William ‘Bunny Rugs’ Clark

IRIE. African Woman is one of my favorite reggae songs of all time. Can you share with us the story behind it?

Bunny Rugs: African Woman.. I wrote that song in New York in Central Park and that song is very special to me. Those days, in the early 70’s, you could rent a little boat in Central Park and I would have my acoustic guitar and my Panasonic cassette recorder and a little note pad and a pencil. I would spend all day writing and writing. The actual story that it tells is true, I was going through all those issue at that particular time. It’s a real song.

IRIE. Third World has been together for 40 years strong and through those years your message of LOVE in your music has never change. Why is that?

Bunny Rugs: When you really think about it, we have nothing else. To me, I don’t hate anyone and I have never experience hate. I stay far from that. But as you say, we have to explain to the massive exactly what love is, you know, because there are several categories of love. And the first place you have to start is with yourself. I cannot give you something that I don’t have. You cannot create or build anything on hate. Hate is not a creative avenue for you to express. You have to express whatever you do, whether you are a shoemaker, a mechanic, I don’t care whatever you do. In order to have it done in a satisfactory manner and have it done well, you have to do it through love.

I sometimes cook for my wife and I keep telling her the reason why the food taste so good (because she likes when I cook), is because I cook it with so much love. And love manifest itself in so many ways. When I’m cooking for her, and I just use this as an example, it’s a joy! And your ultimate intention is to have it tasty and favorable. You can’t cook tasty and favorable things with hate, my Lord.

IRIE. Can you tell us a little bit about your role as the spokesperson for the Jamaican Children’s Heart Fund?

Bunny Rugs: Yes. It is something very close to my heart. There are a number of children in Jamaica who need heart transplant or surgery. There is a team of doctors and nurses from Joe Dimaggio hospital in Miami. They’ve teamed up with some doctors and nurse in England. Chain of Hope is the new name. We’re trying to raise funds every which way we can so that we can have more missions. Every mission, the doctors fly to Jamaica to operate on 8-10 children. Right now, we have about 250 children in need of medical attention. So this is something very close to my heart, my friend!

IRIE. Are their other historical topics that you would like to write about and put into song

Bunny Rugs: That’s always a difficult question because we have done so much. We have over 23 releases, we have touch on practically every possible subject from the war on Iraq and Iran to starving children in Africa. What we would love to do is just to continue to do what we’re doing now and that is making good music. We love being on tour and on the road performing. We realize how much people love us across the world and that alone in itself is a beautiful blessing, you couldn’t ask for more than that.