Family Affair

Rain falls for a reason. Bad luck has its own mechanism too. I used to pray every night. Forty-some years of it. Please don't let mom and dad fight. World peace too, while I'm at it. None of it ever came true.

At some point I realized the praying itself was a cage I'd locked myself in. Every time you wish for a future, you deny the present. So I stopped praying.

This album is what came after that. There was plenty to hate. But all of it just fell like rain - not my fault, not anyone's. It fell because there was a reason.

And most of those reasons were already decided before I was even born. You can stand in the same place as someone and still never touch, if you're on different layers. Unto those who have, more is given. From those who have not, even what little they have is taken away. Family was inside that same structure. We're political the moment we're born.

Singing about dark things needs a heavy beat behind it. That's why I picked reggae. I took the idea of "can life itself be dubbed?" and ran with it - tried to build a DUB that affirms life. I wasn't asking for anything special. I just wanted to breathe normally. It took this long just for that. If now shines, the past lights up too. Time to rebuild a life.

Once I stepped outside of prayer, the music found me. I hope this reaches someone out there who's still standing in the same rain.