WHEEL ME OUT - Jahnkonoo

Reggae singer Jahnkonoo talks about music and the bottom line

I’m Jahnkonoo. Jahnkonoo is the masquerade, yes. African tribesmen, when the slaves came off the ship, they had no identity. They had one thing in common, and that was to paint their faces, for death, birth, wedding, harvest, drought, rainfall, war, spiritual festivals, for healings, and other things. Basically when the slavemaster had us on the farms, when Christmas came he gave us a holiday, so the slaves would dress up, make costumes, paint their faces and they called it Jahnkonoo. In the Caribbean every Christmas time, Jahnkonoo come out, with various costumes. Some of them look like the devil, some of them look like serpents, but ancient warrior style, they got spears. And the children, ooo, they’re afraid of them, and people throw money at them especially in Jamaica, but all over the Caribbean. And I suppose Carnival was about emancipation of slavery, even though we still got slavery. It never really happened, it was a fake.

Can you explain that? Well it’s economical warfare isn’t it? I get just enough money to pay the bills and not elevate myself. So I can feed my two children and myself.

Were you born in London? I was born in Jamaica, I grew up in London.

Which do you like better? I like it better there but the only problem is, there’s no money there.

Do you play a lot of gigs? I’ve been doing gigs on and off for ten years. So far this year I’ve done one but now I’m gonna be billed for another five gigs.

I know that bands don’t usually get paid in London, do you make money from your music? I’ve got an album right, but it’s unreleased. I’m calling the album Higher Science. The little money I make is just from gigs. I get 100 pounds here, 70 pounds there, it depends on the promoter. A couple of the gigs I’m doing are free gigs, cause Africa Liberation Day is about African liberation, and the Marcus Garvey celebration is about the great political freedom fighter, and that’s about African liberation as well, so I don’t really want money from those gigs. While I know that well-established artists would take money from those gigs, cause they’re used to getting their 15-20 thousand pounds per gig, whether the promoter makes money or not.

It’s hard to get a record deal without promotion. That’s the next level I’m trying to get to now, getting a video made. I have to go to Africa for one of my tracks.

Would you like to do music full time and not have a day job? No, my main goal is to go to Barcelona and open my own restaurant/café. So you know what I’m doing, I’m a plasterer, I’m a chef and I’m a driver — yeah I’ve got a license to drive buses. Ohhh, I hate driving buses... nasty, smelly people. I love people though. I was working exactly two years as a bus driver, in London Central, in Camberwell. I used most of the money to produce my album. The bus is quite hectic, you have to wake up early. They got three shifts, one week you're on the early shift and the following week you're on the late shift, so it kind of messes with your body. They’re very clever the way they do it. They’re very clever at working us like dogs. They don’t pay enough to take that kind of stress. If you have an accident you got to write out an accident report, if there’s an incident you gotta write an incident report...sometimes the bus might break down, you gotta call engineers. I remember one night I had an appointment to meet a lovely lady and the bus broke down. I had to wait an hour and a half with my bus and it was freezing cold. That’s the kind of shit you have to go through.

Who are the worst people on the bus? The kids are lovely but a lot of them are assholes.

So today you’re working as a cook. What kind of food are you making? Caribbean food, mostly Jamaican, hard dough bread, puddings, rice and peas, oxtail, curried chicken, patties, ackee and saltfish, which is Jamaica’s national dish, callaloo. I love food, I love cooking.

What would you serve in your café? I’m gonna serve Caribbean food but I’m gonna change the menu a lot. Every couple of days, something new. WMO

Jahnkonoo on Myspace

www.myspace.com/jahnkonoo