yuh mus go by yuh own experience.
"Rastafari is in yuh heart, not in the dreadlocks, not in the beard nor the clothes, nothing. Is right in here so that is the first place one must look to find Rastafari.
"And then there have certain crucial books to read. Start read about His Majesty, His Imperial Majesty, King of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah. Check upon His Majesty and read and understand how His Majesty's philosophies on life perpetuate peace, would have perpetuated peace among men but instead they wage war on him. All this type of things to read , Marcus Garvey, the teachings of these people. Yes I"
And diet? "I myself are strictly vegetarian, yes I. Yeah man, definitely, to keep a proper spiritual and mental and physical wellbeing, you really need the ital. Proper diet.
"These are crucial times. Man is bringing war upon the earth and the earth is falling apart. Man is falling apart now because the earth is cleansing herself. Man is in the way so the earth is going to shake we away like fleas.
"Man say 'well, we dumping plastic in the earth, gon kill the earth' but the plastic nab hurt the earth I tell yuh that. The earth is gonna use the plastic, take it down into the earth and melt it and use it.
We are going somewhere - the earth is gonna rain out and flood out and burn out and mud slides and forest fires and jus bum everything out and start again fresh, just like John tell it.
"Certain runnings will come to pass, but it's a good thing that people are checking in this time for inner spiritual enlightenment, because the spiritual side will exist in that earth man. I tell yuh, that earth that JaH plan for I and I, well if yuh harness this spirit properly yuh will exist in them time there. So it's good that the people are checking for positive life man.
Praise is due, Rastafari.
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