JAH CURE. I want people to remember me for good songs

There's a certain beauty in the lonely, oft painful tremolos of a Jah Cure track.

His voice, it seems, captures the turbulence of a youth tossed between the harshest conditions of the island's cities, the hunger for musical greatness and subsequently, a meteoric climb to his dream dented by a 15-year sentence for rape and gun possession.

But whatever the factor for emotional vocal tones, it's simply undeniable that this soul-baring Rastafarian rocker has a certain je ne sais quoi that radiates with every note. His freedom was only a day old when the recording artiste, born Siccature Alcock, sat with Splash to discuss the past and possibilities his new status may afford him. Though it's now several hours after the sky gazing - the singer's first action when he was last Saturday released from the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre - we're still intrigued and want to know more...

The free 'Cure'

"You can't know the value of freedom 'til you go through the struggle like me," the singer shares, lighting a half-done 'spliff', repairing to a concrete bench at the back of Big Yard Studios along Eastwood Park Road. "Some man take it for granted, but Jah know, life without it...," he adds, shaking his head and giving out a long sigh. He doesn't finish the sentence.

On being in prison

"Prison a nuh bed a rose," he says, "Dem know is a message me a send fe de youths dem stay away [from prison]." It's a "negative place," he notes, "there's a whole heap of negative, badman from all bout, you're amongst the notorious and if yuh nuh strong, yuh doom."

Though he identifies that the "free world" is no less corrupt, he believes that "out here" the choices aren't so limiting and mistakes are not oft fatal.

The music industry

"Everybody a do dem best... I'm just here to play my part." He comments, too, on the rising concern about his fellow Rastafari harbinger, the controversial Munga Honourable who refers to himself as 'Gangsta Ras'.

"A music him a deal wid, but because him a Ras people would look for positive things," he shares, adding that, "the negative a reality... mi cyaan' fight him, him haffi eat too."
"Him a try a little thing, is jus' a idea fi sell him ting... is jus' marketing."

"What I missed about the free world..."

"There's no one thing, but I missed smoking a good draw a weed, smoking a chalice amongst my bredrin," he notes. Sunday night, he shares, had a certain livity when he stayed up until the wee hours chatting and laughing with reggae legend and his mentor Beres Hammond, as well as Coco Tea.

My Life as a single

"I've seen many things/seen paupers turned kings," he says, quoting the lyrics from his new single My Life - from the new album True Reflection, The New Beginning - released in conjunction with his release from prison. "Man cyaan do 3,000 days and brush and nuh see nutt'n... that experience teach me a whole heap. The music a go speak to everything that me learn."

Words to his accuser

During Jah Cure's incarceration his accuser took her story to the media. Though Splash poses the question of how he feels toward her, the singer sidesteps the query. "Right now me give thanks for life, something great a gwaan for me.I'm jus' moving on and skipping a new page," he shares. "I don't want to hurt anyone with my words." The interview is interrupted several times by fans loitering in the studio yard; a fan now openly expresses his love and raises bottles of Guinness in celebration.

"Mi soon come give you a reason, me brother," he says before continuing.

"I wish certain things that happen never happen.what you gonna do about the past?" he poses.
Is he still professing innocence?
"Just let it be.love is the word, and music is the answer."

The Rehabilitation Through Music Programme

A music project for inmates that pretty much nurtured the recording star's career. He expresses that he'll continue to work with acts like 'Serano', a talented inmate. "[The programme was instrumental] during the True Reflection recording and we have some other song like Mama Be Cool," he says, bursting into song.

Jah Cure is inspired by.

"The people that in the world because without them, there would be no who to sing to," he adds, ".things are happening and if you don't look around you, you can't draw inspiration from your surroundings."

Cultivating a 'Cure' legacy

"I want people to remember me for good songs," he says, blowing a puff of smoke from his mouth. "I want to work with anybody that means himself positive in the business. nuff man gi me them strength and say free Jah Cure." He mentions that he appreciates those sentiments from everyone who expressed it, whether they were genuinely in support of release or needed to inspire a tough audience.
"Me glad to know say dem could a call my name same way, a whole heap a strength that," he adds.

The difference between then and now

Despite an eight-year removal from society, the Montego Bay native maintains that nothing has changed except, "the aggression" with which he's approaching his music. "We've stepped up the pitch and heighten' the way how we a arrange the thing."

A rendition of the simple spiritually inspired Jah Jah Bless Me pre-empts the closing remarks of our interview. "A jus' more life and love me bring to the people dem, and Jah a go make that happen, yes," he says.

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