Peter Tosh "I am not a politician, I just suffer the consequences"
- Peter Tosh
POETS AND musicians, some known and some struggling to be known gathered at Weekenz Bar and Bistro, Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew on Tuesday night to pay tribute to reggae icon Peter Tosh. Although some performances made no references to Tosh, the performances that did were often a good celebration of his memory and his struggle for those who suffer the consequences of politics.
Mel Cooke was the first poet
to hit the stage and pay direct homage to Tosh. Noting that Peter Tosh first became real to him upon, the icon's death, he began with the piece 'Creation'. The poem was a wonderful note to begin on as it celebrates the power of music and poetry combining.
"In the beginning was the word/ And then there was the bass line," Cooke said. Not a great reader himself, his words have sufficient power to speak for themselves and any reggae lover should be able to identify with 'Creation', which looks at the creation of reggae as an act of poetry.
For the first time that night, the audience seemed to be coming alive.
Earlier, they seemed to have only stirred when Tosh's music hit the turntable.
Cooke integrated information about Tosh and what he stood for between his own poems, displaying quite a bit of knowledge about basic biographical information as well as the beliefs, words and actions of Peter Tosh.
Additionally, as The I Am and Neto Meeks would also do later, the poems selected were relevant to an aspect of Tosh's works.
RHYTHM OF THE WORDS
The poetry and the information about Tosh were therefore so tightly woven in Cooke's work that only the change in the rhythm of the words, and the use of language, acted as a marker that he had slipped into poetry.
It appeared that all the artistes found it impossible to look at Tosh's work without performing a work related to the cannabis. Where Cooke's stance slightly differed was that he did not quite celebrate the virtues of smoking marijuana, but rather concentrated on the injustice of the laws surrounding it. Noting the he was not himself a smoker and believed smoking to be a bad habit he said, "oonu free to have oonu bad habit if oonu want it."
According to Cooke, "If weed legalise it woulda de-rebellize" which would probably cause many people to stop smoking it. His greater point however, was the persecution of those who are arrested "fi di sake a one likkle spliff."
Another popular topic for the night was equal rights and justice, Tosh's anthem. To interrogate this issue Cooke pointed out that September 11 had been a date of many tragedies long before 2001. He then turned to 'Born Loser' in which he attacked 'George Bush the lesser one' whom he described as not only the second Bush to lose his man, but as a man who lost Bin Laden, Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction. According to Cooke, the words on the Statue of Liberty has now been changed to read "show me your hungry, show me your helpless and I will give them death."
DIFFERENT POETIC STYLES
Interestingly, though Neto Meeks and Cooke have very different poetic styles, their deliveries were the most similar. Meeks hit the stage when Tuesday had already become Wednesday morning, and brought with him a revival.
Like Cooke, Meeks kept his poetry quite relevant to Tosh' work. "Peter Tosh is a man that has a great influence on my work," he told the audience on hitting the stage. His words would go on to prove just that.
Meek's delivered his words in a fast-paced hard hitting rap that often attempted to defy form. His poems, peppered with the proverbial 'f' word, and often working with the syncopation of lengthy alliterations, slashed at what he what he perceived to be injustices facing today's society. "it look like seh young and blak still equals armed and dangerous" he said.
While looking at the injustices Meeks also looked to the power of poetry, "pad and pencil penetrate/ keep it to the streets/ remember no justice no peace," he said echoing Tosh's stance.
Meeks also stepped away from Tosh momentarily to look at another freedom fighter, the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey. Meeks noted that while to some Garvey is a hero to many, to others he is merely a face on the fifty cents.
Of course, the line needs to be updated as Garvey is now on the $20 and 25c coins.
ANTI-CLIMATIC
The third poet of the night to weave his work with Tosh's was The I Am. However, his performance, coming after music from Marcus I, was quite anti-climatic. The I Am's poetry was simply more like a speech than poetry.
Whenever he tried to swing too close to any use of language which could be recognised as poetry, he tended to sink in the bog of derivative lines.
Even so, he did deliver a few very impressive lines. Among them was the edict, "no longer can we be victims at the gallows of their isms." a line which quite reflected Tosh's ideology.
In essence, the night proved to be a celebration of the power of words, whether those of the poets, or the musicians such as Marcus I and VC.
