Entertainment

5 Questions with Junior Kelly

STAR's 'Artiste of the Month' Junior Kelly strikes a pose during a day with him recently. - Carlington Wilmot

SEEING JUNIOR KELLY'S wide smile now, one may forget the militant place where he is from.

Back in the early 1990s when he was a young Rastafarian, Kelly recorded the or anti-politics song Go To Hell.

The stance on the track was so hard-edge that it was banned from the radio. Since that time, Kelly has seemingly shied away from pressing such controversial views in his music.

Today, THE STAR asks Kelly how much of this is true.

"Nuff people woulda think seh yes, him a sugar-coat the thing or water down the thing and nuh know seh we have a war still a rage yuh know," he explains.

Time and place

"No a nuh dat. There is a time and place fi everything and we naa force fi be militant or anything. We are militant but the lyrics dem yu no haffi juice it, it's like a honeycomb. When yuh cut off the comb, yuh can see the rich honey a drip offa it. That mean seh yu naa fight the thing fi make it happen, yu see something weh catch yu eye, and it's like something manifest inside a yuh."

"When yuh go pigeon hole yuhself or mek dem typecast you and seh everything you do is a political one, it will defeat the purpose of being an artiste. An artiste supposed to go certain place and draw things fi the woman dem, the Rastas, the baldhead, and fi everybody 'cause everybody, have their songs, that's why they love the artiste."

"I think that as an artiste you are supposed to educate, entertain and inform, mek people enjoy themselves and any day mi realise seh mi caa do that, I need to go back to the drawing board. Mi no waa fi be pigeon-holed or typecast 'cause that is wrong fi an artiste."