Story of the Song: Emigration, deportation inspire writers

Mel Cooke, Sunday Gleaner Writer

From the visa-application process to forced return from 'farin', through to the items that are sent back by those who have found more prosperous employment climes overseas, the cycle of leaving Jamaica to live abroad and returning has proved a rich source of material for the writers of verse.

Edward Baugh's celebrated poem, Nigger Sweat, speaks to the nervousness of someone waiting in the embassy for the interview which will determine whether or not they are granted a visa.

On the other hand, Buju Banton's Deportee, done in his early-1990s 'baldhead' days, is at the other end of the cycle, when the visa has been revoked and the person has been sent back to Jamaica. From a purely unsympathetic stance, Banton remarks:

Tings change

Now oonu see say life hard

Yu never use to sen yu money come a yard

Yu wretch yu, yu spen de whol a it abroad

Squander yu money now yu living like dog

He looks at the lack of material wealth and his own attitude of not caring to help:

Bway get deport come dung inna one pants

Bruck an nah no money, but me no response

That was because the deportee did not help anyone - even his own family - when he was wealthy:

Mama dung inna de hole an him don' buy har a lamp

Not a line or a letter or a 50-cent stamp

Him father want a shoes an cannot go to remittance

There is, though, a touch of the 'wanti wanti cyaa get it, getti getti no want it', as Buju deejays:

Waan drop inna de snow from about '79

Neva get de chance cause it wasn't my time

An me hear yu deh a farin a commit de mos' crime ...

And, as the record fades out to the end, he sarcastically informs the deportee:

Now we're back together again

Prepare mi fren'

Dus' off yu clothes an start from scratch again

Still, there are those who go to 'farin' and make a decent living, although, as one dancehall deejay would have it, what is sent back to Jamaica is of highly dubious value. In Ghetto Story, Baby Cham delivers the tale of how conflict started within a community and the impact of one who left:

I remember so the avenue turn inna war zone

An' Mikey mother fly him out cause she get a loan

But Mikey go to farin an go tun Al Capone

Make whole heap a money an sen een our own

That tips the balance of power in the community:

Now a we a lock the city an' that is well known

Yesterday Mikey call me pon me phone

Me say Mikey

We get de ting dem, dem out a luck now

Me squeeze seven an' de whole a dem a duck now

We have whole heap extra clip cause we no bruck now

Ra, ra, ra

We get de ting dem so dem haffi rate we

Cause we a take it to dem wicked of lately

In Trendz, Beenie Man speaks about the impact of a 'returnee' on an area:

Rodigan fly dung an Sunrise turn heaven

Wid de two big bike an de burgundy Benz

But, in Same Thing Again, Assassin has one of his characters going abroad to escape hardship, happy as "me get a stamp inna me book". But on his return " ... from the day the plane land, yow is like it carry me back to square one".

One of the more striking moments in the movie Shottas, starring Ky-mani Marley and Spragga Benz, is in a scene where Teddy Bruck Shut is driving with one of his goons in Miami. The man makes a disparaging remark about "those banana boat" people and Teddy gets angry and says he should never say anything about banana boat again.

In his song Banana Boat Man, Junior Reid uses that once-available mode of transportation to 'farin' as the basis for his

Say how John reach a farin him no have no passport

Never travel through Norman Manley Airport

Leave dung a de wharf poor man airport

How him leave out pon a banana boat

However, although he did not leave in style, the objective was achieved as Reid sings:

Now dem a run tings

Reach up a farin an a run tings

It was not an easy journey, though, as:

... one week de ragga take fe reach Merica

Run outta crackers run outta water

Sacrifice haffi make when yu waan better ...

He does not leave his family behind, as he sends for his "original ting, make she know Bronx, Manhattan, make she know Brooklyn".

Still, the stigma is there as Reid demands "no call we no banana boat man/we a ragamuffin we a run tings".

Tings change

Now oonu see say life hard

Yu never use to sen yu money come a yard

Yu wretch yu, yu spen de whol a it abroad

Squander yu money now yu living like dog'

-Buju Banton