Ms Dynamite speaks to LMHR
LMHR: Why did you get involved in LMHR, in campaigning against the BNP?
MsD: I just can’t believe that in the year 2005 that they’re able to exist. There are young - or old - people looking for someone to believe in and I think it’s really sad that people like the BNP are there to fill the gap in someones life. Hate breeds hate. Its immoral and its disgusting. As a black woman I feel completely insulted that they’re even allowed to exist.
LMHR: Do you agree then that we should campaign for the BNP to not be allowed to have a platform for their views. For example, in the recent General Election the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 all screened the BNP’s election broadcast. Are you in favour of a ban on BNP broadcasts?
MsD: 100 per cent! Definitely, I would love to see them banned. I believe to an extent in freedom of speech, especially as a music artist - people might not agree with what I’m saying. The difference is I’m not saying I dislike someone because of the colour of their skin or their sexual preference. Its very dangerous for them to be able to speak out in the way they do and for them to be seen in that way. Kids might grow up thinking “that’s alright, I;ve seen it on the TV and they;re sitting in the houses of parliament with the government” - well, what would that say about our government? They’d be happy to sit next to them [the BNP] in parliament or wherever? And the government’s supposed to be making the world a better for me? I don’t believe you’re trying to do that - if you’re going to sit next to the BNP!
LMHR: You’ve suggested that racism is a systemic problem - do you think that to tackle racism you also have to tackle wider problems in society, or is racism something that can be tackled as a single issue?
MsD: If someone asked to make a plan of how to tackle racism, the first thing I’d insist on is that every level of the education system, from nursery onwards, that kids are learning about different cultures, To me racism is about two things: greed and money, and fear. If you were to make everyone aware of other people’s culture and stamp out these stereotypes you stamp out the fear. If you’ve learned about other cultures then you’re not going to be overwhelmed by all the stereotypes put out in the media and so on.
Secondly, its about going through every single aspect of the system - and changing it. It’s don’t think it’s that’s difficult to do, but it’s a case of whether the people in the right places want to do that. Obviously they don’t though - or something would have been done about it!
There’s a bigger picture. People make money out of racism. People keep other people down through racism. People can brainwash and trick predominantly poor people into fighting against each other. We don’t get anywhere by fighting each other. The problem is the system that’s got us thinking this way in the first place. If we’re busy fighting each then there’s people [points upwards] who’re making millions, and we’re not going to get anywhere in our lives - as a people.
LMHR: Racism now seems to be focused on two groups in our society: asylum seekers and immigrants (the two get lumped together), and Muslims. Ms D: The subject of immigration is something that really touches me. Let’s be real. This whole country, everything we have, is built on what was stolen from the rest of the world by thus country. People are tricked into believing people are coming and “stealing our jobs” etc. First of all, the government has money that’s supposed to be spent on helping asylum seekers, and I bet that money doesn’t even get spent. Number two, these people are coming from war torn countries, they don’t have a home they don’t have family and at the very least they’re coming from poverty, coming here for the hope of a better life. As a human being, no matter what country you end up living in, surely you’re entitled to that? Surely you’re entitled to have food in your belly, ‘cos there’s more than enough to around! But we’re tricked into believing that asylum seekers are the ones causing all our problems. No they’re not! If we’ve got money - billions in fact - to spend on a war that’s got nothing to do with us , then we’ve got the money to feed, give shelter to people who need our help, half of which have probably come from a war that we’ve been a part of, that’s killed half of their family and blown half of their country! Don’t we owe them a job, a house? If someone takes someone from my family, you can never make up for that. People need to get their facts straight on this - and then they’d see things differently.
As regards Muslims I can’t believe people are sucked in by that either. It’s obvious that everything is linked - the war, oil etc etc - and yet we’re supposed to hate Muslims. We’ve just a war with a country that’s predominantly Muslim, that was blatantly not for the reasons we were told it was for. Speaking as a black woman I know what it feels like I know whats its like to be used as a scapegoat in this society. Nine out of ten people I like to believe are not evil, greedy or heartless people. It’s clearly obvious what’s going on and my heart really does go out to Muslims. As black African or Caribbean people we’ve been there - and are there still - but we’re just not top of the list now.
LMHR: As part of the “war on terror” our government wants to further restrict civil liberties - like bringing in ID cards. They also want to scapegoat young people - with ASBOs, bans on wearing on hoodies etc.
Ms D: ID cards is about too much control - in the wrong people’s hands. What’s it got to do with them where I am, who I am, what I’m doing? If I’m not hurting people what’s the problem? It’s all about controlling people and I’m totally against ID cards.
I’s love to see them try to make a law that you cant wear a hoodie - it s just ridiculous. You can’t tell people how to dress! If you don’t like the what I dress - don’t look at me! To me, thats blatantly a cultural thing, its gone beyond that now but it came from a hip-hop thing, predominantly a black thing,
[Asks to stop interview as she spots a black driver being stopped by police across the street from the restaurant we’re sitting in!]
Ms D: On the way over here I saw SEVEN police cars come to stop and search ONE boy standing outside a chicken shop. How about if I call them tonight when my house is being robbed - will there be seven police cars then?
LMHR: Not unless you get a bigger house.
LMHR: Moving on to music. You’re known as an artist with a social conscience. Do you see yourself as part of a tradition, and if so who to you are the pioneers of conscious music?
Ms D: There are lots of artists who’ve inspired me by taking a stand, the legends like Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye. I feel that the music of their era had many artists who were saying something, without them being seen as “conscious” as such. Music seemed to mean something different through that whole era - like within Soul music, people were going through the era of the civil rights movement and that was expressed so much in the music. Only recently I was listening to an old tape my Dad made, and I realised that all these songs I never thought much about before, listening to them now they’re really conscious - I’m like ‘oh my god - is that what they meant?” - they’re talking about racism, they’re talking about civil rights. Talking about reggae I don’t feel like things have changed much for black people in the West Indies, things have probably got worse and that does reflect in quite a few reggae artists still today.
[Looks across street] God - they’re searching that man’s car now! The disgusting thing is - that’s just normal in London today.
Music in this day and age has become something different - its much more about just making money, turn on any TV or radio station. Too many people are buying crap music, music that’s not positive or expressive. There’s so many ways you can express what you’ve been through, yet the main music right now is pop music, its just based on sex and money, stuff we should be talking about of course but in a completely different way.
There are so many conscious artists in this country who should be getting heard. I went to an underground hip-hop show last night and I was nearly crying cos they were so good. There were these amazing MCs talking about Bush and Blair and Palestine, but in such a clever way. There are more established artists who will speak out in an interview or supporting certain campaigns or whatever, but you wont hear that stuff in their music. I cant understand if you feel so passionately about things why you don’t say that in your songs. For me, it’s part of life, it’s how I feel.
LMHR: How, for you, does music relate to politics, to struggles?
Ms D: Music is one of the most powerful creative tools that people have in life. One song can do so much, it can take you through different emotions, it can leave you happy for the rest of the day. When kids are really young, we sing to them, we sing nursery rhymes. There’s a reason for that. Don’t get me wrong - you can’t blame certain bad things simply on music. But music does have a huge role to play in highlighting things are wrong in our society.
LMHR: At Love Music Hate Racism gigs we’ve tried as far as possible to mix different kinds of music, to make sure we have black and white artists performing together, in the great tradition of Rock Against Racism mixing punk and reggae before us. Do you think this is a good thing for the campaign to do, or do you think it doesn’t matter?
MS D: Having different artists from different backgrounds doing different genres of music together is really important. It’s all about unity, and what better way to symbolise what the campaign’s all about? It’s all about getting a wider understanding of where we’re all coming from.
I feel like LMHR stands for us being united as human beings, and more than anything I feel that young people grow up in a very multicultural world now. Young people are a lot more united than people give us credit for.
[At this point we end the interview. Ms Dynamite calls her brother to ask who the amazing artist was she was talking about having seen last night. It turns out be to rapper Lowkey, who performed at March’s Stop the War rally. She passes on his number and he later plays several shows for LMHR]
