Veggie Interview with Mutabaruka

[Guest guest]

Greetings Family,

 

You can tune in to Irie Fm at www.iriefm.com <http://www.iriefm.com/>

to hear health info on Mutabaruka's radio program weekly from Jamaica.

We were invited on the air to talk about the retreat while we were

Jamaica. Below is a nice interview in which he speaks on raw foods as

well as vegetarianism. You may also remember " Muta " as the male lead in

the film Sankofa.

 

Be well,

 

~Sunyatta

 

 

 

An Interview with Mutabaruka

 

 

 

" Junk Food " (an excerpt from Mutabaruka:The Ultimate Collection on

CD)

 

 

 

Remember de cold suppa junk food fullin up de place

 

shop dis is a nada disgrace

 

 

dat u use fi stop at junk food fullin up de

place

 

u coulda eat anythin a now good food guh guh

 

it was like u granny cookin to waste

 

corn dumplin and ackee strawberry ice cream

 

from big fat matte raspberry ice cream

 

stew peas and rice dem a bury wi

 

use fi really taste nice u nuh si

 

now a ice cream stand ice cream ice cream

 

teckin ova da lan liven de american dream

 

 

 

World-renowned Jamaican poet Mutabaruka sets his political, social and

religious verse to music. The art is commonly referred to as " dub

poetry " or " reggae poetry, " but Mutabaruka prefers not to limit his work

with labels. His words are spoken in Jamaica's popular language, in the

venerated tradition of the country's first " people's poet " Louise

Bennett. Mutabaruka spoke to us about his vegetarianism and his poetry.

 

______________________

___________________________

 

BV: How long have you been a vegetarian?

 

 

 

M: About 30 years. I was on raw food for about 7 years, and I went

back for 3 years, but I think I going to come back again and continue.

 

 

 

BV: What made you transition into raw foods?

 

 

 

M: Raw food is the way to go. Cooking kill the food. Everybody knows

that. Live food for live people. Sometimes you find it very difficult to

keep up with it. It's somewhat of a mindset, it's a mind thing.

 

 

 

BV: Is there a community of folks in Kingston doing raw foods?

 

 

 

M: No, there's not a community. You have one and two people that are

doing raw food, but most Rastafarians are vegetarians. The raw foods

are the next level. Actually we did kind of try the fruitarian thing for

a while, but we came off of that.

 

 

 

BV: How was that?

 

 

 

M: It was nice. It was nice.

 

 

 

BV: You have it all here.

 

 

 

M: Yes, the fruits. Sometimes it's very expensive though. It was nice,

though, to experience the different levels, the different stages of

understanding how your body function. Anytime you become like that you

start to know what you want, how your body function. A lot of people

don't know how their body function. When I first become vegetarian, and

really moved into the step of raw food, I learned more about my body.

It's like you are the one who is building your temple. You are like the

contractor who is constructing your body so you know exactly what is

what. If something hurt you, you know why it's hurting.

 

 

 

BV: What are some of the traditional foods that folks are eating who

are not necessarily raw but are vegetarian?

 

 

 

M: Well, it's a normal vegetarian food. Rice and peas, stew peas,

green vegetables, brown rice, whole wheat flour. Tofu is a

staple.gluten.

 

 

 

BV: It's a typical vegan diet?

 

 

 

M: Yes. No animal products. I don't use animal products. I don't use

it. I don't wear it. I never given my children animal products. They

don't know how cheese is made-egg, honey-none of those things. None of

those things, nothing from animals. I grow up my children them that way.

But I am the only one that make the transition to the raw food thing.

But a lot of Rastas, they're into it. You have different stages. Some

people eat fish, some people don't eat fish. Some people drink milk,

some people don't drink milk. My concept of vegetarian is vegetable.

" Vegetarian " come from vegetable. I wouldn't include milk and cheese and

egg and these things. That is not vegetable. When I say vegetarian, I

don't have to say " vegan. " That is terminologies now that make the thing

get strange. People say they are lacto-vegetarian and vegan-vegetarian.

You can't be a lacto-vegetarian and a vegan-vegetarian. You're either a

vegetarian or you're not a vegetarian. A vegetarian is a person who only

eats vegetables. So if you are drinking milk and eating fish...you can't

have a semi-vegetarian.

 

 

 

BV: Do you have any advice for people who are curious about

vegetarianism but have not made the commitment?

 

 

 

M: Well I would say to listen to your body. You have to just know what

is good for you. You can't have no strict hard and fast rule for

anybody. You have to know what is with you. You have a lot of people who

are making the transition to vegetarianism who have this concern about

where you get your protein from. Anybody who you tell that you are

becoming a vegetarian will say, " Well, where will you get protein from? "

They feel as if protein is the most important thing out of the foods.

But most people spend too much time trying to figure out protein.

There's too much protein already being taken. So when somebody eating

fish, chicken, saying them looking for protein, you already have your

protein in basic nuts, beans, grains. Brown rice have protein. Red peas,

most of the peas, most of the nuts, is mostly protein. I don't think

they should be concerned with it. I think we have been brainwashed in

this protein thing. We already have the protein.

 

BV: Can you explain what dub poetry is?

 

 

 

M: Dub poetry is Jamaican poetry to music, especially reggae music.

What we do, we use the music to compliment the poems. Most of the poems

is basically a social, political or religious commentary. We use the

reggae music to express it. So that is why they call it dub poetry,

because Jamaican music at one time was dub music. Now they would call it

reggae poetry.

 

 

 

BV: Are you considered the father of dub poetry?

 

 

 

M: The father? (laughs) Well, you see when I was doing poetry they

didn't call it dub poetry. It was just poetry to music. Dub poetry just

come later on down because they wanted to identify a kind of poem. I

don't really like the term still because it kind of limit you to that. A

lot of my poems, especially on my CDs, would draw from different black

musical perspective. We're very African-centered. A lot of my poems

would draw from the black experience, the musical experience of black

people all over the world. You don't want to just limit yourself to

reggae.

 

 

 

BV: Who are some of those musical influences for you?

 

 

 

M: Well, we just listen to every music that black people make,

especially African music. You see, when we started to write the poems,

we had a mind of music, a music mentality because we loved to play

music, and we listened to a lot of music. I couldn't name the specific

musicians as such. Depending on the poem, we use a type of music. We

used to listen to poets like Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Marcus Garvey.

We used to read Marcus Garvey poems. In the sixties when we used to go

to school, there was Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, LeRoi Jones. We

started to develop out of that Black Poets experience.

 

 

 

BV: Do you see a relationship between diet and consciousness? And,

if so, how have you seen yourself grow spiritually as a Rastafarian due

to your change of diet?

 

 

 

M: One thing vegetarian allow you to do is to become more

compassionate. What I get to understand within the vegetarian concept is

that all life is one. It's just different manifestations of flesh. The

cow, the goat, the bird, they all flesh. Is of one source, the life

source. Even the tree is of one life source. When it come down to flesh

now, man wasn't made to eat flesh. Your body don't assimilate flesh as

such. When you stop eating flesh, you kind of recognize a certain

compassion inside of you. You feel like, wow, the cow, he don't eat

animal, him just there, he don't trouble nobody. So you kind of start to

feel like why should I kill the cow? The cow don't trouble nobody. The

cow just eat greens everyday. The goat eat greens everyday and don't

trouble nobody. That feeling take hold of you and you start to go into

yourself. You start to get feelings toward things. You start to feel

more developed into a being, a person. And then you take it from there

within the consciousness of what people call God. We move within a level

of man taking responsibility. If you kill animals it don't mean that you

won't kill a man. Even when the Bible tell you " Thou Shalt Not Kill, " it

never said " Thou Shalt Not Kill man. " It said " Thou Shalt Not Kill " and

full stop. So who's to say what it is talking about when it say " Thou

Shalt Not Kill " ? If God wanted animals to be your food, him wouldn't

make them with foot to run away, and with eyes. Food not supposed to

have eyes and mouth and nose. That is not food. Food cannot have eyes.

That is crazy. It help me as a person to understand what really is this

thing that is life. As a Rasta man, it allow you to keep a certain

sanity in all this confusion. It allow you really to keep a certain

train of thought. Because you're thinking on life, and how to sustain

and maintain life in its glory, in its fullness, in its totality. So

even like me, I wouldn't say that I'm not going to eat animal, but then

I wear animal product. That is contradictory to me. If a man say him

don't eat cow, but him wear leather shoes, that kind of thought is

contradictory because it's the same perpetuation of the killing of the

animal to make clothes and to eat. Human being is the only creature on

earth that kill to create clothes.

 

 

 

BV: Did you see any subtle differences between eating a vegetarian

cooked diet and eating raw, in terms of your consciousness?

 

 

 

M: Yeah, man! Definitely. The raw thing is a higher level. It's like

you walking a line, but it's not a line really, because it make you so

balanced. I don't know. Things start to feel more to you. It gets you

more aware, more quicker. You don't sleep as much. You're not as

sluggish. I remember when I used to be raw, I didn't want to sleep. It

was like I was starting fresh. I didn't want to sleep, but you're

supposed to sleep. I had to realize that there was nothing wrong with

me. Sleeping is not a thing where you have to sleep

 

eight hours. You eat less. You definitely eat less when you eat raw

food. Three meals a day is a crazy thing. It's a western thinking.

Three meals a day is a man who is soon dead. And it's kind of ridiculous

to eat three meals a day when people don't eat one meal. When you're a

vegetarian and you start eating tofu and gluten, it's almost like you're

eating meat. But it's not as sluggish. But the raw food thing-you eat

less, you're not as hungry. You just eat when you feel like you want to

eat. Sometime I eat because I afraid. I didn't really want to eat, but I

didn't eat for a long time so I feel I should eat something. It keep you

alert.

 

 

 

BV: How have you seen your music and poetry develop and mature? In

your relationship to-

 

 

 

M: Eating? Well, the poetry that I write now is just looking around me

and seeing things that is happening around me. My poetry mostly is

social, political, African-centered. My thinking of black, Africanness,

was there before me start to go into this raw food. We were more aware

of our blackness before. So it just continued that way. What the

vegetarian did was put it into perspective more. You wear Africa, you

eat vegetarian, anytime you talk it's African. You kind of get a respect

for that. It's what white people say is " wholistic. " White people say

everything is wholistic. It gives you a wholistic approach to Africa.

Everything has to be directed toward an African-centered perspective. So

what we eat and what we wear and what we think has to be in relation to

our Africanness. So, my poetry now is just an expression of my

Africanness. What I believe African people should do and what

 

I think white people are doing. So my poems go against white supremacy.

We are Marcus Garvey people. Anytime we talk, its about Africa. It's a

way to fight against white supremacy. So the food is just a next aspect.

It's not really the aspect because we are talking the liberation of

African people, whether we eat meat or not.

 

 

 

BV: Is that liberation external or internal?

 

 

 

M: Liberation in every way. Marcus Garvey say, " Emancipate yourself

from mental slavery. " The mental slavery right now is more damaging than

the physical slavery that we was once in. Black people get complacent

right now with slavery. They think that there's no slavery. So they get

very complacent. But the slavery right now is more devastating than the

slavery of old because our foreparents could see the chains, so they

took out the chisel and they break off the chain on them foot. We don't

see them chain, so we think no chain is there. So we get so domicile and

so complacent in the European mentality. So we don't really feel it.

Part of the thing that is the matter is the food. McDonald's is one of

the biggest drug houses in the world right now, but people don't see it

as that. It's white supremacy. Americanization of mind. It's more than

just eating a burger. It's all about an institution that is inculcating

a culture. So we have to understand it even more than just the physical.

It's a mental thing. A man don't hunger but go have a McDonald's. Why

you don't hunger but want to have a McDonald's? Because them advertise

it that way. Them portray it that way. That we are fighting against. And

we use the poetry to do that and we use just our own lifestyle to do

that. Every time we move, every time we act, that is what we do.

 

 

 

BV: Well, thanks very much for talking with us.

 

 

 

M: Give thanks.