Queen Ifrica
By Black Dog Bone
It seems like lately Dancehall has been sounding more like Rap and R&B. It’s been watered down to fit the American market. I feel like Dancehall is being influenced by American music and losing its originality. When I heard your record I felt that you had a real Jamaican sound, did you do that consciously?
We did it consciously, we had to do it deliberately because there is a lot of encouragement to do much of what you’re suggesting about the more mainstream American sound. One of the main reasons for that is that they were concerned that young people would not
understand a sound that came from the roots. Also it’s a feeling that you can make a more crossover album if you do that. But I feel like the marketplace is very big and that there is space for everything there. Music has no boundaries. It’s not a matter of if you are making a more hip hop sounding album or sticking to your roots, it’s what is the purpose of doing it and if you are true to what you are doing or are you doing because hip hop might be selling more or you are not confident enough in the sound of the authentic roots. So I did this album with the authentic Jamaican sound to show that all music has its place in the market. I wanted to make a point that our music has a place. Even if the more “upgraded” version of the music is promoted more these days you can also keep the roots there that are loved and accepted by everyone.
The reason I’m asking that is that you say that there is a place for every music, right? I feel like American music is forced in other countries and people start feeling like that’s the way to go. All the young artists go in that direction and our roots get killed. We lose what is unique in us.
There’s a myth going around that music does not influence the behavior of people, especially young people. That is so untrue. For instance the Hip Hop influence, or the crossover sound as they like to call it, it’s coming in with a culture. It’s coming with culture of party and drinking alcohol, be promiscuous. It’s a package. But the music that is based in the roots that we used to make, and some of us still do, aren’t made to sell alcohol, it’s about teaching young people to respect themselves and how to make choices for yourself. A lot of young people go the other way because when you watch the TV and radio you feel like that’s what’s happening in the world and you want to be a part of it, that that’s the right way to live. But it’s all commercial, it’s all an ad to sell a product, a campaign, an introduction of another culture that is taking away your own authentic beliefs and what you really should be. Because music is where you go to escape it doesn’t matter what your culture is, doesn’t matter what your beliefs are every occasion you have there is music to accompany the occasion. They place a certain music that promotes a certain mentality in the poorer communities. Like in America it’s a music promoting drinking and have a lot of women, and so there is a society that feeds on that and they try to bury artists that show that there is another sound and that that is not the only way to live. So often in society they don’t teach people how to lead themselves, they just teach people how to follow. It’s so they will follow whatever they want them to follow. It spreads through the poor communities the fastest because that’s where the need to feel good is so strong and where they are not happy. Then they see all this about how they should be and how these things would make you feel better. And music is something that makes you feel good that is very powerful and so when you use it the wrong way it can influence more than you think.
You brought a good point about how society as a whole trains you from the day of your birth to not be leaders and follow our own instincts and way of living, but to follow the European, Westernized way, everywhere in the world.
Yes, always looking out of yourself for your answers. If you listen to my music and the message I try to bring, I never try to take on the title of a messenger who is telling you how to live. My message is self, if you look into yourself as an individual and accept yourself with all the faults and the good and all the differences that make you who you are, it makes it much easier to not go looking out. What you see out there is mostly fronts that people put up which they also got from somewhere else that they feel like they should be. To me it’s so important, how you feel when you’re by yourself.
But we have been programmed for so long, we don’t even know who we are and what is really our mind or if it’s the programming that we are hearing when we look inside. People feel the programmed mind is their own mind. They can’t figure out what is the original mind.
That is so true. People know something is wrong, but they don’t know what it is. Everywhere they look there is the promotion of an unrealistic, destructive lifestyle. And I feel like there is a lot more than what we are seeing that is helping to spread this disease of thinking “oh, it’s okay”. In Jamaica a couple days ago a man just chopped a man all over his body and everybody just stood there and watched it. In Chicago a student was beaten to death and everybody just stood there and watched it. I say, “What’s happening to us people? Are we so caught up in our surroundings and everything that’s happening that we forget who we are and who we are supposed to be and how grateful we should be for us to actually be here?”
Right now I feel that more than men, women are the ones who are bringing the positive messages and keeping our culture. Women are very forward thinking, while men seem to be backwards. If you go to an event for preserving the rainforest or protecting the animals it’s mostly women at these events.
Yes, I have been noticing that, and when I see the way the world is right now and how mankind is moving, destroying everything, it reminds me of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I feel like this is happening in the world around me. I keep wondering why people keep going in the direction they are going. Why they can’t see it?
Music has always been a way that people unite and dancing is a part of that. Music is a way that you have a good time with your people. But now there is a negative culture associated with it when music has always been really a positive force.
That’s music! There could not have been a better word to use than music, because when the word is said, all good things come to mind. When you look back from Bob Marley to John Lennon and way back to Nina Simone, music has been about being a positive voice and saying that we as people can coexist peacefully. That is music and you cannot change that gift from the almighty given to everyone. If you notice, there isn’t a color boundary in music, there’s no boundaries in music. If we just look at all the things that there are no boundaries around, there are no boundaries around the sunlight and all of these beautiful things, but there are boundaries on borderlines and warzones.
It all started when civilization first started, the agrarian civilization that started in the Fertile Crescent. “This is my land, this is your land, these are my cows, those are your cows. “ We started to divide property. They started putting boundaries and separating us. “This is my country, this is your country.” It’s all economic now.
And that’s what we use all our knowledge for. I mean we have all this knowledge and overstanding to use at our leisure but all we use it for is to make dangerous bombs, to create poverty, to think about how to rape the Congo. There is nobody to say “okay, if we can make a weapon that can shoot all the way across the world, then and kill everybody in existence then why can’t we can’t just find a love potion that we shoot across the world, that when everybody smells it they say “okay, I don’t want to fight no more”. Why can’t scientists come up with something like that?
What guided you to become so conscious? What influenced you to go in that direction?
I think it’s in all of us to be natural humanitarians, whether or not we activate it is another thing. A lot of times we as humans go through a lot of trials and tribulations and a lot of rough stuff in life. Instead of being grateful for living to tell the tale and share it with somebody that can benefit, we tend to go into self-decay. I think it’s important to know that as human beings that not every thing we are going to do is going to be perfect and give ourselves another chance and learn what it really means to be self confident. It’s stuff like those that has really helped to strength my person and myself, to know that even though there are so many elements that don’t want me to make this sort of music, that teaches people to love themselves and how not to be so dependent on “outside”.
There have been a lot of amazing conscious artists in Dancehall, like Capleton and Sizzla, Junior Kelly, Anthony B, Chuck Fenda. Recently there aren’t very many upcoming artists who are coming with that. Why do you think that is?
That was one of the reasons of my album holding on to this. Even when there have been artists coming with the strong message the system finds ways to manipulate this and get in on it and control it. that’s why it’s so important to remember who you are and know why you are doing what you’re doing in the first place. Are you doing it to just be famous or to make money or do you want to make a change by telling somebody that no matter what you have gone through in life that you can over come it by believing in yourself and understanding why it happened to you. If the system cannot get to you and cannot make you lose track. or as I say “I’m in my lane; you can’t make me go off my lane”, then we can make a change. We have the power to make it happen. With the music too. I think that that is the reason that the world has grabbed onto Barak Obama because he said, “Yes, we can make a change,” and there are millions of us that really believe that the world can be a better place and co-exist. Those are the things you really have to keep in your head and know for a fact who you are so that you don’t get fazed by anything.
When you say co-exist do you mean living peacefully with all the races of other people?
Yes, cause that’s one of the big problems we are having. The Muslims cannot exist with the Christians and the Christians cannot exist with the Buddhists. So on, so forth.
Do you think that’s possible?
Whether or not you accept it they are existing. But you can only try to make it work. There are so many different minds in this Earth. That’s why in certain ways I feel like we are going to see a world that is going to be destroyed because mankind did not settle in. And really look around and see how much the animals co-exist. There is a balance in the earth. Until we look and wrong for what it is and right for what it really is, we are not going to co-exist. Because we are not going to have the same culture, we’re not going to have the same color but at the same time we are have the same color blood, the same way we breathe the same way we kiss or have children. All the problems that you see are created by the human mind manipulating the right of fellow brethrens. It’s like food. If you keep on eating bad food like hamburgers and soda then you will become sick and unhealthy. We keep filling up the earth with bad energy and it’s getting sick. It can’t take much more.
That’s a good point about food. In the African-American community people are eating really badly. I know a lot of people who are only 30 or 40 years old and they’re dying or sick.
I know! It’s unbelievable! It’s like this. Imagine you’re in a slum and all you know is dirt and filth and all this ruble, and then somebody drops a box in the slum. It’s a pretty color and there’s people in and they’re happy and they are going to beautiful restaurants with a big M on it and they’re buying a burger and it looks so good and you’re at home and you’re hungry cause you haven’t eaten a good meal in days, you’ve been munching on whatever. Then you hear that this store is right next door where you can use a dollar to get a meal, and that’s all you have most of the time is a dollar. What do you think you’re going to do with that dollar? And before you know it the entire inner city is going to only want to eat that kind of food, they are not going to want to eat what they used to eat.
The whole image you present in your album is very authentic and original with the tribal drums and chanting. I hope that more artists come forward with a message and sound like what you are bringing. Is this your first album or your second album?
This is my second album actually. We had a first album that was put out called “Fyah Muma”, that was independently put out by us. But now you can get it through VP as well as this album.
Would you say that this album is very different from your first album?
It’s very different. It’s a major label release so it had the opportunity to reach so many more people than it would have. Also in the first album I did a lot more DJaying and stuff and this one I did more singing. The riddims that I used this time had a lot more of maturity level too. I think I’m growing as musician. When someone hears a Queen Ifrica album I don’t want them to hear me trying to sell myself. What I do is very sincere, I want to get the message that I’m trying to get across. Yes, I’m singing and yes, I’m having fun. But at the same time I’m trying to get something across.
I see a lot of musicians in other countries trying to sound like American artists because they think that will help them get popular.
Yes, and if you try to make your music sound like something else because you think that it will sell good then that means that you don’t really care about the music. You care about the money. You love being a musician but not for the right reasons. You like it for the fame and all those kind of things. You love to see yourself on the TV screen. But they don’t love it enough to make it grow into what should be. They look around to see what is popular, thinking that if it’s popular already then they can make it big quickly. There is also a big thing if you are a female artist that sex sells, image comes first then musical talent is second. And I’m like, when did it get to this? I saw where it was a lot of gyrating, and so the young nice girls in Jamaica all wanted to become the next Beyoncé or the next Alicia. Beyoncé and Alicia became themselves first before they became these artists. That’s the problem these new artists have—they don’t know who they are or why they’re doing it. They just want to be famous, and that’s where they fall off. They try too hard. You’re lookin at the video and they’re trying so hard to look sexy! It shows.
It’s sad because music has become so commercial that money and fame come before everything else. In ancient tribal societies we used music in rituals and storytelling to guide our people and heal ourselves.
Lullabies for babies to go to sleep….
Music is supposed to make you happy, and people think that in order to be happy you need money…
Exactly!! That’s why we have people like Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Culture, Luciano, all these artists. They were singing because they had a cause for it. It isn’t many artists that have a cause anymore. They have a talent and they want to expose it, that’s about it. They don’t even stop to think the type of causes that they have, whether they come to heal, whether they come to make love to the people. They don’t know what they have and they use it to do other types of things that don’t even match their characters and what they’re supposed to be doing. They just want to be known. And a lot of the management people that surround these artists, they’re the same: make that money, make that money. When they come to me and I have time to talk with them I’m saying, “Artists don’t do this stuff anymore. I’m surprised to see you stoop to this low.” And all they do is tell you about another artist that let them down. Back in the days that’s not what artists used to do. That’s why their music is so much alive today. Even in the Hip Hop world, the artists didn’t use to be feuding with each other. Public Enemy and people like that, they were about uplifting their people in the inner-city. Maybe they were aggressive in their approach at times, but it was about having a message. We don’t see that anymore in the music, whether it’s Reggae, Dancehall or in Hip Hop music.
When you look at the artists who come with a positive message, you can see that they are happy people. They were making people happy with their music and the energy that came back was beautiful.
They were changing lives! Like a lonely person who shares their loneliness with you, it gives you comfort. That’s what music is supposed to be doing. John Lenin came and did it and they shot him. Anybody that comes saying, “Imagine us living together as a people respecting each other.” “Why are you coming with that message? We don’t want that message. I want to have the biggest phone company and I want you to have to always compete with me. That’s what I want. I don’t want you to tell people how to be strong and how to be respectful and how to love themselves. I want them to drink, I want them to buy my products.” It’s like we’re under arrest as people.
When I hear your music the lyrics are insightful and beautiful. I like to hear what you say. But a lot of the lyrics I hear in music are so meaningless and unoriginal, they just annoy you.
And they’re drinking, going into the studio, not caring, “OK, what’s the riddim? Just throw some words on there and I’m out.” Do you actually appreciate the fact that you were chosen out of billions of others that are here on the earth and you were given the talent? You have a choice and this is what you choose to do. Why are you so ungrateful to a source that would want to give you something so precious?
In traditional cultures it’s the shaman and the healer that plays music and leads the chants for the tribe. In modern society it’s the musicians who play that role, but most of them don’t realize it or see their responsibility.
Exactly. And now we see that when we listen to music the world becomes chaotic. Because that’s what’s happening. The music is used to exploit right across the board, everywhere you turn. Music is being used for exploitation. But you know what it is? It’s like the water. You cannot contain the water, it has to run, and it has to run in a designated place where it’s supposed to run. It doesn’t matter if you build that bank up far, the water is going to run where it wants to run. Even Earth itself works in that way, where it will eventually say, “Enough is enough. You guys step back.”
If humans don’t stop mistreating the Earth, dumping garbage, killing the animals and the trees, the Earth will throw up real soon.
Real soon. I’m not saying that the Mayans were incorrect. It’s in 2012. Really sad, man.
I appreciate the way you recognized yourself to be a queen and took the name Queen Ifrica. You have to have the feeling that you are a queen to call yourself that instead of a whore or a bitch or something like that.
That would be a quick seller too! That name actually came from my Rastafarian background. My mother gave that name to me as a pet name when I was born. She wanted it to be on my birth certificate, but in those days you were not allowed to use any foreign names on your kids’ birth papers. It had to be one of those English names. So she decided to make it my nickname. When I went to live with her she decided to change the “A” to an “I” and made it Ifrica. Everybody had names that started with the letter “I”, and they wanted me to feel part of the family. Queen came along because in the Rastafarian community the men don’t call they’re women ladies or stuff like that. They are called sisters or princess, empress, queen. These are the titles that are given. That’s how I became Queen Ifrica.
The Rasta movement is spreading in Jamaica?
If it actually was spreading in a way that Rasta initially wanted it to spread it would’ve been better. But the fact that people know Rasta and know what Rasta stands for makes a big difference. Music has been used to manipulate what Rasta is perceived as. The youth do see themselves as Rasta and they speak in the language, and they affiliate themselves with the culture of Rasta. Especially in the Universities and in the colleges, young people are exposed to the ideas of Rasta. People are finding out that it’s about people choosing to be closer to Earth and to be children of Earth. That’s what the authentic Rasta beliefs are centered around.
What other artists are doing something similar to you at this time?
There’s a lot of us. There’s Taurus Riley. He has the message that’s very strong there. In the females Sister Etana is coming up real nice. She’s doing that type of message. And there’s a young sister by the name of Natisha Stream. She has performed with me, and she’s doing her own thing now. There’s also Bunny Wailer’s daughter. Her name is Cen’C Love. She’s also coming along the lines of the culture. There are a few coming up.
Do these new artists have CD’s out already?
They have CD’s out. Taurus Riley has a CD out on VP Records. Etana has an album out on VP as well. The others you can find on the internet.
By Black Dog Bone
It seems like lately Dancehall has been sounding more like Rap and R&B. It’s been watered down to fit the American market. I feel like Dancehall is being influenced by American music and losing its originality. When I heard your record I felt that you had a real Jamaican sound, did you do that consciously?
We did it consciously, we had to do it deliberately because there is a lot of encouragement to do much of what you’re suggesting about the more mainstream American sound. One of the main reasons for that is that they were concerned that young people would not
understand a sound that came from the roots. Also it’s a feeling that you can make a more crossover album if you do that. But I feel like the marketplace is very big and that there is space for everything there. Music has no boundaries. It’s not a matter of if you are making a more hip hop sounding album or sticking to your roots, it’s what is the purpose of doing it and if you are true to what you are doing or are you doing because hip hop might be selling more or you are not confident enough in the sound of the authentic roots. So I did this album with the authentic Jamaican sound to show that all music has its place in the market. I wanted to make a point that our music has a place. Even if the more “upgraded” version of the music is promoted more these days you can also keep the roots there that are loved and accepted by everyone. The reason I’m asking that is that you say that there is a place for every music, right? I feel like American music is forced in other countries and people start feeling like that’s the way to go. All the young artists go in that direction and our roots get killed. We lose what is unique in us.
There’s a myth going around that music does not influence the behavior of people, especially young people. That is so untrue. For instance the Hip Hop influence, or the crossover sound as they like to call it, it’s coming in with a culture. It’s coming with culture of party and drinking alcohol, be promiscuous. It’s a package. But the music that is based in the roots that we used to make, and some of us still do, aren’t made to sell alcohol, it’s about teaching young people to respect themselves and how to make choices for yourself. A lot of young people go the other way because when you watch the TV and radio you feel like that’s what’s happening in the world and you want to be a part of it, that that’s the right way to live. But it’s all commercial, it’s all an ad to sell a product, a campaign, an introduction of another culture that is taking away your own authentic beliefs and what you really should be. Because music is where you go to escape it doesn’t matter what your culture is, doesn’t matter what your beliefs are every occasion you have there is music to accompany the occasion. They place a certain music that promotes a certain mentality in the poorer communities. Like in America it’s a music promoting drinking and have a lot of women, and so there is a society that feeds on that and they try to bury artists that show that there is another sound and that that is not the only way to live. So often in society they don’t teach people how to lead themselves, they just teach people how to follow. It’s so they will follow whatever they want them to follow. It spreads through the poor communities the fastest because that’s where the need to feel good is so strong and where they are not happy. Then they see all this about how they should be and how these things would make you feel better. And music is something that makes you feel good that is very powerful and so when you use it the wrong way it can influence more than you think.
You brought a good point about how society as a whole trains you from the day of your birth to not be leaders and follow our own instincts and way of living, but to follow the European, Westernized way, everywhere in the world.
Yes, always looking out of yourself for your answers. If you listen to my music and the message I try to bring, I never try to take on the title of a messenger who is telling you how to live. My message is self, if you look into yourself as an individual and accept yourself with all the faults and the good and all the differences that make you who you are, it makes it much easier to not go looking out. What you see out there is mostly fronts that people put up which they also got from somewhere else that they feel like they should be. To me it’s so important, how you feel when you’re by yourself.
But we have been programmed for so long, we don’t even know who we are and what is really our mind or if it’s the programming that we are hearing when we look inside. People feel the programmed mind is their own mind. They can’t figure out what is the original mind.
That is so true. People know something is wrong, but they don’t know what it is. Everywhere they look there is the promotion of an unrealistic, destructive lifestyle. And I feel like there is a lot more than what we are seeing that is helping to spread this disease of thinking “oh, it’s okay”. In Jamaica a couple days ago a man just chopped a man all over his body and everybody just stood there and watched it. In Chicago a student was beaten to death and everybody just stood there and watched it. I say, “What’s happening to us people? Are we so caught up in our surroundings and everything that’s happening that we forget who we are and who we are supposed to be and how grateful we should be for us to actually be here?”
Right now I feel that more than men, women are the ones who are bringing the positive messages and keeping our culture. Women are very forward thinking, while men seem to be backwards. If you go to an event for preserving the rainforest or protecting the animals it’s mostly women at these events.
Yes, I have been noticing that, and when I see the way the world is right now and how mankind is moving, destroying everything, it reminds me of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I feel like this is happening in the world around me. I keep wondering why people keep going in the direction they are going. Why they can’t see it?
Music has always been a way that people unite and dancing is a part of that. Music is a way that you have a good time with your people. But now there is a negative culture associated with it when music has always been really a positive force.
That’s music! There could not have been a better word to use than music, because when the word is said, all good things come to mind. When you look back from Bob Marley to John Lennon and way back to Nina Simone, music has been about being a positive voice and saying that we as people can coexist peacefully. That is music and you cannot change that gift from the almighty given to everyone. If you notice, there isn’t a color boundary in music, there’s no boundaries in music. If we just look at all the things that there are no boundaries around, there are no boundaries around the sunlight and all of these beautiful things, but there are boundaries on borderlines and warzones.
It all started when civilization first started, the agrarian civilization that started in the Fertile Crescent. “This is my land, this is your land, these are my cows, those are your cows. “ We started to divide property. They started putting boundaries and separating us. “This is my country, this is your country.” It’s all economic now.
And that’s what we use all our knowledge for. I mean we have all this knowledge and overstanding to use at our leisure but all we use it for is to make dangerous bombs, to create poverty, to think about how to rape the Congo. There is nobody to say “okay, if we can make a weapon that can shoot all the way across the world, then and kill everybody in existence then why can’t we can’t just find a love potion that we shoot across the world, that when everybody smells it they say “okay, I don’t want to fight no more”. Why can’t scientists come up with something like that?
What guided you to become so conscious? What influenced you to go in that direction?
I think it’s in all of us to be natural humanitarians, whether or not we activate it is another thing. A lot of times we as humans go through a lot of trials and tribulations and a lot of rough stuff in life. Instead of being grateful for living to tell the tale and share it with somebody that can benefit, we tend to go into self-decay. I think it’s important to know that as human beings that not every thing we are going to do is going to be perfect and give ourselves another chance and learn what it really means to be self confident. It’s stuff like those that has really helped to strength my person and myself, to know that even though there are so many elements that don’t want me to make this sort of music, that teaches people to love themselves and how not to be so dependent on “outside”.
There have been a lot of amazing conscious artists in Dancehall, like Capleton and Sizzla, Junior Kelly, Anthony B, Chuck Fenda. Recently there aren’t very many upcoming artists who are coming with that. Why do you think that is?
That was one of the reasons of my album holding on to this. Even when there have been artists coming with the strong message the system finds ways to manipulate this and get in on it and control it. that’s why it’s so important to remember who you are and know why you are doing what you’re doing in the first place. Are you doing it to just be famous or to make money or do you want to make a change by telling somebody that no matter what you have gone through in life that you can over come it by believing in yourself and understanding why it happened to you. If the system cannot get to you and cannot make you lose track. or as I say “I’m in my lane; you can’t make me go off my lane”, then we can make a change. We have the power to make it happen. With the music too. I think that that is the reason that the world has grabbed onto Barak Obama because he said, “Yes, we can make a change,” and there are millions of us that really believe that the world can be a better place and co-exist. Those are the things you really have to keep in your head and know for a fact who you are so that you don’t get fazed by anything.
When you say co-exist do you mean living peacefully with all the races of other people?
Yes, cause that’s one of the big problems we are having. The Muslims cannot exist with the Christians and the Christians cannot exist with the Buddhists. So on, so forth.
Do you think that’s possible?
Whether or not you accept it they are existing. But you can only try to make it work. There are so many different minds in this Earth. That’s why in certain ways I feel like we are going to see a world that is going to be destroyed because mankind did not settle in. And really look around and see how much the animals co-exist. There is a balance in the earth. Until we look and wrong for what it is and right for what it really is, we are not going to co-exist. Because we are not going to have the same culture, we’re not going to have the same color but at the same time we are have the same color blood, the same way we breathe the same way we kiss or have children. All the problems that you see are created by the human mind manipulating the right of fellow brethrens. It’s like food. If you keep on eating bad food like hamburgers and soda then you will become sick and unhealthy. We keep filling up the earth with bad energy and it’s getting sick. It can’t take much more.
That’s a good point about food. In the African-American community people are eating really badly. I know a lot of people who are only 30 or 40 years old and they’re dying or sick.
I know! It’s unbelievable! It’s like this. Imagine you’re in a slum and all you know is dirt and filth and all this ruble, and then somebody drops a box in the slum. It’s a pretty color and there’s people in and they’re happy and they are going to beautiful restaurants with a big M on it and they’re buying a burger and it looks so good and you’re at home and you’re hungry cause you haven’t eaten a good meal in days, you’ve been munching on whatever. Then you hear that this store is right next door where you can use a dollar to get a meal, and that’s all you have most of the time is a dollar. What do you think you’re going to do with that dollar? And before you know it the entire inner city is going to only want to eat that kind of food, they are not going to want to eat what they used to eat.
The whole image you present in your album is very authentic and original with the tribal drums and chanting. I hope that more artists come forward with a message and sound like what you are bringing. Is this your first album or your second album?
This is my second album actually. We had a first album that was put out called “Fyah Muma”, that was independently put out by us. But now you can get it through VP as well as this album.
Would you say that this album is very different from your first album?
It’s very different. It’s a major label release so it had the opportunity to reach so many more people than it would have. Also in the first album I did a lot more DJaying and stuff and this one I did more singing. The riddims that I used this time had a lot more of maturity level too. I think I’m growing as musician. When someone hears a Queen Ifrica album I don’t want them to hear me trying to sell myself. What I do is very sincere, I want to get the message that I’m trying to get across. Yes, I’m singing and yes, I’m having fun. But at the same time I’m trying to get something across.
I see a lot of musicians in other countries trying to sound like American artists because they think that will help them get popular.
Yes, and if you try to make your music sound like something else because you think that it will sell good then that means that you don’t really care about the music. You care about the money. You love being a musician but not for the right reasons. You like it for the fame and all those kind of things. You love to see yourself on the TV screen. But they don’t love it enough to make it grow into what should be. They look around to see what is popular, thinking that if it’s popular already then they can make it big quickly. There is also a big thing if you are a female artist that sex sells, image comes first then musical talent is second. And I’m like, when did it get to this? I saw where it was a lot of gyrating, and so the young nice girls in Jamaica all wanted to become the next Beyoncé or the next Alicia. Beyoncé and Alicia became themselves first before they became these artists. That’s the problem these new artists have—they don’t know who they are or why they’re doing it. They just want to be famous, and that’s where they fall off. They try too hard. You’re lookin at the video and they’re trying so hard to look sexy! It shows.
It’s sad because music has become so commercial that money and fame come before everything else. In ancient tribal societies we used music in rituals and storytelling to guide our people and heal ourselves.
Lullabies for babies to go to sleep….
Music is supposed to make you happy, and people think that in order to be happy you need money…
Exactly!! That’s why we have people like Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Culture, Luciano, all these artists. They were singing because they had a cause for it. It isn’t many artists that have a cause anymore. They have a talent and they want to expose it, that’s about it. They don’t even stop to think the type of causes that they have, whether they come to heal, whether they come to make love to the people. They don’t know what they have and they use it to do other types of things that don’t even match their characters and what they’re supposed to be doing. They just want to be known. And a lot of the management people that surround these artists, they’re the same: make that money, make that money. When they come to me and I have time to talk with them I’m saying, “Artists don’t do this stuff anymore. I’m surprised to see you stoop to this low.” And all they do is tell you about another artist that let them down. Back in the days that’s not what artists used to do. That’s why their music is so much alive today. Even in the Hip Hop world, the artists didn’t use to be feuding with each other. Public Enemy and people like that, they were about uplifting their people in the inner-city. Maybe they were aggressive in their approach at times, but it was about having a message. We don’t see that anymore in the music, whether it’s Reggae, Dancehall or in Hip Hop music.
When you look at the artists who come with a positive message, you can see that they are happy people. They were making people happy with their music and the energy that came back was beautiful.
They were changing lives! Like a lonely person who shares their loneliness with you, it gives you comfort. That’s what music is supposed to be doing. John Lenin came and did it and they shot him. Anybody that comes saying, “Imagine us living together as a people respecting each other.” “Why are you coming with that message? We don’t want that message. I want to have the biggest phone company and I want you to have to always compete with me. That’s what I want. I don’t want you to tell people how to be strong and how to be respectful and how to love themselves. I want them to drink, I want them to buy my products.” It’s like we’re under arrest as people.
When I hear your music the lyrics are insightful and beautiful. I like to hear what you say. But a lot of the lyrics I hear in music are so meaningless and unoriginal, they just annoy you.
And they’re drinking, going into the studio, not caring, “OK, what’s the riddim? Just throw some words on there and I’m out.” Do you actually appreciate the fact that you were chosen out of billions of others that are here on the earth and you were given the talent? You have a choice and this is what you choose to do. Why are you so ungrateful to a source that would want to give you something so precious?
In traditional cultures it’s the shaman and the healer that plays music and leads the chants for the tribe. In modern society it’s the musicians who play that role, but most of them don’t realize it or see their responsibility.
Exactly. And now we see that when we listen to music the world becomes chaotic. Because that’s what’s happening. The music is used to exploit right across the board, everywhere you turn. Music is being used for exploitation. But you know what it is? It’s like the water. You cannot contain the water, it has to run, and it has to run in a designated place where it’s supposed to run. It doesn’t matter if you build that bank up far, the water is going to run where it wants to run. Even Earth itself works in that way, where it will eventually say, “Enough is enough. You guys step back.”
If humans don’t stop mistreating the Earth, dumping garbage, killing the animals and the trees, the Earth will throw up real soon.
Real soon. I’m not saying that the Mayans were incorrect. It’s in 2012. Really sad, man.
I appreciate the way you recognized yourself to be a queen and took the name Queen Ifrica. You have to have the feeling that you are a queen to call yourself that instead of a whore or a bitch or something like that.
That would be a quick seller too! That name actually came from my Rastafarian background. My mother gave that name to me as a pet name when I was born. She wanted it to be on my birth certificate, but in those days you were not allowed to use any foreign names on your kids’ birth papers. It had to be one of those English names. So she decided to make it my nickname. When I went to live with her she decided to change the “A” to an “I” and made it Ifrica. Everybody had names that started with the letter “I”, and they wanted me to feel part of the family. Queen came along because in the Rastafarian community the men don’t call they’re women ladies or stuff like that. They are called sisters or princess, empress, queen. These are the titles that are given. That’s how I became Queen Ifrica.
The Rasta movement is spreading in Jamaica?
If it actually was spreading in a way that Rasta initially wanted it to spread it would’ve been better. But the fact that people know Rasta and know what Rasta stands for makes a big difference. Music has been used to manipulate what Rasta is perceived as. The youth do see themselves as Rasta and they speak in the language, and they affiliate themselves with the culture of Rasta. Especially in the Universities and in the colleges, young people are exposed to the ideas of Rasta. People are finding out that it’s about people choosing to be closer to Earth and to be children of Earth. That’s what the authentic Rasta beliefs are centered around.
What other artists are doing something similar to you at this time?
There’s a lot of us. There’s Taurus Riley. He has the message that’s very strong there. In the females Sister Etana is coming up real nice. She’s doing that type of message. And there’s a young sister by the name of Natisha Stream. She has performed with me, and she’s doing her own thing now. There’s also Bunny Wailer’s daughter. Her name is Cen’C Love. She’s also coming along the lines of the culture. There are a few coming up.
Do these new artists have CD’s out already?
They have CD’s out. Taurus Riley has a CD out on VP Records. Etana has an album out on VP as well. The others you can find on the internet.
