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Get out of Bermuda. That’s dub poet Ras Mykkal’s message to local artists who want to make a career out of their music. Ras Mykkal himself will be performing at The Dub Poet’s Collective 2005 International Dub Poetry Festival in Canada next week.

The festival, an annual event, includes performances, discussions and workshops. Ras will be part of an Evening of Performance: Each Man Version next Saturday night, and a discussion the following night. The discussion: Tribute, or Theft?, will be about artists using the voice and artistic styles of a culture not their own. Ras performs many of his songs in a Jamaican accent.

Ras Mykal has performed as a dub poet since 1997. Since then, he’s released two albums, Dem Call Mi Controversial and Bermuda’s First Governor. He’s also performed at numerous concerts, both locally and internationally.

He said: “The least popular — and most powerful — form of reggae is dub poetry. It’s very political, and very social. The chance of a dub poet singing a love song is slim to zero. They focus on social issues, political issues…dub poetry is about the word. The word has to be motivating people to think, to change, to stand up for something and that puts it in a category of being more powerful. It’s serious sometimes, even though I have found a way to poke fun at different things in a humorous way to try to hold people’s attention.”

Despite his relative success on the island, Ras has become disillusioned with Bermuda, and his quest to become successful here. He has his own band, the Step by Step Band, and backup singers from Mandeville, Jamaica, and hopes to be on tour within the next year.

“This [festival] is an opportunity for me to market myself and hopefully by next summer I could be on tour with my band. My short term goal is to do two to three singles and release them in Jamaica to make the Jamaican top-ten chart. Bermuda is not my focus anymore. I’ve been trying to make my way in Bermuda since 1998 and you have hell to get airplay,” he said.

“Jamaica has embraced me and my style. I have a publicist there, I have a band and backup singers. From there, hopefully 2006 will see me spend less time in Bermuda and more time touring.”

He is also working on his next album, and plans to release it in Jamaica. Other future plans include more albums and using his success to help other local artists. For now, though, Ras Mykkal is focusing his attention on the Dub Poetry Festival, which will mark his first time performing in Canada.

The following day there’ll be a discussion in which he’ll talk about his reasons for performing in a Jamaican accent although he was not born there.

“I’m not a Bermudian. I was born here, but I’m not a Bermudian. We have no nationality, we have no national heroes, we have no national pride. We are searching for something. We’re searching for an identity, we’re searching for acceptance.

“We gravitate to Ethiopia and the Ethiopian flag. We gravitate to Jamaica and the Jamaican flag. We gravitate to America and the American flag.”

“In that aspect, yeah, I’m trying to find me, just like everybody else here who’s trying to find something to believe in. It’s something about Jamaican speech that is very powerful, very dramatic,” he said.

“They speak with a lot of expression and drama and I’ve learned to incorporate portions of that into my delivery.”

He added that he doesn’t make an attempt to represent Bermuda in his music, since Bermuda, he says, makes no attempt to represent or promote him. Music is universal, he adds, and regardless of which language you speak, you feel music in any culture.

“No. I’m not a fake, but at the same time, I’m searching for an identity.”

Ras added that he wishes to thank Shadow Minister Jon Brunson for his help with attending the music festival.[[In-content Ad]]

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