I had the opportunity to sit down with Chronixx in a public reasonings, one week ago. Chronixx, one of reggae’s rising global stars who is often dubbed the “King of Reggae” in what is considered a revival of the art form shared some of his perspectives and philosophies at a Community Youth Gathering in Trinidad and Tobago before his concert. The singer/songwriter grew up in Spanish Town Jamaica. His musical reach expanded in 2012, which was followed up by tracks a year later such as “Here Comes Trouble”. His EP, Dread and Terrible, released in 2014 would climb the Billboard Reggae Albums Charts. One thing that has made Chronixx unique is that he was a star among his peers in his own yard, in the Caribbean and our diaspora, before Jimmy Fallon recognized him. Sadly, the reverse is true in more cases…respect and celebrity is often conferred in international spaces and not in the region, first. He is praised for his lyricism, musicality and positive messages to the yutes.
Before we tell more about his success, let us take a look at his philosophies and eight messages he wanted the yutes to know:
On Purpose
Purpose is a daily revelation. A lot of what we see and accept, as our Purpose is our human projection of who we want to be from here. But Purpose is a daily revelation which means every morning you wake up there is a force that is driving you called Purpose. And it is revealed to you everyday.
On Finding A Job
We have to step out of the bounds of society and think beyond just getting a job. How about you being a job? You within your fullness and your existence you are a walking job. You have to provide for yourself by being who you naturally is. Find that thing about you that can naturally sustain you and your whole community without somebody have to legitimize it with a certificate. I don’t have no degree nor no diploma nor none ah dem tings but at the end of the day that don’t mean you dumb and you stupid and you can’t provide for yourself and you cyah get food…
On Knowledge
And that’s where me and school kinda had our differences. ‘cause while I was doing Sociology and Economics dem teach me about Emile Durkheim, teach about all ah these people and I’m like “yo, what about where all ah these people, where dem get knowledge from? Who teach them that?” Nobody ever teach them. Them sit down and debate and reason and come up with new ideas and write it down and it becomes what we know as accepted knowledge. Knowledge have no end like it have no beginning, so we haffi build up on that. We haffi keep reason it out so that we can evolve and become who we are really meant to be.
On Students and Higher Education
Everybody in humanity, across humans, all we trying to do is eat and live. And in order to do that we go to college, we get a degree, then we find out a degree is not enough, so we borrow more student loan and get a Masters, then after that a PhD. And there is more after that. You have people who spend their whole life going to school. Now I don’t have a problem going to school, fi tell you de truth. Think of school as not a university. What if the earth was your school? What if you didn’t have all of these things? What if you didn’t have to go university fi eat good food?
On Revolution and Evolution
You have ‘evolutionaries’ and revolutionaries. Both of them work hand in hand. After the revolution comes evolution. We as Jamaican people see a lot of revolution already and is evolution time and that deals with the same establishment of this consciousness we are dealing with…We move mountains with mind and heart. It is not necessarily a gun fight and warfare ting and bloodshed because we need each and every person here right now, right now…introducing new ideas to the yutes, ideas such as learning your spiritual history, spiritual ancients, once you remind a yute of that. ‘Cause is not teach we a teach. You remind them of things what them know and forget through lives coming forward, coming forward, dem lose a lot of historical information along the way. And when you remind them of that, everything, everything just happen after that, everything become automatic.
On Politics and Folliticians
First of all we are natural people, I am the living earth, I am the living man, I don’t need no politician to give me the permission to do certain things like grow my own food, live my own life, choose what I want to wear, what I want to drink, what I want to eat, which herb on this planet I choose to use for my holistic benefit. I don’t need no permission from nobody. So that’s the first thing where we go wrong.
So, them simple things we need to look pon and like for too long politics and dem tings have been separating us because we are dependent on it . We feel like the government, govern we whole existence. No. They govern the country and the economics of the country. The socio-economic condition is that dem deal with. Them don’t deal with me. Me is my own government. The only time me need fi talk to government is when me interfere with them society living.
On Religion and Enlightenment
… I feel like the main spiritual agenda of our generation and the generations to come is to establish a new consciousness within this physical world that we live in… Something that will ultimately push humanity forward and mek life on dis planet a better ting than it is right now. Under that agenda comes a lot of different things which has to do with enlightenment, awareness, awakening, all ah dem ting have to occur before dis new consciousness have to establish. We identify ourselves as yutes who mek music to help within that process of awakening, to help within that process of enlightenment which means we open up a gateway through Rastafari and the teachings of His Majesty which is also a very ancient legacy that is coming down for thousands and thousands of years. From the Judaic era and even before that, the Hebrew era and even before that, coming down to the Christian and Muslim and India and all ah dem tingz. Yuh know it forward and forward and forward down to our time. We get different teachings through different people. We get teachings through Christ, teachings through His Majesty, we get teachings through the Hindu sages, we get teachings through the Dalai Lama and we as artist haffi mek back teaching readily available for every yute. Through music whenever a yute look at me and tell me seh “my yute, it open up a new gateway of knowledge”. Den I know I have been doing a good job. ‘Cause it is not for us to mek up de yutes minds for dem ‘cause we are not politicians, we don’t mek decisions for people.
On Death
I don’t really believe in losing no more. I don’t lose nothing. Scene? It’s transition…Think about yourself other than this, physical thing here. Think about yourself other than how you look, think about yourself without your parents being your parents, dem is not parents, dem is the means by which you were introduced into this physical world. Whenever you experience yourself like that without form, without colour, without a physical essence, that mean yuh start experience your limitlessness again.
Death is one of the things I look forward to. To die is to be born again. It no make no sense you run from that, that is like running from your shadow. It must happen. It have to happen. You trying to live forever, you doing a great disservice to life, you resisting death like that.
At twenty-two years old, Chronixx shared mere crumbs of his wisdom that left no listener hungry. Few artistes take time to share their worldviews and philosophies beyond celebrity one-on-ones and behind-the-scenes documentaries that help more with albums sales than education. Blessed love to IREMEMBER TT, XIXGON, HOME, The TallMan Foundation and The Two Cents Movement for organizing this event and considering me to be a part of it.
