Thursday, 5th February 2015 (Anguilla, BWI) —Food War Album, Jamaican Reggae/Dub Poet RasTakura Project: The completion of this Food War Project is the true fulfilment of a very long standing desire. However, I have no regrets of the fact that it took me almost a decade in the business to present my first full album. I think now is the most appropriate time and I could not pay for the lesson that I learned during this passage of time since our people have become more aware of the work that I am doing and also of the sensitive topics that I have covered on this project. This album relates to food security, modern agriculture and the impact of GMO interferences with the natural environment.
This seventeen (17) track project covers a wide variety of topics yet maintains the core message of “Food War/Food Security”. The first poem on the album, ‘The Science of Agriculture’ is my first piece that I have written in regards to food security. I wrote this while I was a second year student at the College of Agriculture, Science, and Education (CASE) in Jamaica. This poem features Mutabaruka who has always been an inspiration for me, and more like a father figure. DJ Lanz of the Jamin Recording Studio in Trench Town composed the track, which is where a lot of the final work on this project was done. The second track is titled ‘Plantain’ or maybe I should say, ‘ She Love the Plantain’. This is the first poem that I conjured in my head while on my way to a farm and did not have any physical means of writing it. The poem speaks of the passionate love that women have for the farm produce, plantain, that ‘ she say she haffi get the plantain‘. Number 3 on the album speaks to putting down the gun and ‘meck we farm up the ground ‘, while tracks 4 to 7 explore other topics.
Track 4, ’ You in My Life‘, features Jhmiela Smith, the sweetest singing Queen in Jamaica at the moment. She is the daughter of the legendary Earl Chinna Smith and she often times appears with him and the Inna d Yard Crew. Track 5 entitled, ‘In Search Of’ puts into perspective a historical journey across Jamaica on the invitation of the Running African—The IRIE FM team. It was such a moment in time for me and I could not allow it to pass without having it recorded. ‘Her Majesty’s Prison’ is next in line, which is a poem that was written in the time of the unknown sniper in USA, who later turned out to be Lee Boyd Malvo. However, it was inspired out of a conversation that I was having with a group of students at a tertiary institution where a student was expressing that she wanted to do drug smuggling after leaving college. I would encourage everyone to listen to this poem even if they don’t get the album.
Track 7 features ‘Face Your Life’, and number 8 is the title track of the album ‘Food War’ while 9 is entitled, “Mi Caan Believe ‘. The latter is a tribute to one of the First Poets, Mikey Smith and also a tribute to the late Mario Dean who was killed in the hands of the state after being arrested for a ganja spliff in 2014 in modern Jamaica. ‘Ganja Plant‘, is track 10 and it features the Poet Steppa, who is like my brother from the time I met him on the university campus in 2003, which is about the same time I wrote my part of that poem, after hearing Vybes Kartel’s ‘ First ting mi do when mi wake up, bun high grades fi mi nerves fuss, send on and no badder heng on‘. Track 11 is in honour of the lives of Black women across the Pan-African world, while 12 gives the deepest truth about the biological weapon in the form of HIV that has been plaguing the human race. Number 13 gives a historical overview of the earthquake that destroyed Haiti in 2010.
Track 14, features the ‘I and I‘ generation will make the change. This poem speaks of the potential of this generation to harness the energy that is important to create the change for a better world for people to live in. ‘King Selassie I‘ is track 15, then 16 is called ‘Jamaican Food: Make you food be your medicine‘, which may be one of the poems that RasTakura is best known for since it has been among my first recordings that started to get radio attention. Track 17 seals up this Food War Project by speaking of ‘Praedial Larceny’…exposing the dilemma of the farmer who spends hours of hard labour establishing and caring for his farm, only to have someone who doesn’t want to plant, but comes only to reap and steal. So let me invite you to seek out this Reggae Dub Poetry Food War Album and treat yourself to a ‘listen‘. It will be in all online stores and traditional record shops. Share it with your family and friends, because we exist in a time of biological warfare and I want my people to be prepared as Marcus Garvey once said, ‘to be forewarned is to be forearmed’. So get yourself a copy of the Food War Album, which features artistry at its best. Buy on all online stores at www.cdbaby.com, www.itunes.com and www.amazon.com.
RasTakura was one of the distinguished Caribbean authors who gave presentations at the Anguilla Lit Fest and Her Majesty’s Prison on Anguilla in May 2014. Kay M Ferguson (aka Empress Extraordinaire) is a local inspired author, new poet and social commentator, who served as a liaison for Jamaican Reggae/Dub Poet RasTakura during his first visit to ‘tranquillity wrapped in blue’. For additional information on the album and the artiste, please contact RasTakura at 1 876 573 1851 or email rastakura@yahoo.com. To link with this Royal African Soldier via social media, you can reach him at www.twitter.com/RasTakura or www.facebook.com/RasTakura.
– Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
