INTERVIEW : LUCIANO
Interview by : La rédaction
Pictures by : Benoit Collin
on Tuesday, March 11th 2008 - 12 797 views
His stage name, of Italian origin, means "born in the light". A role that Luciano takes very seriously, as his new album, "Jah is My Navigator", comes out on VP. The Messenjah hasn't budged an inch: with humility, rarely speaking in the first person, he still preaches a positive and constructive message, and does not mince his words about certain artists of the new generation, whom he calls "messengers of death".
According to him, they are directly responsible for a perversion of the youth and for the climate of violence in Jamaica. A somewhat simplistic point of view that should not be taken at face value, any more than when Luciano pleads for "a theocratic government, a divine order" in the United States, a position paradoxically shared by the most bigoted American conservatives, even at the risk of shocking most of his European listeners.
Reggaefrance / You're back with a new album, "Jah is my navigator".
Luciano / It's an album we've been working on for seven months now. Dean Fraser is the producer and Joel Chin of VP made sure everything went smoothly. I thank everyone who took part in the album for their work: the musicians, the Firehouse crew, the Jah Messenjah Band, the engineers, the backing singers... A lot of people. The title track was written by Tarrus Riley: we invited a few writers onto this album. I think the timing is perfect for the release of "Jah is my navigator" in February. February is quite simply the right time to release this album because there's the "Black History Month" event and, nowadays, February is reggae month in Jamaica. At that time we also celebrate the births of Bob Marley and Dennis Brown. This month of February is therefore very significant for us.
Dean Fraser is the producer of this album. Is that a change from the Xterminator years?
When I was working with Fattis (Philip Burrell) at Xterminator, Dean Fraser was secretly behind all of it, a producer behind the scenes, working on the harmonies, the "overdubs" and of course the saxophone. He has been with me forever; even in 1993, when I arrived at Xterminator, he was already there. On tour, he was my musical director. We have been working together for a very long time. Working with Dean Fraser in the studio can only bring out the best. He is simply one of the best musicians one can be given the chance to work with: his presence is always a great honour.
Do you miss the period when you worked with Sizzla, Fattis, Mikey General?
Mister Fraser was with us. It was a time when we had decided to embark on our own business, we had decided to have our own productions, Jah Messenjah Productions, like the three Mikey General albums, the last of which, "Confidence in self", has a title that speaks for itself. It recalls Marcus Garvey's teachings on self-confidence. We try to focus on and help young people, new talents like Milton Blake or Babatunde. The Xterminator crew started to break through and we began touring in 1993 with Sizzla, Kulcha Knox, Shadow Man, Jesse Gender, Ragnampiza, Mikey General, Fattis and myself. It always went well on the road. But from time to time, the rivers part for a while and sometimes come together again later, before reaching the sea. We had reached an age where we realised we could set up our own label. We released "Wisdom, knowledge and overstanding" and "Luciano ultimate collection". We became more mature and decided to take our business in hand.
You're something of a veteran today. How do you see the new generation?
I'm very happy to see this new generation of messengers. It's truly a feeling of hope. Etana, Queen Ifrica, Tarrus Riley, Richie Spice, all these great artists who are making their mark. Honestly, we can only be grateful, because many people thought that "roots & culture" would be dead by now, because of dancehall. We couldn't afford to let our music follow the trends of dancehall: they carry too much negativity, rivalry, violence. We can't support those trends. I think reggae is truly destined to educate people, to remind them of their roots so that they stay focused. That is what Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer, Jimmy Cliff, Beres Hammond or the I-Threes left us... They built wonderful foundations for us. The best we can do is carry on in the same traditions, keep the music positive and cultural, and preserve that message. Garnett Silk put it very rightly: music is a rod ("music is a rod"), it is the voice of our fathers, like Moses and Aaron, leading the people towards the promised land.
Precisely, Garnett Silk was confronted with "slackness" in his day and fought that trend, and today the context seems similar, with some artists singing about Selassie and guns in the same rhyme...
There is no doubt that there is double talk among our Rasta brethren. You can't say "messenjah", Selassie and at the same time talk about someone who has to die, about big guns... That's double talk. The Bible teaches that you cannot have two masters. It's one or the other: if you want to be a gangster, go ahead, but you can't be a gangster and a Rasta. Being Rasta means being in the service of His Majesty. These youths come with a very different spirit.
You've released a lot of albums in recent years. Aren't you afraid of saturating the market?
Actually, most of the albums come out because people ask me to take part in projects. I don't realise I have that many songs coming out. But the demand is so great that it never stops. It's like a river: the flow is uninterrupted, but you never think there's too much water, even when the tide is high. You just want to dive in! It's the same with inspiration: it comes to me constantly and I let it express itself. Some of my associates tell me to slow down, to stop singing for a year. A year? Imagine a bird that couldn't sing... I couldn't see myself in that situation. I was sent here to deliver a message. Who knows? It may be the final countdown or the last call, as I say in a song. We have now entered a technological era and we don't know how long it will last. But we do know that we are heading towards self-destruction. We have to try to use this technology to spread a positive message through the MySpaces, the websites... To let people know that Good triumphs over Evil. We can defuse some of these tensions that we see boiling. If we carry on towards that environment, that mentality, we will all end up blind in this community.
Is there a particular producer you would like to work with?
So far, we've done good work. And I'm grateful for that. When everything is going well, you don't need to look elsewhere, to look for other people, when your own are already working. Marcus Garvey taught us independence. We are working on it: we have our own band, our producers, our studios. If a producer comes to me with a project, fine, but so far the magic is working, and we are going to make sure it carries on like this.
And among artists?
I'd love to work with R'n'B artists, the more cultural ones at least, like Alicia Keys, for example. I like her vibrations; you can see she loves her roots. There's also Anthony Hamilton, Wyclef Jean... But I don't know what happened to his dreadlocks (laughs).
For the first time, a woman or an African American will be a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. Do you think it will make a difference?
If you look at history, you see that England has been ruled by a woman for a long time, Queen Elizabeth. Jamaica has had a taste of it too with Ms Portia Simpson. Now Hillary Clinton can aspire to the presidency. It's a prophecy coming true: the Bible says that women will take power. But when a leader is elected, the government isn't just him. There are advisers, the private sector, everyone plays a role. At the top, you need someone with a cool head.
I think that if... what's his name again? Barrack Obama? It's a really nice name, I should write a song about it! If he becomes president, then the United States will be a better country to live in. We need a peaceful president. The United States is very powerful, but if they don't use their gift the right way, it can turn against them and become a curse on the nation. There are so many great cities, empires that have collapsed: Atlantis, Sodom and Gomorrah... If the president doesn't govern according to the principles of the Almighty, that Judgement will sweep America away. So we hope for a president who would have a theocratic government, of a divine order, according to the principles of spirituality. This blood spilled, this money wasted, benefit none of us. No Third World country can get anything good out of it.
You sing Sweet Jamaica. How sweet is Jamaica?
I sing "give me back my sweet Jamaica" because Jamaica isn't as sweet as it used to be. It's like a beautiful fruit that has grown well but rots before it has been harvested. That is what is happening to Jamaica right now. Some deejays have a lot to answer for. Why do I condemn them? When Jah sends musicians across the world, it's so that they inspire people. We are supposed to be mediators between God and the people. The message comes through us to inspire people. All of a sudden, there are these messengers of death, these artists who come and sing about guns, about bombs, killing, fighting for a position, in songs. We should be singing about the unification of peoples, repatriation, those things. We Jamaicans are a people who were in slavery, and what have we done with our freedom, our emancipation? It's a joke, a real joke.
I think the government needs to take serious measures right now to clean up the music. The record industry can't do it, any more than the elders of the music community can. The government must propose laws for everyone's benefit, and especially for the youngest. They become rebellious, cruel... They say that music doesn't hurt people, but that's false! With violent films, music or video games, these children learn cruelty from a very early age... These things send an image into young minds, they grow up with it and no longer feel anything. We must start cleaning up the music, whatever it is, and the films that are allowed for children too. Adequate parental guidance must be put in place to keep the situation under control. But if the children are left alone in front of all these channels... These children don't need that. The elders must take the time to be parental guides: check bags when they come back from school, check their music. We need to know our children, we need to have more control over them.
In 1996, Sizzla opened your concerts, then it was Junior Kelly's turn. These artists gave impressive performances and were appreciated at the time. Do you plan to take young artists on the road as your opening acts?
Yes, from time to time we collaborate, because it is a form of collaboration; we give young people the chance to open our concerts. I'm looking for a female singer so as to have at least one woman in the Jah Messenjah Camp. We have Milton Blake, whom we're focusing on and who will be on the road with us. He's a very good singer, I feel the spirit of the messenger in him. We also need a deejay. We just want good singers to promote. Before, we had a crew with Mikey General and everything went well. We started out seven strong and the group grew. I had a vision one day of everyone in a canoe, Sizzla, Kulcha Man, Jesse Gender, Ragnampiza... And they were all jumping off the raft: in the end, only Mikey General and I were left. It really did happen like that. I feel that the way Sizzla has strayed from the true musical tradition is not good for him. People know him as a cultural artist: he should stay that way.
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