R.I.P. Mikey Dread

[mnaz]

Reggae pulsed from an old radio dial
on a misty shore before digital divide.
Dread was saying Skip, skip-a-dip skip,
skip-a-dip-a-dip skip-a-dip skip schoool.
Remember your roots and culture.

Then it all went needle scratch,
blind heat, buzz bombs, plastic faces,
mind plants and noise, broken records
melting under rising silicon tides,
voices locked in blocks of digits.

In the beginning were land and roots,
then Money came to sell them all off,
to replace all religions with his own,
until waters ran red in poison rain,
and gangs rose to loot until the end.

Freedom accounts went past due.
Contracts piled up in sludge heaps.
The water, the water! It ran redder.
And then the pulse seeped in again.
Roots and culture, roots and culture.

[mtmynd]

Roots and culture... at once a connection to our familial past while conversely the biggest problem collectively for the hu'man race that stalls progress with it's simplicity to never forget that past, fearful of losing touch that's only imagined, never the reality. This is ingrained in that collective mindset we all seem to be bound to for no definite purpose other than "we like our roots" (but could never live that way!).

[mnaz]

Yes, a conundrum. Find deeper roots, perhaps. More of the totality. Stop trying to buy salvation on escalating credit, rape, political radioactivity and the resultant growing piles of toxic sludge coming from it all ...

[mtmynd]

Right on, amigo!

[mnaz]

... caught my attention, the sound,
Mikey Dread with the majestic rhythm,
lyrics of trying to come to grips with new freedoms,
out of Jamaica in '79, those turbulent '60s and '70s,
the beginnings and struggles of new independence,
the power struggles, political wars (literally- wars) ...
and if read in a wide-angle view, they could be lyrics to
the mother-ship, deep roots, cosmic culture
and the horns, god those mighty horns
in the mix ...

[Doreen Peri]

I like the piece! Good writing!

Did you write it when he died in 2008 or did you write it recently? Just curious.

[mnaz]

Thanks Doreen. Just recently. Music has changed so much in such a (relatively) short time. Just a flash of "nostalgia" for a big tune here, which somehow grew into these musins' (probably a bit too many of 'em packed in)...

[mnaz]

Oh, and it was..

"Skep, skebbe-dep skep, skebbe-debbe dep skebbe-dep skep scoye..."
at least on one lyric page I found ...