INTERVIEW
Interview & pictures : Filip Flatau
Reggaefrance / Can you tell us how you started out as a deejay?
Beenie Man / I started music while I was still a child.
Professionally, at the age of 5.
From the age of 3, I started to speak properly and to sing at the same time. I was a child who couldn't talk, I was a child who sang, and I played with words all the time. Everything I said, I sang. When I went to the grocer's to buy 1 pound of sugar, I'd say it by toasting.
Around the age of 5, I decided not to do reggae, because there were Ziggy Marley and The Melody Makers, who were children like me, and there were also the Musical Youth from Birmingham, who were doing reggae too. I chose to take the ragga side of all that.
When I started at the age of 5, I did my first sound system right opposite my house. I had to wait for my parents to fall asleep, at two in the morning. I slipped quietly out of the house and went to the dance. Johny Ringo (a veteran Jamaican deejay) was there, on the mic. I tugged at his trousers; he thought I was a lost child, so he said on the mic: "There's a lost child here with me, if the parents are here, please come and fetch him." He gave me the mic to tell people what my name was, then I told him the reason for my visit. I told him I wasn't lost and that I was there as a deejay; and then he replied: "Deejay?!? You... deejay???", because I was really small.
Then he told me to show what I could do. The selecta then dropped the riddim, I got on it: the dance started to explode.
But at that time, I didn't have a deejay name like now: it was the people who gave me that name, because at the sound systems, I never introduced myself, I was just a "lost child" who came to sing on the mic. The downside was that my brother and my sister were at the dance, and I didn't know it; I thought they were asleep too. It was the greatest thing they ever did for me: my brother came up to me and said: "I was at the sound yesterday, and I saw you, it's not good: you shouldn't have been there... but you were brilliant." So we struck a deal, whereby every time they went to a dance, they would take me with them. We'd agreed that, if it went like that, my mother would be fine with it; but my mother thought they were a bad influence on me.
My mother was very protective, for various reasons: I was premature, I was born at home, whereas the rest of my family were born in hospital. My mother was coming home from work when she felt the pain coming, so I was born in her bed, then I was taken to hospital in an incubator to survive. Illnesses often come when you're 5 or 6, so she always kept an eye on me. She was my guardian angel. From the age of 6, I went to primary school. In my head, I was a man. I used to do my shows on Friday and Saturday nights, since on Sunday you had to go to bed early, because school started again the next day.
At the age of 8, I received an invitation to take part in a Talent Show, but that year it was rebroadcast on the radio and on TV. That's when my mother saw that I wasn't a rubbish artist, but a real deejay. I went on stage, I did my show: there were 60 contestants, including deejays, comedians, dub poets, all in the same competition.
Then I won: a spot on national television, and my mother jumped for joy all over the house. As soon as I won that contest, I got a contract to record for one of the biggest Jamaican labels of the time: Volcano, of Junjo Laws. I went without hesitation, because all I had to do was redo the words I'd done at the contest. It wasn't very hard, because I still had those lyrics in my head. When I arrived at the studio, they played me the same riddim that was at the contest, which put me even more at ease! The tune came out a week later and went to number one in the Jamaican charts.
I was then a child star: "a child star", who went to school. When I went to a sound, I was Beenie Man; when I went to class, I was Moses. I had lots of friends, but I was rather a loner, I didn't much like friends. My brothers and I went to the same school, and we always kept the family side of things. We didn't need protecting, we protected ourselves; we weren't involved in violent actions, we were normal kids. My father was a rastaman, and if you did something wrong, you got your backside kicked in front of everybody at the school gates. So we had to be well-behaved children.
Then I got a deal to make a 10-song album, but I already had at least 25 lyrics prepared. I got up on Sunday morning, then went to the studio, where I sang all day. It took me one day to make the album, because all the riddims were already ready.
For my 10th birthday, on 27 August, the producer took me to Jammys to take the photos for the sleeve. He told me: "The album is coming out soon, it's going to be called The Ten Years Old Deejay." The album came out in England first, then when it came out in Jamaica, that's when I became a big star. I started going abroad, going on tour. But there was a problem: I couldn't go on tour and go to school at the same time. My parents were worried, because I had to finish my studies. At the age of 14, I came back to Jamaica to finish my studies: I graduated from the University of the West Indies and then decided to go back into music. It was a bit slower for success to come back at the time, because there were lots of young people doing the same thing as me. It took me 3 years to find and assert my style.
I did a song at the age of 20, for the soundtrack of "Who's the Man". I won 1 million Jamaican dollars for that tune.
At the age of 17, I was living on my own. (At the age of 9 I was taking care of my mother.)
At 20: I was a millionaire; that was 7 years ago. In 1992, I had a breakthrough in Jamaica, with the song "Bad Man Wicked Man". I was very controversial for that tune. I said to myself: "Damn, is this what music is now?" Because the music evolved in Jamaica in the 70s, then in the 80s and now still, in the 90s; it's bad spirit that reigns, nobody wants to see you succeed. But I didn't stop there... My first competition was with Bounty Killer. I calmed him down the first time, then he came back. And so on, until he decided to stop the competition with me.
I've had so many awards in my life; I was also nominated for 2 Grammy awards. I was in New York in 1997, when Who Am I came out, and I was saying to myself "Yeah, Who am I, that's really strong"; it was number 1 in Jamaica at that time.
But in America, it wasn't doing so well. I went to Downin Stadium to do a show, then I met Capleton. On stage he said: "Sim Simma, man got the keys to Beenie Man bimma." I walked off the stage. People were saying: "That's it, it's going to be war." I went back on stage and asked the crowd who they had come to see that night. They answered "Beenie Man", so I retorted "If you want to see me sing tonight: get this guy off the stage." It was the biggest riot I've ever seen. People were rushing from the very back of the crowd. When I went back on stage, I put on the fire.
When I got back to Jamaica, I certainly didn't wait at the airport. I slipped away, facing some forty bobo dreads who were bawling that they wanted to kill me... I had to make myself very small, cross the crowd and go to my car, and as I was heading to my car, someone held me back and hit me in the face. That's when I realised these people are violent. When I left the place, I could see them getting worked up with machetes...
I told myself I didn't want to be mixed up in these stories.
Until the Rebel Salute show (a big concert organised by Tony Rebel), I went to the countryside to see Capleton sing, because I had never seen him before he became hyped (fashionable).
On the way back, I stopped to get some air. There were two bobo dreads there: one with a gun and the other with a sort of whip. I tried to talk to the one with the gun: "You're a bobo dread, you're not supposed to do violent things," and the other guy whipped me brutally in the face. I had to run off into the hills, then they set off looking for me. But I was dressed in black that day. I was terrified, I lay down and waited; the exact words they said were: "This Boy a dis the Prophet so we haffi kill him": "This guy disrespected the Prophet (Capleton), so we have to kill him."
When morning came, I ran to my car and from there I went straight to Kingston. I didn't want to tell anyone, until my manager came to see me in the morning and asked me to tell him the story. My wife started to cry, because she didn't even know I had gone to the show. After that I decided to tell her; it wasn't an easy moment. People around me wanted to kill Capleton. I told myself: "Leave vengeance to God," because it's not good to take revenge. All I do is not get mixed up with them, I don't call them or anything like that.
One of your latest tunes on the Bellyas riddim (see the interview with Ward 21), "Heights of Great Man", is precisely about Capleton?
Yes, "More Prayer", to protect my family and those around me. Because when a guy says "Fire" to you, he's thinking of the devil, the dragon. And as Selassie said: "Kill the dragon, because the dragon creates the fire", every man should be made of water. So, you know that what they do is diabolical. I have nothing to do with the devil, so I take things calmly and I let the devil pass with his diabolical music. You see, I'm an international artist, and my work in dancehall is really important all over the world, it makes no sense to stop someone's work by trying to kill him. So first of all I left VP Records. No argument, I just did the tune "Heights of Great Man" to let him know that you only get what you want by working, you don't kill someone for it.
Do you think there's too much fire?
His stuff is his stuff, my stuff is my stuff. If he wants to say "fire", I say "prayer". Besides, 13:38 31/05/00 the Fireman is the one who stops the fire, not the one who spreads it, so their vision is stupid.
Can you tell us more about your next album?
Art & Life is great, we worked hard on this album, to really try to keep a Jamaican sound, but an international one too. This album sounds less dancehall, because all my albums have had a dancehall sound. So it's good for me to take the music uptown (the rich part of Kingston), because we come from the ghetto. Because when a guy grows up downtown and gets rich, the first thing he wants to do is go uptown. So, this album sounds dancehall and cross-over (a mix of different influences).
Can you tell us about your collaboration with Wyclef on this album?
I've been friends with Wyclef for 7 years, and until now he had only done remixes for me. But this time, I wanted him to take part in the album. I also wanted to include Maxi Priest, but he was on tour in Japan, and I'm not the type to let an artist listen to my work and have everything recorded on separate tracks. So, I went to see Wyclef and he said to me: "OK, give me 15 minutes." In less than 10 minutes, he was there to record. When I told him to sing, he sang; I asked him to rap, he rapped.
You also recorded the tune "Haters and Fools", in combination with Mr. Easy, for Dave Kelly, on the Clone riddim. Can you tell us about your collaboration with him?
Dave Kelly and I have been friends forever. Before he was at Madhouse Production, he worked at Tuff Gong studio. Dave Kelly recorded my first big tune in the United States: "The Slam", and I really appreciated that. He mixed 2 tracks on the next album.
Why haven't you recorded more tracks with the Alias Project (from Mad House Records, which includes Bounty Killer, Baby Cham, Wayne Wonder...)?
Me, I have my own label and my own company. When they have a programme for me, they call me. But Mad House is more the camp of Bounty Killer, Baby Cham, Wayne Wonder. My camp is Shocking Vibes. That's why I record less often for Dave Kelly.
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