Two takes on dead dads

There are two strikingly different perspectives on missing fathers in song from singer Bijean Gayle and deejay Khago.

Performing at Jazz for Hope 2009 on Saturday, June 6, Gayle (who Seretse Small introduced as "an amazing songwriter who has the discipline to put out some really great work") did 86 Mark Lane.

Gayle sang for his missing father, asking:

"Where were you

When times were blue?"

And he related his father's absence to a sense of physical insecurity "when I was four/sleeping on the floor/my only protection was the nail that cotch my door".

When Small, who doubled as guitarist and host, asked Gayle to expand on the genesis of 86 Mark Lane, he said that he was about 11 years old when his father died. However, based on the stories his mother told him, Gayle concluded that he was not much of a father figure.

Absentee-father experience

In addition, while he was living in Fletcher's Land and went to see a friend, he met two little boys who had the absentee-father experience. He wrote down what the boys said and put it in 86 Mark Lane.

Khago's late 2009 recording Daddy From You Gone also speaks to his father, who died when he was a child. However, in this instance, Khago speaks glowingly of his father and notes the negative changes in his life since 'Zaro' died. Daddy From You Gone starts:

"To all you wonderful Dads out there y'nuh

Although more time some a we deadbeat y'nuh

A Khago y'nuh

Hey Dad, this one is reaching out to you

You never no sperm donor

Daddy from you gone

Me know me did a go struggle

Me know sey me did a go struggle

My life pon Earth a no bed a rose

For from you gone I no wear no proper clothes"

Good gosh, Dad is like you get a double kill

You drop out too soon, you never get fe lef' a will ..."

In a previous interview Khago told The Sunday Gleaner the song is a composite of his experiences with his father, who he did not live with, and his seven siblings. The struggles in it, though, are all his. He deejays:

"Daddy big Sunday morning I no eat no breakfas'

White squall take ova me mouth like lip gloss ...

If me say certain things Dad yu would a turn an twis' inna yu grave

Family woulda shame whe treat I like slave ...

So me say music yu save me

Music yu save me

When the pagan dem a try enslave me

A try kill me talent whe de Mos' High gave me

A jus' tru me skill make dem no grave me"

He also deejays about missing his father's presence now that he is a father himself:

"Dad I wish you were around to see my three sons grow

What hurt most is that them look like you ..."

Being a father makes Khago miss Zaro even more. Close to Grand Market night 2010, when he went to Brown's Town, one of his sons said "Daddy Khago" and "one spirit come over me. Me say look how me yute dem a grow, look how me son a call me 'Daddy'. Me say look pon me car outa road, a should a me an Daddy a par".

Still, missing Zaro makes Khago more determined to be a good father himself. "Especially boy pickney no make it without a father 'round him. I mean a real father. If you a hooligan it no really pencil out," he emphasised, noting that no matter how a stepfather cares, may have more money than the child's biological father and the mother prefers him, it is just not the same."

- MC