Bennett not bitter: Shelved Ja 50 songwriter shuns the politics
SONGWRITER Mikey Bennett says
he is not bitter that his composition, Find The Flag, was bounced as the official theme song for Jamaica’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Recorded last year, Find The Flag features veteran acts such as Toots Hibbert and Marcia Griffiths. It was recently announced that it would be replaced by On a Mission, produced by multi-platinum-selling deejay Shaggy.
In an interview with the Jamaica Observer yesterday, Bennett said he won’t be caught up in the politics surrounding the songs.
“My only concern is that the controversy is becoming bigger than the songs. All I want is for the songs to be played so people can dance to dem,” he said.
Fly The Flag and On a Mission were commissioned by government — the former
by the previous Jamaica Labour Party Administration, and On a Mission by the People’s National Party which formed the new Government in January.
Since the change of government, both parties have accused each other of politicising the country’s Golden Jubilee. Find The Flag and On a Mission have been caught in the crossfire.
Fifteen years ago, Bennett was approached
to write a song in salute to one of Jamaica’s greatest achievements — the football
team’s qualification for the 1998 World Cup
in France.
That song, Rise Up, also featured an
all-star cast which included Hibbert
and Shaggy.
Bennett is considered one of the
top songwriters in contemporary Jamaican music. He started out as a member of the Home T 4 (later Home T) group in the mid 1970s.
Late that decade, he wrote the quartet’s Yuletide smash, Mek The Christmas (Ketch You In a Good Mood) which remains one of their biggest hits.
Home T went dancehall in the 1980s and 1990s, recording several hit songs for producers Lloyd ‘King Jammys’ James and Gussie Clarke.
It was during this period that Bennett matured as a producer/songwriter.
He co-wrote big hits for J C Lodge (Telephone Love), Can You (Brian and Tony Gold) and Housecall, a monster smash for Shabba Ranks and Maxi
Priest in 1991.
For all the success he has had as a
pop songwriter, Bennett rates Mek The Christmas as his personal favourite.
“That song is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
