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As Kabaka gets ready for his highly anticipated tour this August, the reggae artist known for his conscious vibes, spiritual message & uplifting vibrations, opens up on how musicians can become "tools for the revolution." In a world filled with "distractions" Kabaka lets us know how his upcoming album Contraband will "heal" the people and why Jamaica's debt is "slave owners wanting money for the freedom of their slaves." 2017 / ISSUE 101 REGGAE 51 So have you been to Africa? No, I haven't been to Africa yet, I hope to go real soon. The name Kabaka comes from Uganda, so where did the inspira- tion for the name come from? Well for true Rastafari there's always a yearning to reconnect with Africa, we as Rasta youths tried to, in terms of getting our identity, speaking out our African name. So I was actually looking up African names online, and I found that name and it just resonated, I wanted to come with something that evokes Africa within the music. As Kabaka means king, do you think some people have lost touch with their African royal roots? Yeah for sure, you know I think it is the way that we are evolving as people, we are becoming less and less tied to our ancestral heritage and becoming more individual- ised. I guess it is just a part of the process but it is still good to know where you are coming from, so you can direct yourself going forward. So what can we do to make people more aware of their roots, should the descendants of African people get reparations? Yeah, I am definitely for repara- tions, I think that it's a very difficult issue in terms of how it would actually be executed, or ever get- ting to the point where England, France and Portugal are even willing to deal with it. I also think that conscious that has been adversely affected by slavery like African conscious, Caribbean conscious, you know places like that, those countries debt that incurred after the abolishment of slavery should definitely be wiped out too. I don't think it's fair at all that these countries have to pay this enormous debt, coming from you know, slave owners, wanting money for the freedom of their slaves. If black people where to get these reparations what do you think they should do with it? I wouldn't necessarily give it to the people because, people generally, especially in places like Jamaica, and places with large percentages of poverty, people don't have mon- ey management. So you would have to give it to like community leaders who have shown a track record of proper money handling and distribution. Tell us about your latest track 'Can't breathe'? The actual inspiration for the content came after I was watching 'Lauryn Hill Unplugged' recently and I was shocked by the amount of emotion that she put into her music, you know it's like an emo- tional release. And I thought that a lot of my music doesn't really have that emotional vibe, it's more like mental, intellectual. So I wanted to bring out the feelings of suffering that we are feeling in a place like Jamaica. What can we expect from the upcoming album Contraband? I talk about things that maybe some other artist don't speak about, but I am okay with that, whether or not these songs play in the club every night is not really the most important thing to me. It is that people listen to the music and get the vibration and listen to it at their homes, play it and let their children listen to it, cause mu- sic is one of the ways we are going to change things. So would you say then that music is what we need to make the world a better place? It's one of the things, music compliments all of the efforts, I mean we have to salute all of the freedom fighters and the commu- nity workers, the people who are giving their resources to people in poverty, we are going to need all of those things, we need people who are going to plan the way forward, for a greener and self- sufficient world. So it's really for the musicians to highlight these issues and bring them to the forefront and raise awareness. We are like marketing tools for the revolution. What message are you trying to get across in this album? Well, the whole message behind Contraband, is that consciousness & evolutionary thinking is treated as contraband, it's treated as something you are not supposed to have or want, so we are playing on that metaphor throughout the whole album. And you know it's really that reggae music is the con- traband, the music is the message, and its good contraband from our perspective, its healing contra- band, but they just don't want it, they are not promoting it on the television, so we have to give it in the music. So what's next for you? We are editing the video for 'Can't Breathe' so we are looking forward to releasing that, we are also going to Europe doing a lot of the major reggae festivals and then we are doing Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica, and immediately after that we doing a US & Canada tour all over North America. "REGGAE MUSIC IS THE CONTRABAND, AND ITS GOOD CONTRABAND FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE, ITS HEALING CONTRABAND, BUT THEY ARE NOT PROMOTING IT ON THE TELEVISION, SO WE HAVE TO GIVE IT IN THE MUSIC.'' Patience Takyuka | Guestlist follow @Kabakapyramid INTERVIEW: KABAKA PYRAMID