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Listening to roots reggae music for 30 years now, it very rarely happens that a new name can still touch me in the heart, with livity and reality. Midnite is such a band. From the first Midnite song I ever heard, 'Ras For A Reason', to every track on all 10 albums that I've bought since then, I love them all. Every tune has its own musical power and Vaughn Benjamin delivers the most crucial lyrics since Bob Marley. This is rastafari for a new time and age. Remarkable: they are not Jamaican. Vaughn Benjamin doesn't need any more questions to start his reasoning.
Vaughn Benjamin: "That's the usual stereotypical thing to say but if you look at me physically, you know who I am. Just like that. The bottom line is that we are spreading the message of King Selassie. King Selassie as a secular world leader, not as a guru. He was a shining example for his people, by his actions the most spiritual leader in world history. He was also the first king ever to leave Ethiopia and come to the world. And everywhere he saw good people, people who want to do good. He accepted them on the base of their character, that's a message that the world overlooks. It is also the fulfilment of a biblical prophecy. In Genesis 49 it is said that the tribe of Judah will be praised, and it was told that there will be a fight against Rome. And it is told in Revelation 5 that the one who would conquer would be called the Lion of Judah. So it happen in actual secular world politics. There's no breakage between the historical records from thousands of years ago and of today. That is what I want the people to remind of in my songs."
Vaughn Benjamin: "If people are truly interested in my lyrics, they will listen again and again, because their own personage is in play. They are not conditioned, they take a look in the depth of human nature. I knew this was going to happen, people wondering about my lyrics and trying to explore them. I also knew that not putting my face on the album sleeves would be very effective. It gets all the attention and curiosity to the music. As rastamen we know that there's so much more that a painting can say than just my photograph. In a painting I can depict a million worlds and quantum leap thousands of years."
Vaughn Benjamin: "Jah say from the islands in the sea shall wail this cry, and out of Jamaica come this cry, to the whole world. No one can remove that root so I must give thanks to I fathers and forefathers who put things in place. There's only a way up now, building more stones on top of the foundation."
Vaughn Benjamin: "There's no such thing as improvisation. You study and at the moment you have to release the sound all that study comes into play. It's not as much improvisation as it is storage, like a battery stores power. I never bring a song to the studio. We never come to the studio with music, as principle. This man is asking the Emperor, the King of Kings to pull I up, to give I sound and words, and write words."
Vaughn Benjamin: "As a rastaman in the Carribean you have to tell the people why you are like that. Your parents, your family, your whole social structure, your economical potential, everything becomes jeopardized and threatened, by saying the word rastafari. If man is unable to justify to the earth how and why this man takes a stance, it's like your life is defeat. And I&I know Selassie has to conquer."
Vaughn Benjamin: "When the powers of the earth go to war, they implement every kind of weapon. A man does not go to war with one weapon. In this technological setting I feel that nobody can instruct me on what kind of weaponry I have to use. There's a slang speech in the streets, and a speed at which the youths move. If you can't communicate to the them, they won't hear you. In this word war – word, not world – I will approach the fight from every direction. To lock myself out of avenues where my children live is foolish. The same people who are telling you about this so called pure reggae music are using every utility to get their means done. Many of the prejudices only want to lock us away from reaching the different substrata of the community. This is what King Selassie mean when he says: "...gather them from the four corners of the earth where they scatter dem!"."
Vaughn Benjamin: "I haven't visited the site but by asking that question you open a whole ant's nest. Egypt has been getting all the respect for being the greatest civilisation mankind has ever seen, but still in Zimbabwe, in Ethiopia, in Sudan, all over Africa, there is the same architecture, the same elliptical form in stone, the same megalith… There must be a conspiracy of some kind, of what information can be released and what can not be released. And you can see the same kind of stonework in the Virgin Islands, in the circular mills. Same craftsmanship. That's how we see that they carried our people from the west coast of Africa, they carried us beyond, and they call us Carribean. Language is a code, you know. L-o-v-e is love, e-v-o-l is evil. L-i-v-e is live, e-v-i-l is evil. Live love life and evil: that is not an accident, and also not a simple rhyme of rasta. It's all about a old blood grudge. The original Luceferian vanity which says: we are greater than you and you could not have created any such great civilisation."
Vaughn Benjamin: "I have blood lineage from all over the Carribean diaspora. My parents and grandparents are from Antigua but as an African who was taken away with stick backs and hand cuffs I refuse to be accountable for any small country."
Vaughn Benjamin: "I would never be so foolish to talk to you about ganja on tape. I know this is the holy sacrament. Like thorn make you loose blood ganja give you wisdom."
Vaughn Benjamin: "Islam, Judaism, Christianity: they all claim Abraham and Judah. Since everyone is claming the same heritage, everyone is claming the Ethiopian heritage. I never come to preach, people don't have to follow me. Who is willing to know, will know."
Jah Shakespear has been listening to reggae music since 1977, started writing about the subject in the early nineteen eighties (for De Morgen, De Standaard, P-Magazine, Highlife and a number of other magazines) and founded this website in 2002. He's also the author of 'De Rasta Revelatie' (2008) and 'In Het Spoor Van De Keizer' (2016).
Oct 09, 2007