Conquering Chronixx

At the time we were parked outside Chronixx’s skyline abode, he had not yet made history with his sold out Caribbean tour. As I write this now, I think back to the look on his face when he emerged from the house, and I’m convinced he was already aware, at that moment, of exactly what he had in store for Jamaica. Despite the fact that his career has steadily been on the incline since his breakout single “Behind Curtain”, Chronixx continues to exceed expectations with his achievements. Even with such crowd favorites as the “Start a Fiyah” mixtape, “Dread & Terrible,” and more recently “Roots and Chalice,” it wasn’t until “Chronology” hit the streets, both digitally and physically on July 7th 2018, that it became evident to the world, his caliber of music could be greater still. After being in his presence for a while, one could get a sense of why this was the case. There was just something about him which inferred that this man was constantly on the cusp of his best self, not unlike the philosophy of his king. By the time we finally sat down to talk about his debut full-length album, Chronixx was already fired up from the insightful conversations during the shoot. It made for an easy transition into shop talk for “Chronology.”

The album, “Chronology,” I hear it was supposed to be released earlier than it was. I know with bodies of work that are full length debuts a lot more consideration goes into it. Tell me a little about that.

Well, the album itself, as a body of work has been in the making for a while within my consciousness. We really start; we commence the final levels of the production, I would say mid-2016, because I was working on it with “Dread and Terrible,” and simultaneously with “Roots and Chalice,” so it just been in the making for a while. Then now when we commence in 2016, start to link up all the people that I know; musicians. Great musicians worked on it: Glen Brown, Shia core, Namdi Robinson, Evan (which is Yellow); people like Welch, play bass on it, Picard brothers from France, Special Delivery from France. Special Delivery now, I’ve been working with all throughout, they produced “Beat and Mic,” “Eternal Fire,” “Rastaman Wheel Out.” So a like mi bredrin dem mi make di album with still, nah tell yuh no lie. Stephen McGregor, him play bass on it too, so he was a musician and also a producer on the album. Myself produce on it, and sing. Hector Lewis play percussion and sing. Nambo Robinson, Dean Fraser, Rudimentals – they produced Loneliness with Picard brothers. So many of them, from local and abroad.

A lot of Musicians, when they do their first full-length project they tend to try to go it alone. Even though the quality of your music is different because it is made with performance and a live ensemble in mind. You took a different route to most by working with so many other musicians and creatives.

Yeah because I feel like now we are charged with the work of continuing Reggae music. Because Reggae music is a work music, it’s not just popular music. Every now and then you will have from it, but Reggae music is predominantly a works ting. It’s centered around the work that the human community have to do. So I feel like our generation, our work is to somehow continue. Primarily to continue, but also to write our testament of the same spirituality from creation. Which is the spirituality that suits humanity the best; not necessarily best, as in one is superior to the other, but best for the human being to be able to experience some level of balance within them lifetime. For instance, having proper things to feed your body with, them ting deh crucial. Our generation charged with primarily continuing the work and to write our testament of how humanity can move forward. So, that is the primary approach that I take to music still, from an ideological perspective. Other than that now music is a [thing] that you can never touch. You run it down all your life and you’ll never touch it. It touch you, all your life it a touch you and you a try touch it back, but you can’t touch it. It won’t allow it, because it is a spirit.

So when would you say you came closest to it, or the source of music?

Yoooo, a just we lifestyle. The life that we live make we get a taste of it. Life is just a taste. The lifestyle we live, and to how we cooperate with creation, creation just cooperate with us too. Because we not trying to fight down anything, we nah try fi tear down nothing. We a try to build up. Because all that is to be torn down will tear down it own self. Everything that is to be torn down will tear down it’s own self. So we just deal with creation, we cooperate with it, and creation say up, if it say down, a down. Yeah.

From your music I can tell that lifestyle is very important to you, or faith as some people would put it. To some people it doesn’t matter if they can identify themselves in the god they worship, but for you it’s very key.

Well, alright. His Majesty is the King of Kings. There are many kings and lords, but his majesty is the lord of lords, King of Kings, conquering lion of the tribe of Judah, elect of himself, light of the world, Rastafari. Negus the Negast, all these different words and titles and descriptions of his majesty. During the world war when they invaded Ethiopia, yuh think dem Neva know say it was the light of the world dem a invade? Dem know say a Di light of the world dem did a violate. To the point where he could go to the League of Nations and tell them straight, “the match strike in Ethiopia, but the flame shall burn in Ethiopia.”

A world war started after that, because a world war is what they wanted. They were trying to disrupt progress, so they attacked the light of the world. Anytime they want to stop progress, they attack the light directly. Yuh try fi cover up the light for a while. It never worked. It’s never ever worked. In every universe where they try those things it’s never worked because when the balance of things is restored, it is certain that everything is good. You’re only certain of that when love conquer everything. But every other time is uncertainty, so they’re always trying to increase the times of uncertainty. Because in the times of uncertainty you can manipulate mankind on various levels. You can program mankind easily during the time of indecisiveness and confusion, when they’re driven by fears. The human being when driven by fear, does some crazy things. So when you hear that they invade and want to capture certain places and disrupt certain consciousness- because remember y’know, is the same king this that they invaded, and that England placed a weapons embargo on. But…they knew, and then they came to see the same king everywhere they went in the form of a consciousness. That’s when they start to say maybe this is the real light of the world, because we can’t kill him, can’t stop him, can’t nothing. And the consciousness about to get deeper. Some youths, you should hear what they talk about. Just wait man, a mad ting. Dem ting deh make yuh good, make yuh don’t over praise your flesh.

You start to understand that life is not a thing that is governed based on the presence and absence of flesh. That is where your fear comes from, when you start to feel like life is so much about the presence and absence of flesh. So much that you want to cling on to your flesh and you dread the day, your flesh will diminish. That’s a sad day for you. And a dem ting deh make humanity flex the way how dem flex. That’s why men work so hard, because they don’t want to die. They love it, they love the feeling of it nuh care how it rough. Sometimes it’s very rough on some people and they still hold out, because they love this and don’t want to lose it. Then they always want to keep you there, they don’t understand that life itself is a work. And this is not a break from your work, it is just a phase of your work. Continue with your work, even now, continue what you say you’re doing. Anything you say you want to do, just do that, that’s what Rastafari really is. Him also propose a new way for people to govern themselves. When that manifests now bredda, is a great thing, we won’t have certain things again. We probably won’t have poverty, if they allow it to fully manifest. Once you don’t have poverty, you won’t have a lot of other things.

That brings up the next question. The media tends to explore the issue of crime as a thing that’s separate from the economic strain and poverty, which seem to me, the root cause of all this.

It’s a depopulation, and crime, crime is just institution in society, that’s why you have law, because without crime you don’t need laws. A nuh natural law dem a deal wid enuh bredda. Because if it was natural laws, they wouldn’t build certain factories, it wouldn’t be legal. So crime is a faculty within society itself where it has to be managed. It manages a lot of things and it is managed by a lot of things. Society teaches us about crime and its definition very young, because it is a part of society. They have an institution now that can take you out of crime and put you into different institutions. Like religion. A lot of people that come out of the institution of crime, normally transfer over, through the institution of correction and send you into a different institution to work. That’s just work for society. If you a deal with real creation works, you never end up in prison. You never end up there. You won’t end up in any institution of churches or that kind of thing. That way you don’t have to say you’re a Christian either. Because once you have to say that you’re a Christian, and once you have to say you are a Rasta often- why? Does the dog walk and tell you that he is a dog, but once you see the dog you know. The lion don’t have to tell you that he is a lion, all he has to do is roar and do what a lion does. That’s why now we just do we thing, we do the work. Because it’s greater than every other thing, greater than acknowledgment of the work. Acknowledgement of the work is not as important as the work. It’s not
even as sweet. The work itself, there’s so much pleasure in it, acknowledgment don’t give you that. Which Grammy a man can give yuh that’s sweeter than when you steam all some herbs and a song come to you? That’s the feeling, because you hooked, from you feel that one time you want it back.

Photos by Jik Reuben