Issue 58 / August 2015

Bido Lito! August 2015
5
I meet Malik Al Nasir on a sunny Bold Street and ask him if I
can get him a coffee. “No, I’m fasting, but you go ahead, fill
yer boots,” he grins. Malik’s life is something of a modernday
parable, a rags-to-riches story, where the rags represent
a childhood of hardship and the riches an emotional,
philosophical and intellectual maturing throughout adulthood.
Formerly Mark T. Watson, the son of a Guyanese father and
a Welsh mother, Watson suffered a Liverpool childhood of
poverty exacerbated by semi-literacy and racial abuse, against
which he railed. After his father suffered a stroke, at the age
of nine he was labelled a troublemaker and taken into ‘care’.
A fourteen-day stint in solitary confinement was his welcome;
two weeks, which, he says, are still vividly etched in his mind,
as if the bars still covered his windows.
Perhaps little wonder, then, that when his older brother
Reynold introduced him to the politically charged, socially
conscious poetry of American artists Gil Scott-Heron and
The Last Poets the seeds of salvation were sown; seeds that
flowered in 1984 when Gil Scott-Heron played Liverpool’s Royal
Court and Malik met his hero backstage, and bore fruit over the
coming years after Malik took “about two seconds” to consider
Scott-Heron’s invitation to “get on the [tour] bus and come with
us” (you can just hear his jazzy delivery of that line). Malik leapt
on board and changed his life forever.
Malik is a big, gently spoken man and when I meet him he
seems to know exactly what information he wants to impart,
but he also takes a spontaneous delight in storytelling.
Once on board the tour bus, Malik spent the next few years
alternately on tour with Scott-Heron or travelling the world’s
shipping lanes as a merchant seaman. “I studied under these
guys, I studied everything: the music industry, poetry, politics,
civil rights, religion, what was happening in America, what
came out of the black arts movement, the Harlem renaissance,
the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, everything.” If that education
laid the foundations for his burgeoning creativity, his seagoing
encounters with people and places proved to be a trove of
literary treasure. Encouraged by Scott-Heron and The Last
Poets (particularly Jalal Nuriddin and Suliman El Hadi), he
began to write and initially produced poetry both as a means
of convincing himself that he could succeed at university and
also as a personal catharsis. Suitably assured, he put the
poems to bed and they were only resurrected when close
friends and family convinced him of their worth. The poems
are littered with references to the casual and institutionalised
racism, inequalities and injustices of life in the UK (Freedom Is
A Funny Thing, Power) and the more exotic backdrop provided
by his life in the “merch” (Bourbon Street, Elena, Mediterranean
Sunset, Cartogena).
As he warms to the recounting of his story, I ask Malik
about the first time he ever performed his poems live. “I was
selling advertising space on The Buzz magazine and they
did a live event with bands, and one [member] of Gil’s band,
Robbie Gordon, was playing. There was a technical problem
and I’d introduced the band, and Robbie said ‘You do poetry,
give them a poem’. So I dropped this poem, Power, and the
crowd applauded so I dropped four or five while they sorted
the tech out.” His self-belief was further boosted following a
second impromptu but well-received performance, where he
introduced himself with the predictive words, “I’m not a poet,
I’m just an ordinary guy who wrote some poetry.”
Having heard the applause, performing was added to his
growing portfolio, alongside record producing, publishing and
promotion. Indebted to Scott-Heron, Nuriddin and Suliman El
Hadi – who were also responsible for his embracing of Islam
– Malik finally published his poems in 2004 in a book titled
Ordinary Guy, through his own publishing company Fore-Word
Press. A decade or more after they were written, Malik finally
brought the poems to light as a dedication to his “literary
brothers and mentors.”
Fast-track to 2015 and Malik – still performing with and
promoting The Last Poets and performing with his own band,
MALIK & THE O.G’S – has released a recorded version of his
dedication entitled Rhythms Of The Diaspora – Volumes 1 & 2.
The O.G’s, I surmise, stands for ‘Ordinary Guys’, but Malik, not
for the last time, refers to the layers of meaning that lie behind
his words. “Some people also think it stands for ‘Original
Gangsters’: people regard Gil and The Last Poets as OGs. But
it’s actually a triple entendre: my father was born in Guyana
and Guyanese people are known as Guys, so by heritage, I’m
just an ordinary Guy.”
Recorded at Wyclef Jean’s Platinum Studios in New York, the
music on Vol. 1 reflects many elements of the African diaspora,
from the New Orleans marching-band drumming of Bourbon
Street, the reggae lilts of Africa and Cherish The Good Man,
the RnB stylings of Fruit Of My Love and the D.C. go-go triplets
of Blues.
The original poems were arranged as songs by “adding
choruses and bridges”, and are interpreted by a number of
guest vocalists, most prominently J.D. Smoothe, whose clean,
light tone is reminiscent of Stevie Wonder and Charmaine
Radcliffe, who delivers a soulful rendition of the poignant Fruit
Of My Love. Gil Scott-Heron himself delivers a typically cool
vocal on Black And Blue and there’s a lovely moment when,
during the fadeout, after delivering the line “There’s more to
being black than feeling blue”, Scott-Heron ad-libs “I really
like that”. Using only percussive instruments, all recorded live,
the rhythm section of drummer Rod Youngs (Gil Scott-Heron’s
Amnesia Express), percussionists Larry McDonald (Amnesia
Express) and Marivaldo dos Santos (Wyclef Jean), and marimba
player Kenyatte Abdur-Rahman (The Last Poets) are eminently
capable of realising the complex and varying structures and
rhythms of Malik’s songs.
Vol. 2 sees Malik himself delivering his poetry, with a guest
appearance by The Last Poets over a sparse percussive backing
from drummer Swiss Chris (John Legend), who masterfully
switches styles across the spectrum of the diaspora. All of it
is done in the style of early Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron’s
formative albums, which allows the alternately fiery and
plaintive spoken-word pieces to breathe freely. Despite the
anger expressed in many of the poems, it is Malik’s belief that
justice lies in the hands of the creator. Passage Of Crime “is about
the Judgement Day,” explains Malik. “Nelson Mandela called for
no revenge, no retribution; we don’t want to swing the pendulum
the other way and become oppressors, we need balance. People
are not born to oppress.”
Fittingly, as part of its Music Migrations theme, Liverpool
International Music Festival 2015 have commissioned Malik
and business partner Richard McGinnis (Chibuku) to produce a
tribute to Gil Scott-Heron, entitled The Revolution Will Be Live.
The event is one of the cornerstones of LIMF’s Commissions
activities this year, and is taking place at St. George’s Hall on 27th
August. The same diligence that Malik brought to his selection
and execution of the album tracks has been applied to the live
show. All the artists performing have a connection to Scott-
Heron, either musically or politically: Aswad performed at the
Free Nelson Mandela Concert (anti-apartheid being a cause long
espoused by Gil Scott-Heron); Craig Charles devoted a whole BBC
6Music Funk And Soul Show to Scott-Heron after his death; The
Christians covered Scott-Heron’s The Bottle; Sophia Ben-Yousef’s
song Carry On soundtracked the Libyan revolution; and headliner
Talib Kweli is an artist who, Malik says, “has remained true to
the conscious roots of hip hop” – which neatly brings things full
circle and back to Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets’ origins as
socio-political protesters. Scott-Heron’s son, Rumal Rackley, and
Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Ndaba, will be in attendance at the
event as guests of honour.
And then there is Malik’s own band, the O.G’s, which feature
Rod Youngs and members of the acclaimed Jazz Warriors. “This is a
coming out for us,” states Malik. “I’ve left it late, I’ve learnt from the
masters. I don’t want to be ripped off like The Last Poets, fighting
legal battles against the record companies like Gil Scott-Heron.
I’ve set up and run my own record company, my own publishing
company; I write and produce my own material; I do my own PR;
I can maintain control and not get ripped off by the shysters who
have permeated the music industry since its inception. I attribute
the ability to do all that to the guidance of Gil Scott-Heron and
The Last Poets. We’ve had a phenomenal response to the idea of
the concert, to its credibility as a tribute to Gil.”
I ask Malik if he’s still writing poetry. “Yeh, I’ve got loads.” He
picks up his phone, says “Here’s one, still a work in progress, no
title,” and, leaning closer to my recorder, delivers a beautifully
lyrical performance, another verse in the extraordinary life of
an ordinary guy.
It’s like we’re living in the Matrix,
alternative reality,
knowing of the truth,
not an option for society.
In the Matrix,
utopian delusions,
politicians manufacturing conclusions,
media moguls’ propagation of illusions,
there’s no escape - lost in the confusion.
In the Matrix,
invasion of your mind,
configuring your thoughts,
to render you as blind,
to the Matrix,
don’t even know you’re there,
you think you’re in control,
while you’re trapped in your armchair.
They tell you what to think.
They show you what to do.
Rewards if you buy in,
if not they’ll punish you.
They choose you by your race,
transfiguring your mind.
They tell you who to hate,
while bankers rob you blind.
In the Matrix,
they’re still searching for the one,
hoping he’ll appear,
so that they can go home,
from the Matrix,
manufacturing a dream,
where ignorance is bliss
and power is extreme!
© Malik Al-Nasir, 2015 all rights reserved
Rhythms Of The Diaspora – Volumes 1 & 2 is released on iTunes
on 1st August on Mentis Records.
The Revolution Will Be Live: A Tribute To Gil Scott-Heron takes place
at St. George’s Hall on 27th August, as part of Liverpool International
Music Festival. Tickets can be found at limfestival.com.
bidolito.co.uk