Morgan Heritage | It’s Cool to be Conscious

The Interview

IRIE. I also loved the track ‘Put it On Me.’  This one had a different vibe to it than your other love songs.  How did you guys approach writing this song?

Peetah: We always love to include love songs on our albums but we believe we pushed the envelope with ‘Put it On Me.’  The lyrics are very sensual; to me it was like we went into a mode like a Marvin Gaye ‘Sexual Healing’ kind of vibe, just reggae style.  We wanted to express the physical side instead of just being subliminal with the message.  ‘Put it On Me’ is one of those songs where we just wanted to go a little further than we would normally go in writing our love songs.

IRIE. ‘Celebrate Life’ is another favorite.  I found myself thinking positive thoughts and smiling while listening to the song for the first time.

Peetah: ‘Celebrate Life’ is a song that represents what we want to talk about.  We normally write a lot about the struggle in the community, songs like ‘Nothing To Smile About’ and ‘Tell Me How Come.’  On ‘Celebrate Life’ we wanted people to do exactly that.  When we are gone from this world, that’s it you’re gone; there is no coming back.

We should all enjoy our lives.  Everyone will not agree with what you do with your life but that doesn’t matter; we should all enjoy our own lives.  If you want to take chances in life then do that and be confident about it.  Everything we try to do may not be successful but we should still be willing to try.  Win, lose or draw, we should still be grateful for the lives we are living.

IRIE. Let’s talk about your collaboration with Shaggy, ‘Keep on Jammin.’  I hear Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give it Up’ but with a rock edge when I play this song.

Peetah: Well, that is Marvin Gaye’s song.  Growing up in America, people like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Jackson Five, Michael Jackson, and The Gap Band are inspirations to Morgan Heritage.

We grew up listening to Marvin Gaye. This song was actually recorded in 2007, before our last few albums, but it was never the right time to release the song.  We were actually watching the movie ‘Barbershop’ and they had a scene where they played ‘Got to Give it Up.’  When we go to parties they would usually have a section where they played great oldies like ‘Got To Give It Up’ in the black community.  We wanted to record the song our way but couldn’t give it that reggae slow, so we gave it an up-tempo ska feel with a rock twist.  Ska music has a diverse audience so fit into us reaching a global audience. We wanted to do justice to Marvin but also do justice to Ska music. Shaggy is a great friend of ours; he’s like a brother to us.  We asked him to be a part of the song and he said yes.

IRIE. What did you think of the decision that was recently handed down regarding copyright infringement by Pharrell and Robin Thicke?

Peetah: You can’t lie about music. Everyone steals from everyone in music.  There’s nothing really new because there are really only seven different keys in music.  Whatever sound you are creating is a relative of something else.  One thing we have to remember is a familiar sound always connects with people.  With a song as big as ‘Got to Give it Up’ someone is going to remember something. 
Everyone heard ‘Got To Give It Up’ in that song.  It would have been nice if they would have just come out said yeah, we were inspired by ‘Got To Give It Up.’  But they are both artists in their own right and can do what they want and say what they want.  However, there is nothing wrong with just saying you were inspired by a song.

IRIE. You covered one of my favorite songs by Michael Jackson, ‘The Girl is Mine.’  Why did the group choose that song by Michael Jackson to record?

Peetah: We actually didn’t pick the song.  The producer Jason Farmer (J. Vibe) made the track but couldn’t find the right vocalist for it.  We knew him for years so one day he called us and said he could only hear me and my brother Gramps on the track.  He wouldn’t tell us the name of the track before sending it to us but once we heard the track, we knew we had to sing on it.  It is a song we grew up on.  We love Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney.  They are both music legends.  It was an honor to do a song in honor of Michael Jackson.  It’s one of those songs that came to us by the producer and just happened to fit in with the music we were recording at the time.

IRIE. What does Rastafari mean to you?

Peetah: My entire family grew up in the Rastafari way of life.  It was never about the hairstyle but about who you are, where you come from, and your history. Knowing who Haile Selassie is and the majesty of his existence.  Rastafari is more than wearing loc’s, smoking ganja and not eating meat.  It’s more of a lifestyle; it’s livity.  It’s how you deal with people, how you carry yourself in society.  The foundation of Rastafari is love.  You can’t preach about Rastafari when you are also preaching hatred towards another because of their color or where they come from.  Rastafari is a consciousness.

IRIE. What are your thoughts on the decriminalization of marijuana for Rasta’s in Jamaica?

Peetah: Marijuana is not for everyone.  You have to understand the way the government wants to do certain things. People who smoke the herb in Jamaica have not been treated so well by some. This is a serious topic in Jamaica.  I just think it’s going to take a little more time for the world to see the benefits of the herb.  I don’t see how marijuana is doing any more harm than tobacco.  Ingredients in cigarettes are poison to the human body yet sold legally.  So there are a lot of things leading to the platform for the legalization of marijuana.

People have to understand that the government has to find a way to benefit from it and once they do, then it will become legal. One of the reasons Jamaica is so hard on marijuana is the Rastaman was the first to advocate for the legalization of it.

We smoke marijuana because it takes us to a higher level of consciousness. There was a time when Rasta’s weren’t accepted in Jamaica so anything related to them was taboo.  Just being a Rasta was taboo. It takes time for real change to happen in society.  Decriminalization of herb is just the start.

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