Mutabaruka, Turbulence, DYCR To Headline 2024 ‘Dis Poem Wordz And Agro Festival’

Dub Poets, Mutabaruka, DYCR and Reggae star Turbulence are set to headline this year’s 12th staging of the Dis Poem Wordz and Agro Festival at the College of Agriculture Science and Education (CASE) in Portland on Sunday, April 28.

University of the West Indies’ Dancehall Professor Donna P. Hope and poet Amina Blackwood Meeks are also among the presenters on the lineup, which also includes Reggae singers Imeru Tafari and Aza Lineage, among others.

According to the event’s promoter, dub poet Ras Takura, Dis Poem, which blends food security with music and poetry, was first staged in 2011 in Portland to “cultivate an audience for poetry.”

“It was first and foremost to get a space to perform poetry to a national and international audience.   So I was trying to cultivate my own audience that me as a poet and my other friends who are also poets, could share a stage,” he told DancehallMag.

“I am the blend because I am a poet and also a trained farmer – a trained agriculturist… I have been studying agriculture for a long part of my life from Knockalva Agricultural School, to the College of Agriculture.   And I have been writing poetry and performing for almost all a mi life same way, so it is a natural blend. It is like you walk into destiny,” the  2020 winner of the International Reggae And World Music Awards (IRAWMA) Mutabaruka Award for Best Poet/Spoken Word Entertainer added.

A major part of Dis Poem is the heirloom seeds exchange, which Ras Takura said will also be complemented by merchandise booths offering food, craft, and handmade products, as well as a farmers market.

“We try to maintain the heirloom seeds exchange as  vital part of the festival, a vital movement of the festival.  Most people will say it is the most essential part of the festival whereby we invite the farmers to bring their natural seeds, bring their third generation seeds and trade seeds, so we want to reinforce this aspect of this festival strong,” he said.

“It is critical because we are losing a lot of our natural varieties,  we no longer have traditional corn in circulation; we no longer have traditional red peas in circulation…,” he added.

At Dis Poem, attendees are encouraged to bring their seeds for exchange with others.   A dedicated tent is set up where seeds are collected from attendees.  A pound of seeds, for instance, can be divided into approximately 30 smaller bags and are sorted, labelled, and made available in a communal area for people to take as they wish, all at no cost.

Musically, Ras Takura released his debut album Food War on January 29, 2015.  The 17-track album consisted of various tracks centered on agriculture  such as the title track Food War, The Science of Agriculture which featured Mutabaruka, Jamaican Food, Praedial Larceny, Ganja Plant and Plantain, as well as other tracks focusing on love, and injustices in the world.

According to Ras Takura, that album for which most of the tracks were self-produced, has done relatively well since its release.

“That was my first album.  I have nothing to complain about because I sold a couple thousand copies and mi think it established me in the minds of nuff people.  It has taken me out to places like other Caribbean counties, parts of Africa and the United States,” he said.   

Ras Takura was born on a farm and grew up in a farming community in St. Ann, the birthplace of Bob Marley.  From an early age he learnt the practices of natural, organic agriculture.  He was inspired to pursue agriculture as a career after reading a speech made by Emperor Haile Selassie  at the  College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, in which the Ethiopian leader declared that: “a country and a people that become self-sufficient by the development of agriculture can look forward to the future with confidence”.