The Song

[Ntu]

As I organise my thoughts to write
A song about my people,
I cannot help but wonder what exactly was
going through the late Merchant’s
head as he wrote line by line
 “Umbayayaoh”
That captured pre colonial living
In Africa.

Rain knocks softly on the nearby window,
While his mistress Mist obscures my view
Of the both the capital and the Caribbean Sea,

I return to my blank notepad that lies on top a tome of Black
Literature written by men and women who came before me and
contributed to the recording of an epic
that should have never occurred.

Black History from 1496 to Present plays lowly in a CD player.

I write:

‘Daaga, Martin, Malcolm and Marcus laid down their lives for a people
To be recognised as being people
Of equal intelligence and significance.
The fight must never end.

Bob Marley’s Rebels stand tall.

Through the mouths of millions Africa speaks.

Educate the children about social reproduction: how this is what makes both Babylon System and the Matrix function

And tell them to always respect the Negro Woman because of the work that she has done.’

I pause. The brillance of a rainbow pours through my window.

[Ntu]

I continue to write but with a verve:

'We no do not need State hegemony
For too long the politicians are the carts
And we are the donkey.

Some eighty years ago
Marcus Garvey looked into his
Cultural crystal ball and saw
Me along with brothers and sisters in
Prosperity and unity,

This gave him the impetuous that begot
Garveyism,
And Garveyism begot Rastafarianism
And Rastafarianism begot
Black Consciousness in me.

So I will forever shout: Red, Gold and Green

If my brother start a little business selling biscuits
On the corner I will buy from it.

Stand together black brothers and sisters

Social reproduction has impeded us from since
the abolishment of slavery,

Children must be thought about there true history
From early and not when their heads are hard at thirty-three.'

[Ntu]

The barking of dogs makes me thief a peep
Out of the window,
In time to see a young man finish
Writing “G-Unit” on the neighbour’s wall,

His eyes look up to mine
And suddenly I am going into time,
I no longer see the kid but me
standing in a no lacing Fila
Because I did not care for Nikey,
Wearing my Michael Jordan
Tee and my hairstyle the fade
Cut.

Back then the world was still magical
With infinite possibilities like what
An infant sees when playing with
An empty cardboard box.
Education would be the key for me
To open doors that were locked and
A little knowledge is good for the soul
Because I understand more about my
World,

I am now able to connect the dots:
I understand the reason certain jobs have
Been historically mine,
that working class children do speak differently from middle class
children because of access to different stimuli that broadens the mind,
the external forces behind my pattern of consumption and
that music is an intelligence that a human has other than academics.

I will use my music intelligence to build awareness.

So as the young man peels away I leave the window to pen some more lyrics.

[Ntu]

I write with a melody infused with rhymes:

‘Let the little drums thunder to the wind:

You cannot hold down Queens…. You cannot hold down Kings,

Welcome Black people, come in and sit.
Here is water to wash cleanse your feet
from the long journey:
from being free men to bondage
To being free men again but in a different way:
One hundred and seventy one years ago you were given
poor housing, poor health-care, no rights and minimal education.

All types of tactics were used to keep you suppressed:
Black history was deliberately not taught in schools,
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was even used for justification to keep you
In mental and economic shackles,
Then came segregation and misinformation.

A century has passed and your plight got caught up in the whirlwind

But you have remained resilient,

Oh let the little drums thunder to the wind:

You cannot hold down Queens…. You cannot hold down Kings,

Marcus Garvey called for an exodus,
So Bob Marley sang “Exodus- Movement of Jah people”.

 You cannot hold down Kings….You cannot hold down Queens,


When Adolph Hitler shunned the Black gold medal runner
Jessie Owens at the 1936 Germany Olympics,
It was no problem,
Because in the 1968 Olympics when the sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on
the winners podium they raised their black fists.

Let the little drums thunder to the wind:
You cannot hold down Kings…. You cannot hold down Queens,


Wage this quiet war like a robust advertising campaign,
The new National Union of Freedom Fighters with new weapons to
infiltrate using radio, print, television and cyberspace.
To liberate, demonstrate and communicate:
 
Cannot hold down Kings…. Cannot hold down Queens,

The offspring of survivors must never let
Another Ziggy Marley ask:
“Tomorrow people where is you past?
Tomorrow people how long will you last? ’’

Because them and those
Cannot hold down Kings…. Cannot hold down Queens,

[Ntu]

'Eja has a point'
I say to myself,
Thinking about a poem I saw on the Net.
My name and the name of this region- West Indies
is a historical absurdity.

Wait...

I remember the young man’s face,
he passed me the other night when water
came by the stand pipe,

I have to seek him out
And encourage him to eat upon the food of
knowledge that gives strength.

Cannot have the quintessential of the young urban black male
Left to superstars,
Fifteen years ago it was Naughty By Nature
Now it is G-Unit.

I pour over the words that I have so far written
And the thought reoccurs:
What was going through the late
Merchant’s head as he wrote
The calypso “Umbayayaoh” that captures
Pre colonial Africa?