How did I miss it?

You weren’t supposed to see it... nobody was. It was about me uplifting an industry. It was not supposed to be about me personally. That changed. Do you want to hear our original plan?

Artists were teaching me how to support their goals by showing me how to do their job. It was about me learning to be a headliner, without ever making headlines. It still is. People seem to understand and accept this. I have always been in the background supporting others while they become known for doing great things. It has been this way all my life.

Mom relied on me to take care of myself and my little brother while she worked long hours as the first female sales representative for Sears Kitchen and Appliances. Kami Seya Naval Station radio receiver site won top honors from the command after I requested correction of unit discrepancies from the Chaplain. My ex-husband landed his dream job when I refused to spread malicious opinions during his background investigation. A supervising professor won accolades for teaching the world’s first successful online Legal Studies class as I quietly carried the job responsibilities. Our PTA silently raised enough money to send the entire high school choir to Washington DC for participation in a national sing-along.  The local school board adopted my recommendations to successfully restructure the district as I remained anonymous and on the sidelines. The international reggae industry was revived through my online training and a quick trip around the world. Here are some of the hidden parts of that story:

"Work the Reggae industry?"
Ok. How do we do this? 
"Underground." 
Why? 
"Safer." 
Ok...but the industry is suffering and you're doing nothing wrong singing praises and bringing love... 
"I know, but we still stay underground." 
I believe you. Overstand now. It's ok... time to step in faith... bring the vibes... bless up. I will serve as your public liaison. No worries, blessed. God is greater... rock on Rasta...
 
Maybe it would help to backtrack a few months before that dialog. While at the house of my girlfriend and colleague on the middle school PTA, I was able to bounce across the living room to the beat of foreign music without the use of my walker. This happened a couple of years after experimental back surgery when, statistically, I was in a wheelchair for life. Stunned and amazed, “What is this music?” I exclaimed.

“This is Reggae,” she responded, “I will make you a CD. Listen carefully; you will hear RasTafari.”

Smiling while bouncing to the rhythmic melodies, I slowly grew stronger over the next six months. Absolutely obsessed, my days were spent online in YouTube and MySpace. Fascinated, I dug deeper and discovered a dearth of information. Even with incredibly strong online research skills, I was only able to find a few fabulous videos and that was it! One day, however, I saw a new video that captured my attention. Showcasing the artist on MySpace, I remodeled my page in the style of Jamaican music. Within a few weeks, they found me. “May I call you?” came the message.

The “underground” dialog was only a few steps away from that. First, he had to reteach me to speak. We started with short phrases and two-word patois commands. “Be careful,” he would instruct me to tell the children. Immersed in each other’s lives and dreams of building his budding career, we fell in love. His record label owner was the one person that I spoke with about him. She was guiding me. I was working for free. Nine years later, this continues to be the dynamic.

The words “be careful” became prophecy for me. Not everything he taught me was in my best interest. Ultimately, however, his advice would guide me onto stage in three countries with a good percentage of the Jamaican music industry in tow. It was about building bridges between people who were not talking to each other in order to revive the dying genre. First, I would bump into a record label holder who claimed to be networked with Universal who introduced me to a female West Coast Reggae artist; together, they mentored me.

He queried me about contracts, and she invited me into her home so that I could learn how she managed her career of twenty years. Few knew what we were up to. She immediately put me on stage. “Here is your partner tonight. He is from Ghana. He will teach you to dance African-style. Do not worry. He is an athlete and professional massage therapist. You are in fine hands.”

Clothes, makeup, hair, song, dance, stage and we were in front of an audience!

This continue for several months at some of the Bay Area’s best venues. In the background, I was expanding my network by interacting with an up-and-coming Jamaican artist online. This time, it was about us learning from each other. I would train him on the best university-level presentation skills including online design mixed with a little business start-up and professional networking, American-style. He taught me about how to produce a show, Jamaican-style. When it came for me to make the journey, things had gone very wrong all around us.

During my struggle to survive what had become a life-threateningly oppressive situation in my own neighborhood and increasingly agitated behavior from my original artist, I had contacted congress about what appeared to be coercive decisions revoking performers work visas in order to force compliance to an extradition request. Things escalated on all sides, with devastating results.

Nevertheless, the decision was made for me to travel: The show must go on.

Everyone agreed that I was to maintain privacy and secrecy about the details of where I was staying as I was living with a family and there were concerns about my security. The fact that I was moving into increasingly oppressive environments was, at first, lost on me. I trusted the people I had met with my life. I followed their instructions. The Jamaican music industry and its diaspora were to be informed of the upcoming show without knowing anything specific about it until the last possible minute. For three weeks, we promoted locally in traditional fashion. This time, I collaborated in the creation of music as well as dance. African rhythms were mixed with Jamaican Reggae and delivered on a wave of popular Dancehall songs. The idea was to introduce a young generation to its historical roots.

Everything was enigmatic to me. I moved in a nearly-oblivious haze. The relationship with Vybz Kartel did not come to my attention until the next year, well after I had finished my travels, returned to my home base and been assured that our efforts were reaping success.

I had no idea Jamaica was all digital music when I called for a live band on stage for our July 2010 yaad show. We did not have a live band. Among other things, It was raining and the stage was too wet. That didn't stop the Dj's... they played a wicked mix of recorded Jamaica Reggae band music, digital dancehall, and strong African Reggae band rhythms. Five hundred people dancing in the rain. The only show open until 5:00 AM on a hot, wet night in a country under a national State of Emergency. Extremely unconventional. Now I know. The media missed it, but the youths were paying attention...

Published on Apr 12, 2013
BAND REVIVAL IN JAMAICA - À LA JAMAÏQUE EXTENDED - DOCUMENTARY JAMAICA 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5_KjKQYHjI

 
I had hoped to move to the island, but it was decided that I was too high-maintenance for the family. I was sent home. Flight reservations were made for the morning after the show. I would be on the plane within minutes of walking out of the venue, changing clothes in the Montego Bay airport bathroom.

Swaggering through the Texas airport between flights on my return to California, I was challenged by TSA for the first time in my life. Something significant had changed in me and in my interaction with my home country.

I drove to my daughter’s house to catch my breath before deciding where to go next. An artist in Ghana and I made plans for me to move there. We were minutes away from our rendezvous when the country changed its visitor visa requirements. I would miss my flight trying to find a second sponsor at the last minute.

My son had come to escort me. He ended up driving with me back to my property. When I got there, I was refused access. The neighborhood, my father and local police turned against me.

Seeking shelter at a state park using my disabled veteran’s pass, I fasted, prayed and wandered the trails, visiting with rangers during the day. One more failed attempt to re-enter my neighborhood convinced me I must begin the search for a room to rent somewhere… anywhere.

I returned to the park where a stranger came to camp next to me. Drawing me in with wickedly wonderful music booming from a high-end car stereo, I came to talk with him. The night will vividly live in my memory. Ultimately, he was bringing a warning: If I were to continue my musical journey, I would be in West Coast Gang territory.

Although my West Coast artist was no longer talking to me, the record label owner and her band manager welcomed me back with open arms… literally! The band manager invited me to his show for my birthday. I continued to promote everything with the international Jamaican music industry. What I didn’t tell anybody was that, after our return to where I was staying, he raped me.

This began my journey into a delusion reality where there was no room for anything other than joy. The people were not to know what was going on behind the scenes.

A few things happened with a couple of the industry matrons and I was raped again. This time, by a stranger who caught up with me while I was on-the-run desperately trying to figure out how to slide off the radar and into a quiet little corner.

When the call came to return to the stage, this time as a Reggae Queen wiggling Dancehall moves during a Hip-hop show, I didn’t think anything about it. I really didn’t know where I was, what I was doing, or the impact it would have… initially for worse, and, ultimately, for better.
 
Within a few days of standing on the stage in front a video camera while waving the “W” sign, the word came back to me that others were having their lives threatened for choosing to work with me.  My phone fell silent and a sense of impending doom settled on my heart. Not knowing what to do, I decided it was time to go to a place far, far away.

There was one last person in one country that had offered me sanctuary. I could make the journey in a timely and safe fashion. I did not know who I was trusting or the world I would enter, but there were no longer any other choices.

Leaving a trail of observers behind me (that's another story), I quietly left the country. Smoking my last clove cigarette on the tarmac in Senegal, I peered out across the starless skyline as the morning call-to-worship echoed in my head. The artist would hold me, taking my property and money, insisting I stay and marry him while forcing me to… well… although the behavior had been foreign to me, it was becoming disturbingly familiar in those last few weeks of the year… but this is about how you missed these events. Are you started to get a feel for things, now?

He allowed me to call one person who happened to be within driving distance. The man was willing to come rescue me. I was ushered across the border into The Gambia in the middle of the night. My host was extremely well connected and powerful. I could see his sense of superiority and comfort while talking to border security. I had officially fallen off-the-map into the hands of a place where even my financial transactions would not be acknowledged by my bank until after my return.

The village had a solution to my problems: marry me to the son of their first Imam and make me an Ambassador.

I was honored, albeit significantly overwhelmed, by everything.

I would forget about being an Ambassador for four years while shuddering under the emotional reverberations from these situations.

I willingly submitted to the culture and the man. There is something incredibly attractive about unconditional acceptance under an observant and protective eye. This is how we started our journey. Ultimately, family escorted me to the shows I loved so much and sat with me during a thirty-minute interview on national radio. The American Embassy, however, wasn’t so tickled with my sudden reappearance on the radar. “Send her home,” they insisted after hearing my story.

Can you see how you missed it? Everyone was supposed to miss it. I was supposed to disappear into his arms, a beloved member of one of the world’s most repressively liberating cultures.