Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Zephaniah0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a poet. Born in the West Indian community of Handsworth, near Birmingham in the late fifties, his childhood was rough.

Presenter0:38

Approved school, detention centre, Bostil, and prison were the principal educational influences in his life.

Presenter0:44

It wasn't until he joined the protest movements of London that his talent for performance poetry came to public attention.

Presenter0:51

He had a book published he was noticed by Nelson Mandela, who later asked him to take on projects in South Africa, and he now travels the world, writing and performing.

Presenter1:01

His book of poetry for children, talking turkeys, was a bestseller, and in nineteen eighty nine he was nominated for the Oxford Professor of Poetry. I'd like to be counted, he says, as one of the people who popularized poetry again. He is Benjamin Zephaniah. But it's a particular kind of poetry, isn't it, Benjamin? Not the sort you can sit and mutter to yourself up the corner. It's got to be performed. It's got to be given everything.

Benjamin Zephaniah1:26

Yes, I'm

Benjamin Zephaniah1:28

We always advise people when they read it to read it aloud, to read it to each other. Um, especially the children's work, um, it becomes a lot more f lot much more fun.

Benjamin Zephaniah1:38

And

Benjamin Zephaniah1:40

I always thought of poetry as something to communicate to people, not as something that I wanted to put into books. In fact, putting poetry into books was

Benjamin Zephaniah1:49

The last thing on my agenda, when I published my first book I couldn't read and write, so I wanted to reach people like myself.

Benjamin Zephaniah1:56

So it really is performance poetry.

Benjamin Zephaniah2:00

Within performance poetry there are different schools, if you like. Um there's you know there's rat poetry and there's dog poetry and there's all these

Benjamin Zephaniah2:07

Other forms of poetry, but it is poetry written mainly for performance.

Presenter2:11

And is yours rap or dub or both?

Benjamin Zephaniah2:16

It's called Dob Poetry and and

Benjamin Zephaniah2:19

I hesitate because a lot of us dub poets now we're getting a little bit weary of the title dub poet because you know we do something with a bit of a jazz flavor and people go, Hey, that's not a dub poem.

Benjamin Zephaniah2:30

Um

Presenter2:30

But what's the definition of a dub poem?

Benjamin Zephaniah2:33

Well

Benjamin Zephaniah2:34

The word dub comes from reggae.

Benjamin Zephaniah2:37

And, um, just going back in time a bit.

Benjamin Zephaniah2:41

When reggae was being created in Jamaica, um most of the producers couldn't afford to record a B side, so they would record the A side with the singer and

Benjamin Zephaniah2:49

the normal reggae song, and on the B side they would have what was called the dub version.

Benjamin Zephaniah2:55

The vocals taken out of it.

Benjamin Zephaniah2:57

the kind of drum and bass part of it mixed a lot heavier.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:01

And lots of echo and sound effects on it. And then you may have a

Benjamin Zephaniah3:06

um someone speaking over it.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:09

And sometimes these people what what they would do would be called toasting. It was a kind of fast form of Jamaican wrap.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:16

But then you had people like myselves who would do this spoken poetry over this kind of ambient dog music.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:25

And

Benjamin Zephaniah3:26

With N we would also perform it without music.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:29

And this is how you can tell a true dog poet, if you listen to them without music, you should still be able to hear the music.

Presenter3:36

Still hear the music in there. Do you want to give us an example? Can you give us read us a short one of yours?

Benjamin Zephaniah3:36

Yeah.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:41

Um yeah, this is a

Benjamin Zephaniah3:43

a poem where I um politically correct the um English language from a black point of view and it's called White Comedy.

Benjamin Zephaniah3:50

I was white mailed by a white witch with white magic and white lies Branded a white sheep I slaved as a white smith near a white spot where I suffered white water fever.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:02

White listed as a white leg, I was in the white book as a master of the white arts. It was like white death.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:10

People call me White Jack, others call me White Wog, so I joined a White Watch, trained as a White God, lived off the White Economy, I was caught and beaten by the White Shirts, and condemned to a White Mass.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:24

Don't worry.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:26

I will be writing to the Black House.

Presenter4:29

So it's always humorous as well, your poetry, isn't it? Well, usually.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:34

Well, you know, it's true that yes, it it is humorous, but it's also political and can be deadly serious.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:39

You know, sometimes I realize that you can reach a lot of people through humour. You can tell them something very serious.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:45

Through being numerous.

Presenter4:47

Right, well we're going to send you away from all of these people, cast you away on a desert island, you've got eight records, tell me about the first one.

Benjamin Zephaniah4:53

Well, the first uh record I've picked is uh fire in Fire on Babylon um by Shineid O'Canner.

Benjamin Zephaniah5:01

I could have picked any Shanelo kind of record, really. I could have picked the one that me and her did together. But, um,.

Benjamin Zephaniah5:07

I just think she's a real gem and she's just a woman with integrity. She's someone who I really respect for not allowing the um business to corrupt her.

Presenter5:28

I'm back alone

Presenter5:29

Oh yes, the change is

Presenter5:32

Oh yeah, I'm not gonna lie.

Presenter5:44

Sinead O'Connor singing Fire on Babylon from the album Universal Mother. You mentioned, Benjamin, that you could hardly read or write when your first book was published. You were about twenty two then. How did you write it then? You dictated it to somebody, did you?

Benjamin Zephaniah5:58

Well, first of all, I wrote it.

Benjamin Zephaniah6:01

The way

Benjamin Zephaniah6:03

it it sounded to me phonetically. But then when I

Benjamin Zephaniah6:08

gave it to someone else to look at. I also kind of made sure that they didn't just translate it to standard English.

Benjamin Zephaniah6:16

You know, I always knew what I wanted to say, so I didn't have a that problem at all. It was just a physical thing of, you know.

Presenter6:20

What's the f

Benjamin Zephaniah6:22

What really frightened me was listening to a a watching a programme on television that said Benjamin is effing a Britain's new black writer and it was the first time I'd ever been called a writer, or always been called a poet or a rapper or something like this be up until then. And that frightened me. And I went off to um kind of night classes in in the in the borough of Newham.

Benjamin Zephaniah6:42

And um

Benjamin Zephaniah6:44

And it was

Benjamin Zephaniah6:45

At first it was a little embarrassing because people would say, I just saw you on television, you know, and you're sitting next to me in this class.

Presenter6:52

You apparently gave your first performance in church when you were ten. Was that reading one of your own verses, or what was it? What were you doing?

Benjamin Zephaniah6:59

Well, actually it was just a case of um

Benjamin Zephaniah7:02

My mother.

Benjamin Zephaniah7:04

It was my mother's turn to read something. And she never had anything prepared and she just asked me to um she didn't ask me, she just dragged me up and said, My son's gonna read something for you

Benjamin Zephaniah7:12

Knowing that, you know, I I was a bit of a mouthful.

Benjamin Zephaniah7:16

And um I just got up.

Benjamin Zephaniah7:19

And I didn't know what to do. I wore my poems about the overthrow of the government and things like this.

Presenter7:24

What, when you were ten?

Benjamin Zephaniah7:25

Yeah, even Ben Hiff.

Benjamin Zephaniah7:27

And, um, I just read the books of the Bible.

Benjamin Zephaniah7:31

I had a real great memory for biblical things. I was one of these kids if you said like, you know, Matthew chapter five, I could go, Judge not that you're not beat your judge, if you're with that judgment, it shall be you know, and just spite it off.

Presenter7:42

So you weren't reading it, really? You no, no, I just stood in front of

Benjamin Zephaniah7:44

No, no, I just stood in front of the audience and I went Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Daniels, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st 3 Chronicles. I just went through the books of the Bible and everybody just went, My gosh, we have a prophet amongst us

Benjamin Zephaniah7:57

And it was strange because for the next uh couple of months they really thought I was something special and I was trying to tell them that I I wasn't.

Presenter8:05

That you just learnt it like a poem.

Benjamin Zephaniah8:05

Thank you.

Benjamin Zephaniah8:07

Yeah, uh well I made it worse for myself because then I had a dream one day that a hand came from the sky and was picking people up from the high streets and I went and told my pastor and and they were convinced that they had

Benjamin Zephaniah8:18

you know, this profit in them it's

Presenter8:19

But did you think you were going to go into the church, or did you always know you weren't going to do anything of the kind?

Benjamin Zephaniah8:25

I would have liked to. I would have liked to have been able to dedicate myself to something like that that I believed in so much, but

Benjamin Zephaniah8:31

I didn't believe in it so much.

Presenter8:32

And in fact, in the end you you turned to crime and got into a tremendous amount of trouble as a as a young kid.

Benjamin Zephaniah8:38

Yeah, because I believed in crime.

Presenter8:41

Do you think that p your poetry has saved you from a life of crime? Would you go as far as to say that?

Benjamin Zephaniah8:46

I'm I'm not sure. No, I think what really saved me from a life of crime is and it's gonna sound like a bit of a cliche now. I mean, a lot of people say this and it's probably been overused, but

Benjamin Zephaniah8:57

I had this energy.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:00

And I just found a a way of channeling it.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:04

It was as simple as that. You know, one teacher said to me, You are going to end up

Benjamin Zephaniah9:11

um doing a life sentence.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:14

Or you're just gonna be a, you know, a little car mechanic.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:17

And, you know, I can see why they kind of thought that.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:21

Um it was strange'cause deep down in my mind I knew I wanted to do something with words and be a poet, you know, but I was just in that climate where, you know, young black kids just didn't say that.

Presenter9:31

Tell me about your second record.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:32

My second record.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:34

Little ukulele joyed for me.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:36

And yeah, I just I just love the comedy in it and I love I love that.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:41

kind of northern

Benjamin Zephaniah9:43

Yuma. I have one of these old sports cars that I take out just on good weather days and I took the top off and I remember driving round East Ham.

Benjamin Zephaniah9:53

Blasting this out and all the police looking at me in complete confusion. You know, why is he not listening to public enemy or something like that?

Speaker 410:00

Say, why don't you be a scout? Why don't you read a book? But I get much more pleasure when I'm playing on me yuke. Of course I take no notice, you can tell. For mother's sound advice will always stand. She said, my boy, do what I say, and you'll never go astray if you keep your ukulele in your hand.

Speaker 410:23

Keep your ukulele in your hands.

Presenter10:27

George Formby and his little ukulele from his live wartime recordings collection, Formby at War. So, Benjamin Zephaniah, tell me about your beginnings. Handsworth, in the nineteen fifties, your parents had come over from the Caribbean. You were the eldest of nine children, and you lived in terrible poverty?

Benjamin Zephaniah10:48

Yes, um

Benjamin Zephaniah10:50

I mean, I must say I didn't see many rich people. I mean, it was all poverty. I mean, even before, you know, the white people around me we lived in those houses with toilets at the back of the yard and

Benjamin Zephaniah11:02

I don't want to go on about people leaving their doors open, but that's exactly what people used to do. And I remember kind of playing in communal yards, having baths together in tin baths, you know, and just we did it'cause we were poor, but there was something really nice about it, something that bonded the community together.

Presenter11:17

Hmm.

Presenter11:18

But you your father beat you, didn't he? He was violent towards you.

Benjamin Zephaniah11:23

Well

Benjamin Zephaniah11:25

He beat me and I

Benjamin Zephaniah11:29

I can remember obviously some of the beatings. My mother tells me that he it was it was a lot worse than I remember, but most of all I remember him beating her. And um, you know, he passed away not too long ago and it's a real bit of a s sore point in my family at the moment'cause

Benjamin Zephaniah11:48

My mother ran away from him with me, leaving eight of her children with him.

Benjamin Zephaniah11:54

So when he passed away the other children saw him as a kind of hero, a lone man who raised all these children on his own. And all my memories of him was having this kind of almost like a kind of wanted poster in my mind, a fixed picture of him. This is the face I've got to avoid.

Presenter12:13

I s I suppose really then it's it was inevitable that you were gonna, you know, go off the rails, bunk off school and turn turn to crime, really, wasn't it? You just

Presenter12:22

There wasn't a lot of hope for you, was there?

Benjamin Zephaniah12:26

I hated authority.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:28

And like many young kids I kind of

Benjamin Zephaniah12:32

I wanted to keep up with

Benjamin Zephaniah12:34

um, you know, the kids around me.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:37

Uh uh I did bow a lot to peer pressure.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:40

Especially in the teenage years.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:43

My poetry I always describe it as like being gay.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:47

I didn't tell anybody.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:48

It was something that I kind of kept to myself.

Benjamin Zephaniah12:51

Okay, they they knew I was doing a bit of rap and a bit of toasting, things like musical things, but

Benjamin Zephaniah12:57

I didn't use the word poet. You know, I remember coming across somebody once who actually admitted to writing poetry and we kind of got together and I said, you know.

Benjamin Zephaniah13:06

And, you know, you show me yours and I'll show you mine.

Benjamin Zephaniah13:12

It was a real secret that we had, you know.

Presenter13:13

So that's when you went into all these approved schools and ball stalls and detention centers and so on, that was how you amused yourself a lot of the time, was it? Writing or writing in your head or writing in

Benjamin Zephaniah13:23

He was mainly writing in my head.

Benjamin Zephaniah13:26

Um what I did in my especially in my my last prison sentences was

Benjamin Zephaniah13:31

I did a lot of thinking.

Benjamin Zephaniah13:33

And it was

Benjamin Zephaniah13:35

then that I think um I got kind of political. I started to realize that um

Benjamin Zephaniah13:41

Yeah, I wasn't really being a a rebel by going out and stealing something. In fact, I was um playing into the hands of the law. You know

Benjamin Zephaniah13:50

A police officer stopped me once in Birmingham and he said to me, um

Benjamin Zephaniah13:54

I remember you. I remember I used to kick you. I'd love to do it now, but I can't, can I? Because you will write a poem about it and you'll be on television and you'll earn more money from me beating you off. And he realized he was in a situation where he couldn't touch me unless he had a good reason to.

Presenter14:12

Record number three.

Benjamin Zephaniah14:15

Yes, r uh record number three is Leonard Coeing and it's Last Year's Men. It's um when I first heard this.

Benjamin Zephaniah14:22

poem I should call it. I was just amazed by it and I

Benjamin Zephaniah14:26

Went to all my friends and said, Have you ever heard of this guy called Leonard Cohen? and they said, Yeah, it's music to commit suicide to, you know. I just thought it was just so poetic.

Benjamin Zephaniah14:36

In a way, he used all these Rastafarian references, Babylon and the Jews' harp, and all these things.

Benjamin Zephaniah14:43

He's

Benjamin Zephaniah14:45

Really, for me, it's it's it's it's important because his words are so crucial and the music just hangs on the words.

Speaker 314:52

The rain falls down on last year's man

Speaker 315:00

That's a Jew's hop on the table, That's a crayon in his hand

Speaker 315:10

And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they roll.

Speaker 315:17

Far past the stem

Presenter15:19

Leonard Cohen singing Last Year's Man from the album Songs of Love and Hate.

Presenter15:24

You were eighteen, Benjamin, when you came out of prison for the last time and you became a rapper in clubs, impersonating Mick Jagger and Bob Marley and people.

Benjamin Zephaniah15:33

Yeah.

Benjamin Zephaniah15:34

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I should correct you actually. The w it's not oh, the toaster, which is like the Jamaican form of wrap.

Benjamin Zephaniah15:40

It's rap but it's of a different beat.

Benjamin Zephaniah15:43

There was one one night in in

Benjamin Zephaniah15:46

Birmingham in Handsworth, when I was in a blues party, this party that we used to have in houses.

Benjamin Zephaniah15:51

the sound system was playing and it um

Benjamin Zephaniah15:54

It was in the I think there were power cuts happening then. And a power cut happened.

Benjamin Zephaniah15:59

And I had a stake in the in the in the takings, you see, so I didn't want anybody to go. So I said, Well, look, you know, stay awhile and I'll entertain you and they w what?

Benjamin Zephaniah16:08

You know, I come here to kind of shut my girl up and you know, not to listen to a you know, someone reading poems. But everybody in Hansworth the next day was talking about how this one man held the blues together.

Benjamin Zephaniah16:21

Um, after the music had stopped,'cause usually people would just go home or move on to another area where

Presenter16:26

And how did it feel? Did you know in that moment? Did you, you know, was it kind of a turning point? Did you think, hey.

Presenter16:32

I could make a living doing this, or I could do more of this and really enjoy myself.

Benjamin Zephaniah16:36

At first I performed just for Rastafarians.

Benjamin Zephaniah16:40

And I re I can remember the time when I started performing for

Benjamin Zephaniah16:43

Black people who are not Rastafarians.

Benjamin Zephaniah16:47

And I can remember a time when people said to me, Hey, you know, your message is is for everybody, go and perform, you know, for white people as well

Presenter16:54

And you were a Rastafarian by that stage.

Benjamin Zephaniah16:57

Yes, yes.

Presenter16:57

And and what does that mean beyond all the things we know, you know, the dreadlocks and so on?

Benjamin Zephaniah17:02

Well, I mean, if you could imagine being in a non-Christian country and someone saying to you, you know

Benjamin Zephaniah17:07

Please tell us what Christianity is very quickly. It's ve you know, it's it's a very difficult thing to do. Um there's three things that I think all Rastafarians have in common. Um one is that they recognize Haile Selassie and his lineage as that lineage of David and Solomon.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:27

an unbroken lineage.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:30

Um two that they recognize um

Benjamin Zephaniah17:33

Ethiopia or Africa.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:35

as their spiritual homeland, and free that they recognize a person called Marcus Garvey.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:41

as a kind of prophet, as a kind of modern-day John the Baptist.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:45

Um Marcus Garvey was um

Benjamin Zephaniah17:48

The founder of the Pan-African movement.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:51

and um quite an amazing person. I mean when you think of

Benjamin Zephaniah17:55

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

Benjamin Zephaniah17:58

Two kind of black freedom fighters who came from completely different perspectives, but they both called themselves Garveyites, because Garvey taught.

Benjamin Zephaniah18:08

Self prayed, black prayed.

Presenter18:10

We should have your next record.

Benjamin Zephaniah18:12

Uh my my next record is

Benjamin Zephaniah18:14

Mark Asgarvey, um the singer Burning Spear, who is one person actually.

Benjamin Zephaniah18:20

Proper name is Vincent Rodney.

Benjamin Zephaniah18:22

Um has like dedicated his whole whole musical career to promoting the name of Marcus Carvey and this is was one of his most well known kind of Rastafarian anthem really.

Speaker 418:36

Little wanna let me do what I can for you.

Speaker 418:43

And you

Benjamin Zephaniah18:43

Can't you?

Speaker 418:45

Yeah.

Benjamin Zephaniah18:45

Hello

Benjamin Zephaniah18:48

Come to me, Wanco. Whoa.

Speaker 318:54

But again

Speaker 318:58

For you and you alone

Presenter19:06

Marcus Garvey, performed by Burning Spear. So, Benjamin, you went to London when you were twenty-two, it was nineteen eighty, your first book of poems was published, you were taken up, as it were, by the demo scene. What were the big issues for you then? I suppose Mrs. Thatcher had just come to power. What what were the issues that you were demonstrating about and writing about?

Benjamin Zephaniah19:22

Yeah.

Benjamin Zephaniah19:26

Um

Benjamin Zephaniah19:28

obviously racism, um, but more importantly I think at the um the national front.

Benjamin Zephaniah19:34

Um, those were the days when we

Benjamin Zephaniah19:37

On me on many occasions, I remember walking down the street in the middle of the night and just

Benjamin Zephaniah19:43

Meeting a group of skinners and having to run for your life.

Presenter19:46

Tell me about Nelson Mandela. He he got to know about your work when he was still in prison on Robin Island, but you've since become friends.

Benjamin Zephaniah19:54

But what happened was that somebody gave him a parcel of my works, some of my books and poetry and tapes and things like this.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:02

Um

Benjamin Zephaniah20:03

The reason was because I'd done a fundraising tour.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:07

Round Europe.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:09

to pay for

Benjamin Zephaniah20:10

A radio transmitter.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:12

that the apartheid regime had smashed that belonged to South Africa in in Tanzania. So he read it and listened to it. I'm told that he passed it around his little government that was in prison. So the next time he came to England he was actually coming to meet misses Thatcher.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:30

And um

Benjamin Zephaniah20:32

He contacted me and said that he wanted to meet me.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:35

And I'll and I'll never forget it'cause it was like seven o'clock in the morning and I said, That's ridiculous, can't you meet me after seeing Mrs Fatta? and he said, No, I I need you to brief me.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:46

Yeah, I met him, um that was my first meeting with him.

Presenter20:49

Now he greets you like a long-lost friend.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:51

Now we're old mates, yeah, we hang out together all the time. Oh, I wish.

Presenter20:55

Record number five.

Benjamin Zephaniah20:57

Record number five is um McCann Believe It by Michael Smith. Michael Smith, a very important Jamaican poet who unfortunately was stoned to death for his political beliefs in Jamaica. I think it was around about 1984. But um this poem is probably one of his most well known poems, a very kind of Jamaican poem, but what he's trying to do here is describe the kind of poverty and the things that he sees in everyday life in Jamaica and he's just saying that he cannot believe what he's seeing, but he sees it every day.

Benjamin Zephaniah21:32

The summit can't believe it.

Benjamin Zephaniah21:35

Missami can't believe it.

Benjamin Zephaniah21:37

Room dema rent me apply within, but as me going cockroach, rot and scarpion also come in. One good news after run, but me na goda go stump on high wall like humpy dumpy. Me, I fierce my reality. One little boy come blow him on, and me look pony with scorn. As me realise, semi five boy picnic was a victim of the trick them called partisan politics. And my ban me belly, yam a ball, and my ban me belly, yam a ball. Lord, me can't believe it. Me say me can't believe it. Me daughter boyfriend name is Seala. And him pass through the port like a ship. Moor grand picnic a feed, and the woola we need. What a night, what a plight, and me can't get a bite. Me life is a stiff fight, and me can't believe it.

Presenter22:26

Part of the poem Mikyan, Believe It by Michael Smith.

Benjamin Zephaniah22:31

I love the way you said that, I guess. Have you cried?

Presenter22:33

Have you practiced?

Presenter22:35

You you d do a lot with children. You've written um books for children of poetry as well. You like doing that, don't you? Workshops with children. Is it's nice and fresh and real.

Benjamin Zephaniah22:47

Yeah, I hate that term workshops. I remember Alexis Sound saying to me once that workshops are places where people go and make things. My so-called workshops are performances where I allow the children to talk to me and question me about poetry and I try and inspire them to go away and write poetry. I never want to become like a teacher, not that I'm against teachers, but I don't want to be like a teacher. But I say, right, now boys and girls, sit down and we're going to we've got half an hour, we're going to write a poem.

Presenter22:55

I have got

Benjamin Zephaniah23:15

I want to inspire them to write poetry and then let the teachers do the the work afterwards.

Presenter23:20

I've written a poem about not having any children of your own.

Benjamin Zephaniah23:24

That's right, yes.

Presenter23:25

Do you can you tell me about that and perhaps read me the poem?

Benjamin Zephaniah23:28

Well, it was um

Benjamin Zephaniah23:32

I always suspected that I w I wasn't able to have children.

Benjamin Zephaniah23:35

and after being married for a few years,

Benjamin Zephaniah23:38

I went to my doctor and told her that

Benjamin Zephaniah23:42

what what I thought and she just didn't believe me, you know. I remember she grabbed my muscles and went, You're a strong boy, you know So I did all the tests and then I wrote an article in The Observer about it and it really

Benjamin Zephaniah23:56

Struck a chord because

Benjamin Zephaniah23:58

It's an issue uh within men generally, but um black men tend to see, you know,

Benjamin Zephaniah24:05

Being able to have children is something to do with strength and virility and and and things like this. But this is a poem uh um

Benjamin Zephaniah24:14

I try to look at myself and it's it's called childless.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:19

Strong baseps, firm phase.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:22

Big bottom, sexy eyes.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:25

Fast on the track, strong like a lion.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:28

Good kung fu feet and healthy hair

Benjamin Zephaniah24:32

Strong triceps, no lie, rhymes, nice guy, a good healthy back, great levels of iron.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:40

There must be a baby.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:41

There somewhere

Benjamin Zephaniah24:43

There must be a baby.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:45

In here.

Presenter24:47

And how much does it depress you that there isn't?

Benjamin Zephaniah24:50

Um

Benjamin Zephaniah24:51

A lot. You know, it's it's these little moments and there was a moment, um, not too long ago.

Benjamin Zephaniah24:58

where I was just watching people playing with their children.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:02

for some reason it just struck me then. I really just felt like crying and

Benjamin Zephaniah25:06

I've always wanted these very simple things in life and one of them has just been a a baby and it's like the one thing that I can't have no control over really. I can't order it. I can't ring a friend and get him to organize it or something like this.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:19

And it's very difficult for me to talk about it and that's that's why I write poems,'cause I kind of express myself either through poetry. I'm gonna start getting tearful now. Can we talk about football or something?

Presenter25:28

Let's talk about music. Tell me about this one. What is this? It's number six.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:28

To fly.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:31

Number six is Churiliya Sam.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:35

It's produced by

Benjamin Zephaniah25:37

Balisagoo.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:39

It's a great record and the reason why I've chose it because it just says a lot about the time we're in now, the multicultural nature of Britain.

Benjamin Zephaniah25:47

Here is Britain British born

Benjamin Zephaniah25:52

Asian producer using reggae as his kind of bottom line, bringing in kind of Indian melodies, um Hindi singing with um a white man doing Jamaican style rap toasting. And I think it's just, you know, just kind of it's really symbolic of the melting pot that we're in.

Speaker 426:17

Boom! Aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye Qua Pull up on the mic, Mr Ansa Pumbalami A pump of the turn to left and right and in the sign

Speaker 426:26

The left one you know the rest I love

Speaker 426:37

It's running speed drive culture.

Presenter26:46

Churalia, produced by Bally Segu. Um Benjamin Zephaniah, in nineteen eighty six, I think it was, you were offered the post of artist in residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, and then it was withdrawn. What what happened? What went wrong?

Benjamin Zephaniah27:02

Well, I mean

Benjamin Zephaniah27:04

I'll never know the whole truth, but um I know a lot more than than most people know. But really what happened was I think that the people at Cambridge backed down because there was just so much um media interest because of me getting this post. I mean all the press went crazy about it and

Benjamin Zephaniah27:25

And all they were concerned about was the fact that, you know, I was black, you know, and I was a Rastafarian and that I'd been in trouble with the police.

Presenter27:31

They chickened out is what you're saying.

Benjamin Zephaniah27:32

They they they chickened out, yeah.

Presenter27:34

'Cause I mean uh after all to an extent some of these posts are meant to generate publicity, aren't they?

Benjamin Zephaniah27:39

He's supposed to add colour to the university.

Benjamin Zephaniah27:42

And

Benjamin Zephaniah27:43

I probably added a bit too much colour, you know. I mean, some of the comments that people said were were quite hurtful, but actually it shows a lot about the kind of people

Benjamin Zephaniah27:52

That we're dealing with. I mean, the two that stand out most of all is one person who said that, um,

Benjamin Zephaniah27:58

Benjamin Zephaniah has done a lot for performance poetry in this country. You know, he needs to be recognized, but we should be able to recognise him when he's dead.

Benjamin Zephaniah28:06

you know, in the great British tradition.

Benjamin Zephaniah28:09

And somebody else said a similar thing, if you enjoy it'cause I used to go to Cambridge all the time and do poetry readings at the university.

Benjamin Zephaniah28:16

And somebody else said um

Benjamin Zephaniah28:19

You know, we really enjoy Benjamin Zephaniah when he comes in, he reads his poetry and he talks to us, but we want him to go home at night.

Benjamin Zephaniah28:25

Yeah.

Presenter28:25

And then in nineteen eighty nine, you were nominated for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry. And that was the year that Seamus Heaney got it, of course. So the competition was tough. How much did you want that post? How much would you really have liked it?

Benjamin Zephaniah28:41

Well, I'd have actually liked both both posts. I think the thing with the Oxford one was it was a little bit more democratic in the sense that people voted for it. And I think it was sad that we were

Benjamin Zephaniah28:52

I was pitched up against Seamus Heaney, who was a writer I really do admire and really do love.

Presenter28:56

And quite a performance part of him.

Benjamin Zephaniah28:57

And quite a performance quote himself, yeah.

Presenter28:59

Do you think it might happen yet that you might get one of these kinds of things?

Benjamin Zephaniah29:02

No, I think my time's over now. Do you? Um, you know, I I mean, I would much rather it go to one of the younger performance dog poets, um, rather than myself.

Presenter29:04

Do you?

Presenter29:11

Next record.

Benjamin Zephaniah29:13

Next record is Take Five. I just love it. Uh you know, I just love it. And when I'm um

Benjamin Zephaniah29:19

Auditioning saxophone players in my band, you know, I say play that. If you can't play that, I won't even talk to you, you know, if this is the starting point. So here's something I'm just doing for the fun of it.

Speaker 429:51

Uh

Presenter29:59

Dave Brubeck's Take Five, with Dave Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on Alto Sachs, Gene Wright on bass, and Joe Morello on drums. You're obviously very comfortably off these days, Ben.

Presenter30:11

And you don't drink and you don't smoke and you're a vegan.

Presenter30:15

So you'd be fine on a desert island. I mean, I'd be completely happy.

Benjamin Zephaniah30:16

I'd be completely happy.

Presenter30:19

Writing poetry in your head.

Benjamin Zephaniah30:21

I wouldn't even need a gym really,'cause I'd have things to exercise with. I need an audience, that's how I would miss an audience. I mean, uh I think I'd have to get the animals to sit down so I could perform to them. Um

Benjamin Zephaniah30:33

Cause I would need to preach to somebody.

Presenter30:36

But would you would you be able to stay happy if you could do all of that? Or or might you just sort of

Presenter30:41

Spiral downwards to somewhere not very nice.

Benjamin Zephaniah30:44

No, I think

Benjamin Zephaniah30:46

I think because of my ability to meditate I'd be able to stay on top of it.

Presenter30:50

Last record.

Benjamin Zephaniah30:51

My last record is um

Benjamin Zephaniah30:53

Klutlach Sklan by Steele Pulse. Steele Pulse, I think, are one of the greatest reggae bands in the world. They're from Handsworth.

Benjamin Zephaniah31:02

Birmingham like myself. But more importantly, they're British and um most people think of reggae as a kind of Jamaican thing.

Benjamin Zephaniah31:09

Um but

Benjamin Zephaniah31:11

Like I said, steel ports are recognized round the world, but it's track Klutlos Klan.

Benjamin Zephaniah31:16

I remember it because it it takes me back to those days in the 70s, although we didn't actually have the Klutos Klan here. We had the National Front and we still have the BNP.

Benjamin Zephaniah31:27

And it was one of the

Benjamin Zephaniah31:30

Tunes that was in my life when I really became a kind of a political animal. And it it talks about walking down the road and just being confronted by racists and having to run for their lives.

Benjamin Zephaniah31:45

Uh

Speaker 331:45

The less, the better, the sure sound strong black skin and get your war.

Speaker 331:54

Yeah.

Benjamin Zephaniah31:55

Scott Hill

Benjamin Zephaniah31:58

Two clocks clam

Benjamin Zephaniah32:00

Here to stand for black menu accessories.

Benjamin Zephaniah32:05

Look like

Presenter32:13

Ku Klux Klan, played by Steel Pulse from the album Handsworth Revolution. Now, Benjamin, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Benjamin Zephaniah32:22

I think I would have to take

Benjamin Zephaniah32:27

I think I'll have to take take five.

Benjamin Zephaniah32:29

Forget the words, just have something to just drift off and it's a really desert islandy kind of song.

Presenter32:35

What about your book?

Benjamin Zephaniah32:37

Um my book well, at home I have um

Benjamin Zephaniah32:41

A book published in eighteen fifty three by Edward Moxon and is the Poetical Works of Percy B. Shelley.

Benjamin Zephaniah32:49

And I've I've always loved Shelley. I don't

Benjamin Zephaniah32:51

claim to kind of fully understand him, but um the poet I really, really love.

Benjamin Zephaniah32:56

So I'd take that.

Presenter32:58

And your luxury.

Benjamin Zephaniah32:59

My luxury well

Benjamin Zephaniah33:02

I think I'd need some drama on the island and um you know you'd ha you so you need some tension. So I'd like

Benjamin Zephaniah33:10

My luxury would be, um, you know, somebody could make me a set of the law, put it up in a plaque somewhere where I can see the law every day. So

Presenter33:18

But the rules of the island

Benjamin Zephaniah33:19

The rules of the island, the law of the land.

Benjamin Zephaniah33:22

So I could break it at least once a day,'cause I I believe that it's quite healthy to break the law at least once a day. Especially when you're hurting nobody, you know.

Presenter33:32

Benjamin Zephaniah, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Benjamin Zephaniah33:35

My pleasure.

Benjamin Zephaniah33:43

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.