Name: Interrogating Depression by Raymond Antrobus
Duration: 3 min 9 s
Description: Poem from 'Shapes & Disfigurements Of Raymond Antrobus'

I really like this one - beautiful sequence of words. Oh and I love the Zula bar by the way lol

genius - the best thing about bad weather.. quite positive eh lol

Dear revisionists, Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view. Right now, you are anxiously pacing the corridors of your condos and country estates, looking for the right words, the right tributes, the right-wing tributes. You will say that Mandela was not about race. You will say that Mandela was not about politics. You will say that Mandela was about nothing but one love, you will try to reduce him to a lilting reggae tune. “Let’s get together, and feel alright.” Yes, you will do that.

You will make out that apartheid was just some sort of evil mystical space disease that suddenly fell from the heavens and settled on all of us, had us all, black or white, in its thrall, until Mandela appeared from the ether to redeem us. You will try to make Mandela a Magic Negro and you will fail. You will say that Mandela stood above all for forgiveness whilst scuttling swiftly over the details of the perversity that he had the grace to forgive.

You will try to make out that apartheid was some horrid spontaneous historical aberration, and not the logical culmination of centuries of imperial arrogance. Yes, you will try that too. You will imply or audaciously state that its evils ended the day Mandela stepped out of jail. You will fold your hands and say the blacks have no-one to blame now but themselves.

Well, try hard as you like, and you’ll fail. Because Mandela was about politics and he was about race and he was about freedom and he was even about force, and he did what he felt he had to do and given the current economic inequality in South Africa he might even have died thinking he didn’t do nearly enough of it. And perhaps the greatest tragedy of Mandela’s life isn’t that he spent almost thirty years jailed by well-heeled racists who tried to shatter millions of spirits through breaking his soul, but that there weren’t or aren’t nearly enough people like him.

Because that’s South Africa now, a country long ago plunged headfirst so deep into the sewage of racial hatred that, for all Mandela’s efforts, it is still retching by the side of the swamp. Just imagine if Cape Town were London.  Imagine seeing two million white people living in shacks and mud huts along the M25 as you make your way into the city, where most of the biggest houses and biggest jobs are occupied by a small, affluent to wealthy group of black people.  There are no words for the resentment that would still simmer there.

Nelson Mandela was not a god, floating elegantly above us and saving us. He was utterly, thoroughly human, and he did all he did in spite of people like you. There is no need to name you because you know who you are, we know who you are, and you know we know that too. You didn’t break him in life, and you won’t shape him in death. You will try, wherever you are, and you will fail.

Image accompanying recording: The New Yorker cover, issue date Dec. 16, 2013.  Copyright of Kadir Nelson (http://www.kadirnelson.com/).

Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel.

OUT NOW ON BEATPORT!
http://www.beatport.com/release/pique-feat-mista-gee-connect-to-life/919491

Mista Gee Info:
Gee is one of the most respected and credible poets in the UK, has a show on BBC Radio 4 (Rhyme & Reason) and starred in the acclaimed West End musical "Into the Hoods". Gee is also known as resident poet laureate for the Russell Brand BBC 2 radio show, for which he won a Gold Sony Radio Award, and NME Award, and a .NET Award. The show was one of the BBC's highest rated live shows and regular No.1 Podcast on iTunes. 

Piqué Info:
Recent remixes for Whartone & Stonebridge's Stoney Boy Records. Forthcoming release on Spinnin/Work.
Former weekly resident DJ for Ministry of Sound events at Pacha Sharm.
6 plays on Capital FM in 2011, and two tracks included on the PH Factor "tunes of 2011" 1Mix FM show.
www.youtube.com/piqueofficial

Buy on Beatport

Piqué ft Mista Gee - "Connect to Life" (Muzik X Press)

This is the first single of 2012, to be released in May/June 2012 under Audio Doughnuts and will feature remixes by LV (Hyperdub/Keysound) and 'Baby Parts' from Poets G.R.E.E.d.S and James Massiah.

Mixed by Marc Pell, (Micachu And The Shapes). 
Produced by Marc Pell and Joshua Idehen.  
Drums by Theo Buckingham
Bass by Chris Hargreaves
Sax/Synths/Flute by Tom Leaper
Trombone/Synth/Backing Voxs by Faye Treacy
Words/Main Vox by Joshua Idehen
Arrangement by Tom Leaper, Joshua Idehen, Faye Treacy, Theo Buckingham
Original Composition/Arrangement by Joshua Idehen, Jon Cottle, Tom Leaper, Faye Treacy, Theo Buckingham
Mastered by Mateusz Majewski (Concrete Cut Studios)
iTunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/baby/id530825321

Benin City - Baby

Poem from 'Shapes & Disfigurements Of Raymond Antrobus'

Interrogating Depression

Originally inspired by T2's 'Heartbroken'  

Live recording can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1hfweFQph8 and FREE download if you click the arrow above the track ( :

Enjoy

Interrogating Depression

Raymond Antrobus

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