Features

Rapping a rebellious conscience - Ras Ceylon
Date:2012-10-08 15:10:00
By Radhieka Peeris As an eight-year-old boy, born to Sri Lankan parents who  immigrated to San Francisco in the 1970s he used to  sing-a-long to Bob Marley playing on his parent’s radio.  Walking along corridors in elementary school rapping his  own tunes made him get into trouble with school authorities,  which in turn made him turn towards music even more. Ras Ceylon (31) is now a well-known hip-hop / reggae artiste  belonging to the Rastafarian Movement from California, USA.  'Ras' is a short form for Rastafarian to which he added 'Ceylon' because he wanted to identify with his motherland, thus  seeming to possess a deep sense of identity with Sri Lanka. He has been into hip-hop / reggae music for the past 15 years. “I was exposed to the hip-hop culture  at a young age” he explains, and in 1999 he released a hip-hop cassette tape titled 'The first lesson'  which became the first release of a hip-hop album by a Sri Lankan American. Born and raised in  Southern California, he moved up to the San Francisco bay area later to continue his college  education and work as a youth educator—pursuing his interest in music, the entire time. At first,  he started by experimenting with punk-rock, and heavy metal, and later identified with the philosophy  behind the Rasta Movement. Music has become the tool to relay his message to the public. His  powerful lyrics bring out politically motivated strong messages that reflect his social conscience. He apparently had no inclination of performing his music in Sri Lanka, but changed his mind due  to a chance meeting with another Sri Lankan-American who recognized him as ‘Ras Ceylon’, while  he sat eating a Kothu Rotti in the wee hours of the morning at Pillawoos; motivating him to showcase  his talent in the island. So far he has performed in Kandy, Jaffna and Negombo with the final show  before he flies back being scheduled for 20 October in Colombo. A leftist lineage Perhaps it was the influences of a left-leaning extended family that drove him to regard human kind  as a whole and not become just another self-obsessed rapper from the west. It was during his college  days that he had been motivated to dig deep into the annals of Sri Lankan history in order to understand  her present condition. “Figuring out the roots of the internal ethnic conflict played an important part in  my life” and is reflected in some of his songs like 'Decolonized' and 'My Island.' A mild mannered man with a congenial attitude towards his fellow human beings, Ceylon seems  deeply passionate about his motherland; “I love my parippu and pappadam” he smiles adjusting his  long dreadlocks, but however, apart from the knowledge of food in Sri Lanka, he knew nothing of her  culture as a child. Growing up “It was different growing up being a Sri Lankan in California” Ceylon said, as the only son in a  matriarchal household, he may have encountered some hard times like everyone else trying to fit in.  “We did not have a big community outside of our immediate family, and I was seen as being ‘different’.  I had to identify with kids from other minorities. I was like the minority of all minorities. I did feel a bit left  out having to deal with discrimination in schools and by teachers when I was young – it was not a smooth  ride.” Ras claims to have found his sense of identity through music, “It started from rapping lyrics to guitar,  to writing poetry at a young age, and it’s the poetry that later got transformed into rap.” While in high  school he began DJ’ing and rapping, but having no turntables of his own he ended up hosting acts at  parties including emceeing battle raps which gave him much needed confidence in the rap scene.   Naming Bob Marley, 2 Pac, Jimi Hendrix and Sizzla as his main musical influences he says  “they  emanated a certain kind of pride and belief system within me as a young adult.” Ceylon has recorded  with some big names in the hip-hop industry in USA like Dead Prez and Tragedy Kadaffi whose lyrics  include hard core rebellious messages. Rasta Movement He was only 17 when he became a Rastafarian, and his mother, and grandmother had been quite  taken up by the change in demeanor from being a typical Californian boy getting into fights, and  being an atheist amongst many other unmentionable things, he had suddenly turned into a man  who started taking life seriously, giving precedence to education, prayer, and respect for family values. Ras is emphatic when he explains that “Rasta is a movement and a lifestyle therefore, it should  not be confused with a fad, it is much more than just reggae music.” Music has formed a big outreach tool and has been so effective that he and his fellow Rastafarians  consider Bob Marley almost like a prophet. “Music was an effect of the cause and the cause itself was  the movement, whilst the effect was the music, the fashion and imagery, the cause is to further equal rights  and justice.” The Rasta Movement was mainly about furthering the cause of the Africans. However, for  Ceylon the ‘cause’ has a wider connotation of being that of furthering equal rights and justice for all of  humanity. “My music forms a bridge between the actual movement and the common person; if you really  listen to the music and are able to understand the lyrics and catch the vibration it will bring you to the core  essence of why we do what we do” he explains animatedly. He reveres the Rasta Movement as being spiritual, “It’s through the music that I got into Rasta” he  admits. A member and an officer of the Ethiopian World Federation (EWF), is one of the many Rasta  Mansions which were initially setup to mobilize support for Ethiopia from the west. At present, they organize  events such as nyabinghis (ceremonial gatherings of Rastafarians) which are held around the world.    Ras Ceylon disputes the common conception that women are considered subordinate within the Rasta  Movement as he says that “People have misconceived notions of such patriarchal concepts being a  part of the movement. It has been confused with what is being practiced in Jamaica where the Rasta  Movement originated from” and he supports this by explaining that “When the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile  Selassie I was crowned in 1930, he had his queen crowned at the same ceremony, right by his side and  we almost see her as a mother goddess—so within the movement the feminine divine exists.” The very  fact that the empress was crowned at the same ceremony as the emperor makes it automatically  hypocritical for any man to think in terms of patriarchy according to him. However, it has been reported in many instances that the Rasta movement is discriminatory towards  its women folk and often regular Caribbean cultural concepts have been interpreted as part of the  Rastafarian movement when it is not a part of the pure essence of the spiritual practice. In defense  he says, “People outside of the movement identify with and attach these phenomena when it is  not a part of the Movement at all”. Lyrics in 10 He penned down the lyrics to his song 'Repatriation Time' within an ecstatic span of 10 minutes  when he found out that he will be returning to his motherland. The frequent mention of the UDHR  (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) in the lyrics was inspired by the UDHR document along  with a book he received from Bobo Hill in Jamaica being on his writing desk at that particular moment he explains. Ras Ceylon makes some strong political statements that may go down well with the populists but not  perhaps with the current powers that be. It is a sense of equality he attempts to bring about in empathizing  with families in the North and the East whose children, husbands, wives and friends were conscripted  by the LTTE. “They say the war is over now, but here is my question, what happens to the family of the  LTTE? What about reparations for my people in the North and East ha?” is one of the lines in the song  that bring out his conscientious thinking. Motivated by the 2009 Oakland protests against police brutality and Oscar Grant’s killing by the police  in a railway station in Ceylon wrote his song “Fyah Still Burning hot, rebellion they call it riot”. He mentions  this as “an attempt to make America a better place to live in”. When in USA, he rebels against the  institutional white supremacy in order to bring about justice and equal rights to all. Analysis of an ethnic conflict “You can’t take a divisive stance in this conflict – that’s just too weak” Ceylon says “What’s strong to  me is unity”. He explains vivaciously his analysis of the past 30 years of civil conflict in the island which  came to an end in 2009. “It’s a classic case of Decolonizing” he says adding that "the conflict was  actually ignited as a response reaction to the divide and conquer rule by the British – a classic post  colonial struggle”. Ceylon is all about spreading peace in the island, and says that he will be working  further with the Sri Lankan Diasporas in USA to help start a dialogue to achieve lasting peace in the island. He speaks with eloquence on matters pertaining to the development of South-Asian countries, which  comes as no surprise since he holds a degree in International Relations, with a specialization in  South-Asian and African studies. Apart from performing, rebelling and lyric writing he was instrumental in founding 'Calafia Zulus' three  years ago in Long Beach, Orange County, Los Angeles. “It is a chapter under the Universal Zulu Nation  – a hip-hop organization that strives to preserve the five elements of hip-hop culture – DJ’ing, Rapping  or Emceeing, Break dancing (B’boys and B’girls), Graffiti art and Knowledge” he says. He seems to love the Sri Lankan music scene, as he says its “from the grassroots, its organic, and  amazing”, and based on his interactions he has observed that there is a lot of cross-genre support  between artistes. The only hitch he says is that “there needs to be more State-sponsored support for  the artistes in terms of infrastructure.” He points out that “Jamaica being smaller than Sri Lanka has  its own home grown music that impacts the world” and he hopes someday that Sri Lankan music is  able to make an impact in the world. Ras Ceylon has been living in Sri Lanka for the past six months working on a project with the Asia  Foundation on distributing books to schools and libraries in rural areas of the island, and it seems like he has developed quite a fond attachment to his motherland. This particular trip he says has inspired him to such an extent that he’s finding it hard to leave and wants to figure out a way in which he could live both in Sri Lanka and USA.
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/35-14248-news-detail-rapping-a-rebellious-conscience-ras-ceylon.html
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