by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
My efforts to contact UK reggae avatar Pato Banton in Europe were thwarted by Pato’s busy schedule and fast travel commitments. Last Wednesday, Pato flew into Los Angeles and finally called me. It turned out Pato was going through a major crisis. When he landed at LAX, his wife of sixteen years presented him with divorce papers. (Yeah, welcome home, dearest!) Of course, divorce ranks up there on the stress scale with the loss of a loved one. Clearly, my patience was rewarded. We hit it off and discovered that we had a lot in common. Our conversation was a consciousness raising experience for both of us.
Up until 1999, Pato was a successful UK reggae artist from Birmingham, England. He traveled the globe armed with many hits and successful albums. That all changed when, in 2000, while performing in Europe, his two sons were shot in a random drive-by shooting back in Birmingham. They survived but the tragic incident made Pato re-examine his life and priorities. He saw the many problems in the poor neighborhoods of Birmingham. So, he decided to become involved with making positive changes to his city–giving back to his community.
“I just felt that I needed to become more spiritually involved with my own people. This evolved from my sons getting shot. It was a wake-up call from God. I approached a local college and offered to help the students with music by letting them come into my recording studio and record their music.”
“The college administration thought it was such a great idea they offered to have me bring my recording equipment into the school and set up a music education program for talented students. They remodeled a room and I set up a recording studio lab for students. I brought my five staff members with me. Then, during this time, I went back to school and became an official certified teacher. Then as the program took off, I expanded it to other colleges. It became all consuming and a real passion. I felt like I was making a difference in my own city. During the seven years I participated in community service, my song Life is A Miracle was nominated for a Grammy. I was proud of my accomplishments and it gave me a strong sense of spiritual satisfaction.”
“After much soul-searching, I was much more spiritually-oriented than I was before I got involved with helping the young people of Birmingham. It was time to share my new music with audiences again. Although my tenure in higher education was a wonderful experience, I missed performing live. So, with my music programs now in ten colleges, being managed by other people, I went back on the road to share my new love of music as a spiritual force. Much to my surprise, I discovered there was a new generation that was into my music. The audiences were young and enthusiastic.”
During our conversation, we talked about the terrible violence and death in war-torn nations and I mentioned that I was not religious, but I thought about the words of Jesus, which were simple and profound. I told Pato that Jesus said, “Love one another. And, God is love.” Words to live by. Astonishingly, after I said that, Pato said that he just finished a two album CD with 14 tracks, titled The Words of Christ, in which he speaks the words of Jesus over his specially composed music. I believe that music is the language of God–it connects the player and listener on a higher consciousness plane, beyond our physical reality. Pato vehemently agreed with my hypothesis and he said that now he feels renewed spiritual energy every time he performs.
“There is a spiritual connection between the audience and me as we take our concert journey together. This is what I was missing before I decided to do humanitarian work in Birmingham. I had to find my spiritual core and bring it into my music and life, which are now one in the same. I’m now committed to bring my spiritual energy to the people and share my joy and pride with them at being a spiritually savvy musical messenger,” Pato said.
That ended our conversation. Indeed, it was a remarkable connection with a kindred spirit. It moved me deeply. Pato Banton will be performing at Freebird Live Saturday, January 20. His official website is being constructed, but you can log onto his www.myspace.com/patobanton site and listen to samples of his music. Pato is performing music for exactly the right reasons.
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