New CD takes poetry to new level
He’s a man who needs little introduction, and after I listened to his latest CD its easy to see why.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The new release is titled “Just Like That” and just as the name suggests, the artist, Leroy “The Grandmaster” Young, tells it like it is.
The album’s sixteen tracks are based on some of Young’s best-known poems on corruption, police brutality, poverty, love, and politics.
The album is part of the Creole Experience Recording Project out of which Stone Tree Records will release a number of CDs over the next three years. Young’s poems are the first phase of the project and the poet’s lyrics are creatively mixed with Creole, Garifuna, and African percussions, as well as Maya Q’eqchi guitars.
Young says when you consider what he has been through–an earlier life of drugs, including crime and two suicide attempts–he believes the CD is a sign that his long time dream is about to become a reality.
Leroy “Grandmaster” Young
“It’s a period of like ten to fifteen of my life span, where I’ve been, where I’ve come from, where I’m going, where I’m at, just like that. What I’ve done, what I should have done, what I did not do, things that they did to me.”
“This is my bread and butter. This is dah my grain, my ricebun. This dah weh I like do, this dah how I make my living. The man seh, “You noh tyad ah talk my bwai?” I tell ah if I stop talk I noh mek nothing, you know what I mean, just like that.”
Jacqueline Woods
“You’re counting on the public support?”
Leroy “Grandmaster” Young
“Yeah. I noh wah seh I di count pan it, they betta support it. Just like that. And a message to all the ones weh di offload, upload, download, crossload, overload, burn, and pirate, yuh deal with this, either you wah talk to Stone Tree, mi agent, unu wah get in touch with mi lawyer, or me personally wah come deal with unu business. Just like that!”
“Just Like That” is available at all leading record stores for thirty dollars.
