The story behind "Here Come The Critics"

I’ve had it with overly critical people…the ones who act as if my personal business is theirs. If I wear a red dress, they have the audacity to tell me that it should be blue. As my mom would say, ‘dem fresh!’ Or if I decide to have an intimate relationship with a cab driver, they think I should be with a bank manager instead. Excuse me? You should know what I mean if you’re non-traditional and unorthodox like me…always breaking the rules not simply because you want to break them but because that’s naturally how you are. Let me tell you something that happened to me that caused me to write the song ‘Here come the Critics’ because I’m sure some of you will want to know what led up to it. So here goes…

Not long ago, I was teaching English and Literature at a high school in Jamaica…a certain respect goes along with being a teacher in Jamaica. So I usually wore my tailored suits and high heels to work, and the expensive-looking handbags of course and most people in my community knew me as ‘Ms. Brown’; some would just call me ‘teach’(all of this was before I began working on my music full-time). So now, imagine the highly respected fair-skinned teacher - who holds her head high and who walks with poise – dating a Rasta man who wears khaki suits, sandals, and a turban on his head from time to time. Oh, and did I mention he didn’t own a car either? Not even a bicycle. He’d walk to visit me most times, and man, did we turn heads when we stepped out hand in hand!!! I tell you! The nasty stares we got would murder us if looks could kill.

I remember I bumped into a former professor of mine one day who before asking me how I was doing, went straight to asking me if the man with the dreadlocks was my significant other. “I saw you both the other day in the town and you looked quite close.” “Yes,” I replied, “he is my man.”

Her mouth opened so wide, a rocket could hold in it. She went on to say that after all the education I received, I should know better than to date someone who is of unequal status and also that she did not think we would last because we don’t match and went on to ask me if I had been converted to Rastafarianism, if my parents had approved of him and that she would pray for me because I was not in my right mind and that my students needed a good role model.

Don’t even ask what my response to her was. I told her, as tactfully as possible, that she taught me enough in school and should mind her own business. How can someone else tell you whom you should love and how you should feel? How on Earth did she get the right to tell me that my Rasta man was not good enough for me? She did not know what we shared and the multitude of things we had in common. I’ve dated men from all walks of life and maybe it’s just my luck, but the more ‘educated’ they are the more selfish and unwilling to compromise and learn. They start smelling themselves, as my grandmother would say. So next time when someone tells you how to feel and what type of person you should love, you should ask them what makes them eligible to give you that sort of advice. As for me, the critics don’t have to give me any clearance to love.

Written by: Ruth-Ann Brown Singer/Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment www.bran-nu.com www.ruthabrown.com

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What inspired the song "Jamdown"

Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica…where do I begin?

I was born in what most people would call a poor community, or what some Jamaicans would call ‘bush’…haha! No public water system supplies the community but most people build their own tanks and most houses are made from wood. The main source of income for Chesterfield is farming. My grandfather was a farmer and so is my father. I did not stay long enough to take over the farm from him, but I did my fair share of digging holes for coconut trees and sugar cane, and helping to reap peas, pineapples and yams. Of course I know how to cook on a wood fire as well, and I know what it is to have a rooster as my only alarm clock. No clubs, no restaurants, nothing…it’s like you’re in the middle of nowhere. If you aren’t strong, that kind of life can get to you.

On the other hand, I know what it is like to hear gunshots being fired in the night and hearing that someone down the street was killed ( the news alone hits like a bullet when it is someone you knew personally) as I lived in Spanish Town for a short time. I know what it is like to live in an area with curfews and gang wars as I lived a stone’s throw from Norwood in Montego Bay for a few months as well. But most things I know about violence in Jamaica was not from personal experience though…fortunately, I have never been robbed at gun point or kidnapped and physically abused. I’ve never lost a member of my family to reprisal killings but I’ve seen enough of it happen to my neighbors and strangers. Now for unemployment…

I remember finishing my credits at college a few months before I graduated and thinking it should be pretty easy to find a job with my qualifications. I sent out so many applications to various places. No luck. Maybe I did not write my resume properly, but I followed all the advice I had gotten at school, but months were going by and I needed money. None of my friends were finding jobs either. We were all beginning to feel hopeless so I sent an application to a supermarket. They were kind enough to invite me to an interview. Of course, I knew nothing about packing bags or using a cash register (embarrassing, I know). In the end, they told me I was overqualified. I could hardly pay my rent and buy food…all I could think about were my friends in the United States of America and how easy life must have been for them. I did not wait long to migrate after I got a good job…how ironic, eh?

As soon as I left Jamaica, I started missing the beaches, the food, the tropical climate and the warmth of the people. I started missing how beautiful it was to drive along the coast and look at the water. I began missing the roast yam and breadfruit and started feeling like I wanted to go back. But then I thought of the murderers who kill for no reason and the psychotic perverts who rape children and old women and even young boys. I started feeling afraid. It’s like wanting to eat ice-cream because of how good it tastes but knowing it can make you fat. And after weighing it all, ‘Jamdown’ was born. I did not think about it much. The words just flowed naturally over the melody and it expresses how I really feel about my home, ‘Jamdown’.

Written by: Ruth-Ann Brown Singer/Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment www.bran-nu.com www.ruthabrown.com

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Connected

“Don’t leave the pipe on while you’re brushing your teeth,” my mom usually said to me when I was younger, “You’re wasting water.”

‘But where does it go?’ I thought, ‘Doesn’t it find a way back into the ground? And if so, won’t it find its way back to a body of water or maybe it will water a tree or maybe it will evaporate and fall as rain and since everything on Earth is connected and some living organism will benefit from it somehow, is it really being wasted? It may water some corn. A chicken may eat that corn and someone in turn may eat that chicken.’

I sometimes throw away leftover food and I think the same way. I think, ‘I know some less fortunate person somewhere would be happy for this, but then again, if I throw it out, it will rot in the Earth and provide fertilizer for plants which will become food and benefit some living organism…not necessarily the hungry man on the street so it’s not really being wasted.'

Do you ever think about the fact that the same Earth in which we bury our dead is the same Earth that provides us with food and water, the staves of life? This reminds me…in the graveyard of the Anglican Church in my mother’s hometown grows a mango tree. In fact, it grows right above the grave in which one of my cousins was buried. When that mango tree bears, it bears loads. As far as I know, no one touches the fruits. It may be because they’re scared that the ghosts of the dead may come and haunt them for their mangoes or maybe they’re not comfortable eating fruits fertilized by dead bodies. I think, 'it’s all connected somehow whether or not I eat a mango from miles away or from right above these graves.’

I think the shape of the world can be used as a metaphor just like the shape of a ring. They’re both round and as we know, a circle has no end. It is one. It is perennial and one energy flows throughout it and continues. I think we’re all connected somehow and thus, nothing is ever truly wasted. What do you think?

Ruth-Ann Brown Singer/Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment http://www.ruthabrown.com http://www.bran-nu.com

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The Beauty Of Nu Dimensions

“Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

It was a bright Sunday morning and I was sprawled out beside my best friend on the grass of my front yard. My mother had just hung out laundry on the clothes line so my friend and I were soaking up the smell of fabric softener along with the warmth of the sun. As the fluffy, white clouds drifted slowly across the baby blue sky, I felt my friend nudge me.

“Look deh! Yu see how da cloud deh look like a rabbit?” She pointed to a huge, cottony shape. “No, it look more like a sneakers.” “Yu mad? How dat fi look like sneakers?” she shouted. “A you mad. Dat can’t be no rabbit,” I replied. She began pointing, as if with a chalkboard pointer. “Look, see di eye dem dere, and di ears to the left, and the little tail stump right dere so. Look before it disappear!” I looked intently at her finger as it tried to touch the cloud and suddenly, my sneaker vanished! “Yes, mi see it now! Oh gosh! Mi see di ears right deh so and di little tail. Yu right. Is a rabbit!” “See mi tell yu!”

As the rabbit floated across the sky, I tried to see it as the sneaker I had seen originally, but that proved impossible. For some reason, my mind would not have it. It’s as if it retorted by saying, ‘It is what it is. Don’t try to change it into what it was.’

And so it is when we learn, and by that, I mean when we open our mental/spiritual eyes, when we arrive at a new dimension of ourselves and change our behavior. We look back at the way we used to be and shake our heads and think, “That’s not me. How could I have been that way?” It’s as if we cannot imagine ourselves being anything else than what we have become and I find that beautiful…we each have one life but in that one life, we can be different, more updated versions of ourselves. We grow, we evolve, we change. We still have some semblance of our former selves because the memories go nowhere but we also have the power to stick to new ideals…new dimensions!

Written by: Ruth-Ann Brown Singer/Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment http://www.ruthabrown.com http://www.bran-nu.com/

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Single and loving it ?

I’m almost sure we’ve all heard people say they’re single and loving it. I usually believe this when the person is just exiting a terrible relationship and wants to enjoy his or her freedom once again. I’ve even heard women say, “Oh, if he leaves me now, I’d be perfectly fine. I’d be a hundred percent happy without him.” Men say the same of their women. And I wonder, “Oh yeah? So why the heck are you with this person now if you’d be so alright without him or her?” It is a truth that “you have to be happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone else,” but that doesn’t mean being by yourself brings total happiness.

Firstly, I do believe that one should not depend on another for his or her total happiness. I do believe all of us should get to know and love ourselves before trying to know and love others. One should be capable of being happy by oneself before wanting to be happy with someone else. Know what flies your kite before you try to know what floats someone else’s boat. It’s logical to do so. Those of us who have done this in reverse pay severely. We change with each relationship we get into. We morph into the other person. His or her ideals become ours. His or her beliefs and standards become ours. It’s as if we have no identity of our own and just like a Smith’s dwarf chameleon, we blend into the surroundings and cannot be identified. When they break up with us, we cry for another relationship. It is as if we cannot survive without being with other people. We start dating as soon as (sometimes even before) the tears dry and then the cycle continues…very sad. If one figures out how to be happy alone, then one will not force another relationship…one will just chill until the right person comes at the right time.

But how far can this ‘alone happiness’ take us? I don’t know. I’ve gotten to a point where I can enjoy a host of things by myself. I can take a long walk, look at the scenery, smile to myself in admiration of nature but when I have someone to converse with as I walk…even hold my hand and squeeze it every now and then…point out something interesting I wouldn’t have noticed alone in a million years, am I any happier? Oh yea! I can cook myself a delicious dinner, candlelight and all then snuggle up in the couch with some gelato and watch an exciting movie and enjoy the heck out of it but doesn’t the sound of someone else’s laughter make me crack up too? Oh yea! Just knowing someone else is enjoying what I am enjoying makes a difference. Knowing someone is sharing life with me is wonderful.

So maybe not all of us, when single, want to say, ”I’m single and loving it.” For some of us, it’s “I’m single and ok with it.”

Written by: Ruth-Ann Brown Singer/Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment www.bran-nu.com www.ruthabrown.com

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Champion

I was living in Grasspond, Westmoreland at my uncle’s house with my mom, cousin and older sister when my uncle bought a robust buck or ‘rammy’ as we call them in Jamaica. He was black with specks of white hair near his neck. My uncle tied him to an ackee tree on a fenced portion of his land. There, the burly male goat grazed and grew handsomely. We called him ‘Champion’.

Before Champion joined our family, I had loved dogs and cats. Usually, I wouldn’t consider a goat a pet but Champion was different. He stared at people when they walked by. He stopped grazing and seemed to listen when someone was speaking. We grew to love him.

Then the day came.

My sister and I were in the house when we heard Champion bawling out. We rushed outside to see what the matter was. My uncle had brought a gentleman to help him kill Champion, whom they had hung to a tree near to where he used to graze. It could have been the same ackee tree. We looked in stupor as they slashed his jugular vein. Blood streamed down the animal’s body. I began to cry. We watched them skin him. I ran into the house with my sister sobbing behind me.

“Mommy! Dem kill Champion!” We could not hold back the tears. Mommy hugged us and rocked us. “Shhhhh shhhh,” she said, “Is for the opening of your uncle’s prayer center.” “But why?” I knew ram goats were used to make curry goat for special occasions but I didn’t want to accept that Champion was going to be eaten.

As my sister and I lay in bed that night, we smelled the aroma of Champion coming from the fire they had built in the backyard. We walked outside to see what was going on. Mr. Williams, the gentleman who was roasting the goat, offered us a portion of the testicles.

“It taste good. Try it,” he said.

In seconds, we were chowing down on Champion’s balls.

Written by: Ruth-Ann Brown Singer/Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment www.bran-nu.com www.ruthabrown.com

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The More I Get

I remember where I am coming from, but I dread going back (for good). I do think of my earliest memories fondly – waking up in a small, wooden house surrounded by dewy pineapple farms and cattle commons. My father was the most hardworking man I ever knew. He’d wake up at four in the morning and head to the ‘bush’ as we’d call it. There, he’d move the goats and cows from one place to the other; plough the land; plant heads of dasheen, pineapple, sugar cane and so many more crops on which we depended for survival. By seven o’clock he’d be at school getting ready to teach his students for most of the day.

My mother always had a smile on her face even if all she had to offer us were boiled bananas from the field with ‘run dung’ made from coconut milk and God knows what else. I never saw her much because she had to be at work too – teaching her students how to sew. I wore my school uniforms proudly because Mommy worked magic on them. I used to be worried the day just before the first day of school each year because the uncut material was still sitting in the bag from the fabric store but on those September mornings, I’d wake up and find my uniform ironed and hanging on the bedroom door just waiting for me to put it on.

I have come a long way. The kitchen in which I now cook is decked out with appliances. From there I can watch the television in the living room. The first kitchen I knew was smoky, black, soot-covered and a few feet from the house. Nowadays, I go to the bathroom as often as I like and flush, flush, flush; I can even soak in the tub and relax with scented candles. The first bathroom I knew was the farthest building from the house and did not even have a shower. In fact, it was wooden, dark, and tiny and my grandmother or mother had to bail water from the water tank into a bath pan from which I would splash. The pit toilet was a peephole away.

I do not remember the last time I had to get on my knees and polish wooden floors nor do I remember the last time I jumped over a pothole yet I find myself complaining each time an expectation of mine is not met. If the power goes for a minute, I complain. If the hot water is out for an hour, I complain. It’s like the more I live a better life, the more ungrateful I become.

I used to pride myself on being a ‘soldier’ because of the way I was raised. When it rained heavily, the roof leaked but I set pots and pans and took an outside shower. I did not complain. I didn’t know better but I was happy.

Why is it that the more I get, the more I want?

Written By : Ruth-Ann Brown Ruth-Ann Brown Singer / Songwriter Bran-Nu Entertainment http://www.bran-nu.com http://www.ruthabrown.com

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