ONE ON ONE: Royal family of reggae Morgan Heritage

BUZZ: Welcome back to Kenya!

Peetah: It’s great to bring the music back to the motherland; all our music influences come from Africa, so it’s a joy to be here. We have a new album called Strictly Roots and Kenya is the first country in Africa that we are officially presenting it to.

It’s great to share the stage with Kenyan artistes; Wyre has been a friend of the family and it’s a joy to be here with him.

Gramps: It just happens that Kenya is the first country that we will be performing our new album in. I don’t know why Kenya is so lucky but you guys will be the first people in Africa to hear it.

We released the album earlier this year on our own label called Cool To Be Conscious Music Group. It’s a movement letting children around the world know that it’s okay to be conscious because a lot of times in underprivileged communities everybody feels that they have to be a bad guy or a clown. We want people to know there is nothing wrong with aiming to be a doctor, lawyer or a pastor, or someone that is influential in the community.

That is the aim of our new label. We are letting children know that the new cool is being conscious, and when we say conscious we don’t necessarily mean religion because we don’t want to mix religion with being aware.

We are just saying be aware of what you put in your body, who you hang out with.

Why didn’t you come with your sister Una?

She had some family things she had to deal with, you have to remember that our sister is a mother as well. She has to give her children as much time as she gives to music and we have to support her in that.

Fathers have great work to do but so do mothers. Her second son has just started college in the United States so she had to be there to get him enrolled. She tells Kenya that she loves and misses you and she promises that next time she will be here.

What was the most memorable moment on your last visit here?

Gramps and I came here on a charity event with our sister Ann Marie and she took us to her home town; we had lunch on Lake Victoria. We also went to the national park and we got a chance to really see Kenya, not from the sky, but from the road.

We were told that we were going to have a two-hour drive that turned into a seven-hour drive. But it was great to see the countryside of Kenya and go through the communities from the town she comes from.

We get to go to a lot of places in the world but we don’t really get to see them. It was a joy just to be able to move around the country and know different places other than just Nairobi and Mombasa.

Jemere, are you pressured to live up to your uncles’ and father’s success?

I get that a lot; being with them is really like family, waking up in the morning and Uncle Peetah cooks something. I don’t really focus on the other side, the way you may think. I just focus on the music and have fun with it, and ask my dad if he likes it.

What’s your favourite food in Kenya?

Peetah: Fish. Every time I come here, I eat a lot of fish, and I love the chai in Kenya, it’s probably the best tea the world has to offer.

Gramps: I could never forget this really big fish I had in Kisumu. I remember telling Peetah, ‘this tastes like Jamaica’, this is how I’m trying to tell the story of African Americans and Caribbean Africans that this is where we come from.

Being on the beach of Lake Victoria felt like Jamaica. I took the fish and seasoned it my way, the way I would do it in Jamaica. There’s so much we have to share with each other as a people that we have learnt from the diaspora, from education, sports, to music and, of course, food.

In the group, who is the serious one, the joker or the disciplinarian?

Peetah: Everybody is everything, seriously. Today I may be the joker and tomorrow I might be the serious one. A different member will take the lead, depending on what we are doing.

The greatest thing is that we are a family and we have been doing this since we were children, and now that we are adults, we have our own children travelling with us doing the same thing. We do have our fights, our ups-and-downs but the greatest thing is, if we have a disagreement today we don’t let it linger into tomorrow, we deal with it today, and tomorrow’s problems will be tomorrow’s. It’s just the way we live with each other that keeps us young, fresh and loving.

Jamere: I’m usually the prankster, not the joker. (Laughs)

How many years have you been in the reggae business?

Gramps: We have been in music business for many years. I remember doing an R’nB album just straight out of high school. But reggae was in our heart; we’ve been doing this since we left junior high school; it’s over 25 years.

I remember Mojo being on tour with our father, and on the cover of Jet magazine as this Jamaican man, an African man on the cover of an American magazine. He had a little blue suit on with this bow tie, I wouldn’t wear that suit today (laughs) but seeing that as a child, Mojo dancing on the stage with my father... it’s been many years.

Right now, people are calling us the Rolling Stones of reggae, it’s heart warming that people see the work that we have been doing throughout the years and we have a lot more to come.

How have you resisted giving in to the Passa Passa (dancehall) culture?

We haven’t resisted it, it’s our culture but there’s someone else who represents it. When we are ready we go to the dancehall culture like everyone else. We listen to dancehall music so it’s not like we are trying to resist something that is ours.

But like Gramps says, you have to be conscious of when you want to enjoy the Passa Passa culture and when you have to be serious.

We look at the Passa Passa culture as adult entertainment, it’s not to say it’s something negative, but it’s not something you would give to a five- or- 10-year-old but to adults who know how to make adult decisions and enjoy it. There’s nothing wrong with the Passa Passa culture, there’s just a time and a place for it.

Tell us about the Morgan Heritage app

Mojo: It’s our latest technological venture where we are using these new mediums and platforms to connect with our audience in different ways. On our app, you will get exclusive content like photos and videos, and eventually we will roll out subscriptions where people can receive gifts and opportunities to connect with us at our concerts as VIP members of our online community.

The app is free and we can connect on all our social media platforms. We have our own chats where you can talk to Gramps or Mojo because every day we wake up and say, let’s see what people are doing down in Australia, or Kenya today.

We interact with our fans in ways that we couldn’t before, so we give thanks to technology and we embrace it within our field as musical entertainers.

Are you guys overly protective of your sister, especially on tours and live concerts?

Definitely. 1,000 per cent. We are very protective of our sister, she’s the queen among us so we have to protect the queen.

Should we be looking forward to a collaboration between you and Wyre?

Oh yeah, Wyre is collaborating with just more than Morgan Heritage, he’s worked with other artistes from Jamaica so he is really waving the Kenya flag internationally. And Jamaica as a people, as a culture, and we as the artistes, embrace Wyre. We will definitely have more music coming from Wyre and the Morgan family or many other artistes from Jamaica. The future is bright when it comes to him.

Apart from hard work, what else has kept you guys together for this long?

Prayer: all praise to the Father, everything is His will. It’s a major part of our togetherness.

Everyone knows you as a reggae family, what other professions are there in your family?

Gramps: Sports, Una’s son is kind of living my dream because I used to play American football but never had a chance to finish university. He’s on a football scholarship in America.

We also have nurses, flight attendants, pastors and professors. We are a big family, my father has 30 children. People call him the Abraham of his time and ask how he can live in America like an African; and he says you can take me out of Africa but you can’t take the African out of me. We look forward to bringing my father to this country very soon.

@jmmosongo