Yasus Afari wears many turbans - artiste, author, philosopher and motivational speaker. But what he is best known as is a poet - an 'artical', Rastafarian dub poet.
He is also becoming a guru of portmanteau words. He calls his craft edutainment - educational entertainment - and recently successfully merged comedy and poetry in a performance format, 'Pomedy'.
His latest work, Kiss Mi Neck, a poetry album rich with the stories of prose, but laced with poetic rhythm, is another noteworthy achievement for Yasus Afari. He veered from the customary drums, horns and guitars that complement dub poetry and, as he said, "relied on the rhythm of the words".
The issues on Kiss Mi Neck include the full gamut of life topics: politics, poverty, global warming, culture and love. And all the poems are delivered with sublime enunciation and gentle flicks of intonations that rhythmically convey the message.
Of course, Yasus Afari is too much of a deep thinker for one album to contain all his ideals.
Dub poetry is normally accompanied by music, but your album is basically a cappella. Why?
This is my sixth album and the others were 'normal', and with the vision and memory of the ancient future, I like to defy definition rather than conform to normality or convention. Actually, this album, to an extent, is in response to the demands of my supporters and fans in the many countries (Jamaica, England, Wales, Barbados, St Lucia, The Gambia, Japan, New Zealand and Australia) that I've toured in recent years.
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Source - Jamaica Gleaner
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