Preach Papa Preach

Oh the bliss. A full nights sleep with no wake-up call. My eyes opened at 12.15pm, closed again and opened again around 2pm. Got a call from my friend Ronaldinho (not his real name but he’s learning to samba dance and he plays football) we chewed the fat after which I got up. Lawd, that sleep felt so good. Called the Bobo Dread, he’s usually in the manor on a Saturday and passes by for a cup of tea. He passed by and gave me a download of series 1 of The Wire (my nigga), and dropped me to the laundrette to deposit my service wash (machine bruk down). We chatted about winning the lottery. He would launch a magazine and a TV channel. I would launch myself down Sloane Street and on a plane to Jamaica.

Got myself together to see Mr. Miyagi (my Dad) in Harlesden. As soon as I got off the train I felt like a foreigner. Harlesden is the land that fashion forgot. It’s like the area for black chavs. Sportswear pon top of sportswear. Peacocks is the biggest store on the high street. No name brand shops at all. I stuck out like a sore thumb with my TopShop outfit and big silver Russell and Bromley bag. I may as well have had a sticker saying ‘bougie black bitch’ on my forehead.

I stopped off at the Jamaican food place on the high street, One Stop. I’ve been going there for years, but the girl that works in there, if she ever said please or thank you, she might crumble and collapse in a heap of dust. You know I had to cuss her about it already, so now , ME, I don’t look for it. True you don’t go in there bombaclaating and rassclaating they wanna treat you like you’re some eediot.

What a way some black people ‘fraid of educated, mannersable people. It’s a shame. I know she hasn’t forgot the cussing because she tried to ‘boy’ me as Clarke says. It was blatantly my turn, and she served some men on the right who were not in the queue. Why don’t West Indian men like to queue? They just breeze past you and say ‘Gimme me two pattie, jerk chicken dinner and a festival’ like you’re invisible. Dem get pon me nerves.

So I said loudly, can you order my dinner while your doing theirs...please (what a way people can’t think for themselves). You could almost grab the attitude hanging in the air. That bitch has been working in that shop way too long. What’s that about? Ain’t she got no ambition in life? Or is her only ambition to give people attitude while she serves them curry goat. As Michie Wong says, “Can’t relate”.

It’s been a while, but Mr. Miyagi looked well and was in good spirits. I ate my food, cleaned up the house, and we watched X Factor. Dad rightly predicted that the nig-nog, Dionne would get evicted, you know he was cussing.

“The ting is black people have so much talent, and some of dem don’t even know it. Dem don’t haf fe learn to sing. Dem born and dem can sing. Look at you, you did draw some picture when you was in school, and you had a talent fe it. But you don’t even use it.You have all t’ree talents but you only using one. Yes, some white people can sing. But dem cyaan sing like black people. You can do anyting that you waan to, you just haf fe believe inna youself.”

As I watched Justin Timberlake on Parkinson, and Jay Kay of Jamiroquai on the BBC Electric Proms show, Dad’s words came back to me. They’re good yes, but although they make me move, they don’t move me. I heard a Luther Vandross song in a dance recently and I wanted to cry. Admittedly I was the wrong side of Gina Ling’s quarter bottle of vodka. The man’s voice sounded sooo sweet. I was saying to Wong, why did he have to die so soon?

At least, he got his props while he was alive though unlike many other talented blackies. I just bought his song Shine on iTunes - it’s so wicked. He’s riding the Chic riddim ‘My Forbidden Lover’ - he sounds so alive, and I’m dancing as much to his voice as I am to the riddim. Luther didn’t have to try to change with the times. His voice was timeless.

Look at Omar, the man is stupidly talented, a fantastic singer, composer and arranger. The song he wrote and produced for Mica Paris ‘Should’ve Known Better must be over ten years old and it is a classic. He sung at DJ Swing’s funeral, and it was the best performance I’ve ever seen him give. His new material is fantastic. But I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw him given any raatid airtime on TV.

Rapper Ty has released an album recently, I’ve not seen him on TV (video in heavy rotation on Channel U). As a live act, he has raised the bar for hip-hop performances. But some new white boy on the block like this guy Jamie T will get wall to wall media coverage and hailed as the next big thing for daring to write ‘socially conscious neo-realistic lyrics’. Now there’s a new idea. Whatever will they think of next. Don’t even get me started on Lily Allen.

We had a fantastic period in the 90s with Black British soul music, now you’d be hard-pressed to name any black British soul singers. And when they do release stuff, it’s just like X-Factor, it don’t matter if you have a great voice like Dionne, man like Simon ‘love a black gyal’ Cowell want to tell you that you’re just a backing singer. Luther Vandross was a backing singer. Dionne, big up your chest, you tried a ting, but no one can deny your talent. You brought it to X-Factor, and you leave with it. Fuck bombaclaat Simon Cowell (yes I am halfway through a bottle of rose as I write this).

I talked family stuff with Pops and about the new job and Clarke. “Make her know she must get a h’education or else she will not get nowhere in life”.

He said my Mum had been down to see him the other week (they split up when I was about 9 after he went to Jamaica for three years and word came back he had shacked up with a woman with four pickney). He said that she looked so pretty that day, he had to tell her. And that the older she got, the more beautiful she looked.

When I got on the train to go home I remembered what he said, and had to blink back the tears that started welling up in my eyes. These days it seems that youth, and maintaining it is the most important thing in the ‘mainstream’ world. Me, I don’t worry. I look at my mum and my Dad, and I know my genes are on point. But working in the media, so many ‘stories’ focus on how people look, do they look bruk down , have they had plastic surgery, are they ageing gracefully. And here’s my Dad acknowledging my mother’s beauty as she approaches her 60s. It was so moving, I couldn’t help but think, I hope one day, I’m fortunate enought to meet someone who will think the same way about me.

P.S - Omar is at Plan B the first Sunday in December. Represent. Ty is at Jazz Cafe later this month.