INTERVIEW : BUSHMAN
Interview by : Nicolas Swartebroeks
Pictures by : Camille Frich
on Wednesday, August 06th 2008 - 9 079 views
Keen to develop his career in complete independence, Bushman told us in 2004 of his wish to produce his own music through his label Burning Bushes. That was already the case for the album "Signs", released the same year, and it is so again for his new album, "Get it in your mind". As the Medecine Man was passing through France, we could not miss the chance to take stock of his new life as a producer, his achievements and his plans.
Reggaefrance / As with “Signs”, you produced your latest album, “Get It in Your Mind”, yourself; how did this album come about?
Bushman / “Get It in Your Mind” came out of a collaboration with different producers like Donovan Germain (Penthouse), myself, Jah Win, Gully, Joe Gibbs’s son whom we call Gibbo… The idea was to do one song per producer, then compile them. We listened to the opinions of the people around us, people who work for Burning Bushes, friends, family.
Do you regret choosing independence? We imagine it’s harder…
It’s a challenge. When you do it by yourself, it demands more of you financially, physically and spiritually. You have to find investors and use the best strategies to get where you want.
Do you intend to release albums by other artists on your label or to concentrate on your own tracks?
We’ve already produced artists on Burning Bushes but we’re trying to find international distributors able to invest in the label to carry these projects through. You know, it’s like starting from a blank sheet, but we have a few artists like Mojah Herbs, Higha Lion, I Lue… I Lue’s album will in fact be one of the priorities for the Burning Bushes label. I’m featuring on his album; we already had a song on one of my albums and since then he’s joined the team of artists that Burning Bushes promotes. He’s really an artist I want to put at the forefront.
The last time we met, in 2004, you told us you wanted to work with lots of producers; have you made that wish come true?
Well, not exactly, it’s still on its way. We haven’t covered half of the producers I wanted to work with. We’re thinking of international collaborations, six months of the year in Europe with different producers and six months in the United States. It’s the discovery of other ways of working, of new ideas, and I’m always ready to learn.
Which producers would you like to work with today?
Well, Oral Boomers in Ireland and General in the United States. He works with artists like Jay Z, for example, and we’re collaborating on a song called Silverado that I wrote a while ago, as it dates from 1989. He took it back to the United States and worked on it, remixed it… He played it to me not long ago and he suggested I come to the USA to work on reggae fusion. We’re still working on it. What we want to do with Burning Bushes is something different from other producers. That’s why I decided to set up this label, because producers in Jamaica think about their own interests, not the artist’s. They’re more interested in the lure of profit, not in the artistic approach.
You told us you wanted to take up the guitar; you must have become quite a guitarist since…
Yes, I do a bit, but because of my work, it’s not progressing as fast as I’d like. I need to learn more. When you reach a certain level, you need someone even better to teach you other things, but the system is such that in Jamaica everything costs money... But when you pay someone to do something, it doesn’t necessarily come from the heart.
With guitarists like Jahlonzo or Earl Chinna Smith, you must have picked up a few little tricks, no?
I did learn a few tricks, but what makes you good on stage is self-confidence and I’m still a bit too shy to pick up my guitar in front of an audience.
I know you’re close to Luciano; how did you meet him?
I met him in a dubplate studio, because like every Jamaican artist, when he makes money, even abroad, he gives a tenth of it to other artists to help them... Buju Banton, Anthony B and many others do that, that’s how you meet other artists. One day Luciano heard one of my dubplates in a studio. At the time my artist name was Junior Melody. He asked the sound engineer whether I was around and he came to see me, saying “my lord, come out of your castle to fight with me against the devil, Jah! Rastafari!”.
Is it because of your weakness at football that you were able to launch your career?
(laughs) Well, at that time I only had one pair of boots, big boots that I wore everywhere. If people improvised a game of football, I played in my boots. That’s what happened, I kept… stepping on the feet of Steely (of Steely & Cleevie, editor’s note); he teased me about it, I told him I hadn’t come to play football but to sing. He asked me to sing a little something for him. After the first a cappella, he asked me for a second, then he told me to go to his studio to listen to a few riddims. It was very cold in the studio, around 16° because of the air conditioning. We recorded the first track in one take, and that’s how, two weeks after Luciano’s blessing, my professional career began.
In 2004, you told us you also had a five-album deal with VP; is the deal still valid?
No, I no longer have a deal with VP, we broke the contract in 2004. You know, for Rastas you don’t dream, you have visions of what you want to do, and that was the case for “Signs”: I wanted a completely live album. In all my interviews, I talk about Bob Marley’s music still sounding fresh after so many years. I wanted to bring that quality back to reggae, so we made the album with my musicians, all the tracks live, because my vision was to be able to reproduce the live album on stage, with no difference from the album. I thought my fans would be happy that way.
VP has a market in dancehall in Europe, but has always neglected reggae. When we met in 2004, we were touring to boost album sales, that’s the point of touring. But we couldn’t even give you a CD, we had nothing to do promotion with. For me, the contract was broken. When I went to see them about Buckingham Palace, I had the vision of a video in a 70s style: we wanted to shoot it in England with people with afro haircuts, dancing in the streets as they walked towards Buckingham Palace. But they had no money for my project. I sent them a notice explaining why and how they had broken the contract. It took me almost a year to get out of that contract. The problem with VP is that they don’t follow their artists: you don’t see them until you’ve finished your project, no calls, nothing at all. When we got out of that contract, we compiled singles made with different producers to give something fresh to my fans: that’s the album “Get It in Your Mind”.
When I went to see Donovan Germain (Penthouse) to talk about making an album, “Bushman Sings the Bush Doctor”, Donovan thought the idea was great. When we finished the project, VP wanted to buy it. Yet we had offered it to them beforehand and they weren’t interested! That shows how VP works.
What are your impressions of dancehall, being so popular in Jamaica, and the new artists coming out of that scene?
Well, music is life, it’s the best teacher. When someone can’t read, they can listen to music and learn. But when you start making demonic music to make people kill each other, it’s not good. You know, crime has risen in an impressive way in Jamaica. The new artists take their inspiration from what happens in the street, hence the gun tunes. That’s how the fake Rastas make money, that’s how you get a big forward in Jamaica: you talk about guns and about screwing women hard.
For me, music has to give you a positive message. Gun tunes and slackness tunes are the devil’s music. I’ll never change my style to sing that kind of track, it only makes my work nobler even though I draw my inspiration from many different styles and I like lots of styles. Dancehall brings nothing. I’ll always be the Bushman, the one who sings culture and smokes his spliffs while giving a positive message.
The audience doesn’t want to listen to roots in Jamaica?
No, people don’t want to listen to roots at the moment in Jamaica, but abroad people sing my songs by heart. In Europe people are more open to roots and I have more opportunities to perform abroad than in Jamaica. Thanks to the Europeans who recognise themselves in my songs. It shows me that I’m not making a mistake by singing conscious music.
There is now a curfew in Jamaica; what do you think?
I think it’s stupid. When the curfew begins, people can’t get home as they please. In Jamaica, there’s no public transport like in Europe, it’s a Third World country. There are no police on the streets to protect you, no buses, metro or taxis at late hours. In the United States, no problem, in Europe the same. By the way, I got caught on a train with a bit of weed. Instead of arresting me, the customs officer said to me “here it’s forbidden, you could get into trouble so, so that you don’t have any trouble, come with me”, and he threw it in the toilet and let me go. Which goes to show that even in Babylon there are good people.
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