MO' ROOTS

Taj Mahal was in Detroit to perform at the Michigan Palace this past October 4 and a few of us from the SUN took advantage of the occasion to interview him the afternoon before in his hotel room.

SUN: I read an interview that you did that was printed in "Sunrise" magazine and you said that when you were growing up you listened and learned a lot from the radio, in addition to what you learned listening to your father's record collection. But you said that eventually the radio began to exelude a lot of the blues and local r and b hits so that then there wasn't a place for a black musician to hear the basis of what his music was all about. Why do you think that happened?

Taj: I don't know . . . Top 40, money? For a minute there when I was growing up radio exemplified the homogenous America that the educational system talked about, and it's still some places that way. Whoever had the sound that was vibrating the kids, got on the radio. Then, it got. cut off and it got to be only white music of a certain caliber. No matter how good, bad, or indifferent, if it was selling, it was on the air, and the criterion was not whether the music moved you or not. It seemed like there was another thing, something new had entered into it, and the only black stuff that got on the radio was, you know, deodorized. The non-funky stuff, like, say by the time Marvin Gaye could get on that same station, he would be like . . .

SUN: The outer limit?

Taj: Yeah,right. That would be just what they would be able to handle. And that was a little heavy for them, too. So I realized that my idea of where the music was coming from was through the radio and that's not where the music was happening at all.

SUN: How much artistic control do you have over you own music?

Taj: All of it, except the distribution. I always come up with my own product, and what I want on my albums, etc., etc.

SUN: This brand new release, "Mo' Roots" is heavily reggae-influenced. Now, I think it was your father's side of the family that came from Jamaica?

Taj: Yeah, my father's side of the family is from St. Kitts.

SUN: So you were hip to that whole reggae thing all along. Why is it that the reggae influence is as apparent as it is on this album and not before?

Taj: It was there before. It came out in 1971, on a tune called "West Indian Revelation."

SUN: Oh yeah? On what album was that?

Taj: That's on "Happy To Be Just Like I Am." Yeah, there's a whole lot of attempts at it from where I was coming from, it's just that this time around I didn't have all the leeches and the parasites that usually really enclose somebody that's doing the kind of work that I'm doing.

SUN: People associated with the business? 

Taj: (nods) Business, business. And now I had my own space to do what the hell I wanted to do, so I did that.

SUN: I think it's a real nice album [Mo' Roots]

Taj: Yeah, I do too. I think there's all kind of stuff in it. There's room for everything that goes on in anybody's mind that's thinking.

SUN: One thing I particularly like about it was that for all the reggae influence, it wasn't as limited as reggae can sometimes get. I listen to Jimmy Cliffs stuff and it sounds sort of formulized after awhile,

Taj: Well, you got to dig that he's been successful in the record business coming through the whole English establishment. And that's going to be a whole lot tighter than coming through the American establishment. I mean, the British are the ones. They put the vibe on the planet, you know. (he laughs)

SUN: What vibe is that?

Taj: Well, you know what vibe it is.

SUN: Say it for me.

Taj: No. I don't have to. (laughs) I don't have to. They just put the vibe on the planet and that's why the music is a lot stiffer.

SUN: You mentioned in the Sunrise interview, done over a year ago, the prospects of reggae getting milked or reduced by white imitators.

Taj: I haven't been wrong, have I? Not at all. Jumped right on it, said it, and it came out true. 'Course it's gonna be that way. 'Cause it's like the Funkadelics say, "America eats 'its young," and it does that. It's too bad because, like, it could be really a big, fun trip man. I mean really. But it's a little bit too heavy for anything that positive to be happening right now.

SUN: What do you think stands in the way of the musical establishment as a whole expressing basically positive things?

Taj: Money , first of all, and lust and greed for that kind of power that money will bring in. In this society if you don't have any better idea of what to do with yourself . . . it's just obvious that there are certain things that are involved with people's heritage that don't leave them cool enough to deal with their existence. They just don't deal with it, you know. It's too easy to have somebody else do it, to have somebody else think it, to let the computer do it.

SUN: So, do you believe that most rock musicians then, don't have any idea of what they are all about?

Taj: No. They have very definite ideas of what they are about. As a matter of fact, if it's anybody who knows their limitations, it's them cats, and they're frustrated by it. All you have to do is check out how they relate to women, you know, you can see how frustrated they are about their music. That's hands down, right there. I mean, everything talks about itself. I stopped contesting all that shit and just play my music.

SUN: Still you yourself manage to convey such a totally positive thing yourself.

Taj: Yeah, well of course. The problem of it is, is that I don't come from that which destroys the earth. And I know that, and I'm not going to be there. I work at it as best I can. It gets difficult to deal on this kind of scale [as a wellknown popular musician] because you're talking about burning jet gas in the stratosphere, burning gas on the street, you know this, that, and the other thing. So, if you back out of that space, well then all of the filth will come back into it again. That's the only kind of concession I make with the whole business is right there and I don't like it. I don't know' what to do about it. All the way, it's either the oil industries involved in it by making vinyl or pushing you to the gig (laughs). One way or another you got to depend upon those cats, you know. So you say , "Whew, wotta drag."

SUN: If you could do it differently how would you do it?

Taj: I don't know. If I could do it differently, it would be back to a whole tribal thing where it belongs in the fïrst place. Or fiestas in countries that don't spend lots of money. They don't spend gas money, you know. You feed the burro, and they put a little grease on the axle and and the axle gets you to town. That's it and no more than that, you don't go any farther that what's...all a car is is a mechanical mule. One, two, three, four, quadrupeds, that's how people got around for a long time, to the point that they were totally through the mind of their horse. And then somebody came along and said, "Kapow, kapow, pow! Blam, blam, look at this thing!" and it got faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. And now somebody just made it across the the Atlantic Ocean recently in an hour and and a half, two hours, to Europe. Where's that at? I mean, faster and faster . . .

SUN: Well, that's that British, white man vibe you were talking about before, too.

Taj: (Sighs)...right. Just can't stop man.

At this point we talked more about the quality of modern life and then about Richard Nixon 's recent offing. Taj thought that was an obvious demonstration to the American public that the government was merely replacing one puppet with another, and yet he felt pessimistic about masses of people becoming really aware, and moving on that knowledge to change this nation's apparently self-destructive course.

SUN : When these pessimistic moods hit you, do you ever wonder about the purpose of your music, the effectiveness of it?

Taj: Yeah.yeah, I really do. Because there's a lot of people who come to see me who really don't pay the kind of respect to the music that I feel that I put into it. A lot of times it's a lot of beerdrinking, dope-gulping hippies, man. Or Anglo-Americans who really think that what I'm doing is some real low shit and they want to get into it and get really greasy and sleazy, but it's so very healthy if they go on and participate in it. But that's something I can't do anything about.

SUN: What would be a form of participation that you agreed with - dancing?

Taj: Well, dancing's real cool. That's always nice. But just realizing that you don't get something for nothing. That's why they don't always get all the benefit of what it is they always gotta pay for...and records are a funny trip, too. l've never ever really played the record trip. You know, you put out an album, come along cruising behind the album, da da da da da, promote, promote, promote. That's the first time I've ever been on this kind of trip, only to see where it leads to, because I've made nine records doing what I wanted to do and now I'll see if it's really worth going through all these changes. 'Cause now I'm not worried and I'm not questioning myself, whether or not I'm gonna cop out, do I really have to go to make commercial music in order to survive in music? It's not so, 'cause I have . not had to make that kind of commercial music. I believe any music that's good music is... it's like reggae right now isn't commercial in America, but when it happens people will say, "Oh yeah, reggae stuff. that's hip, that's commercial. "So we're all watching something happening. 'Cause don't nobody know where it is, they done burned out all the Little Richard's and all this stuff has been played. I mean like in the sense of the last generation of rock cats. Little Richard ain't no more burned out, they done burned out on him.

SUN: You're talking about the musicians now?

Taj: Most of them, yeah. Also a lot of the black musicians have burned out on the music that they've listened to, 'cause it's all been channeled for commercial sales. Money goes only so far, commerciality goes so far.

We spoke again of artist controlled art, as a way of the artist taking on his/her responsibility and avoiding the corruption of commerciality -

Taj: Here's where I'm at. Say I had a record that sold an awful lot, and it started things out, and I had two or three good albums to make some bread. There's lots of things that could be done with that bread that's positive. That, first of all, is tax deductible, you know, so that you're going to benefit from it.

SUN: Do you do benefits yourself?

Taj: Tons of them, man! I just did a benefit for Ethiopia. I'm always working like that. I work on AM and FM radio, too.

SUN: You talking about interviews?

Taj: No, I'm talking about benefits, educational television, I've done stuff for children, all kinds of things. I'm involved in...I'm not such a lazy person that like, well I just clipped my big toenails so there's a blurb that comes out on UPI that Taj Mahal has clipped his toenails, I don't need that. You know, you take what you need and leave the rest. I believe in those kinds of laws that seem to be passed down through the universe, that apply to any land and any place that I've ever seen. That law applies. You know. so then that's the kind of laws I deal with 'cause there's local law, local law and stuff don't mean nothing.

SUN: Are there particular places where you really enjoyed playing?

Taj: Yeah. There's a lot of places...lately it hasn't been that way though. I just haven't run into it. there's not a lot of energy in the movement right now between people and places and love and sex and harmony and music, painting, sculpting, building, having babies. There's not a whole lot of harmony in that right now. Everybody's jumbled.

SUN: At least your thing is still happening and I think that's a positive thing.

Taj: I keep cookin', keep cookin'. I just wish it would get out to a little more people, but that's when it starts to get that funny...

He shrugged and looked away.