TRINIDADIAN-BORN, St Vincentian reggae singer Tuff Like Iron is pleased that statues linked to slavery are being toppled in the United Kingdom and United States, and believes that all monuments with that link “should be removed”.

“It’s great to see that people are waking up, to an extent. Those racist statues should have come down long time. It’s crazy that we’re living in a world where black people are trying to convince other people that their lives matter, and that idea is being met with resistance,” Tuff Like Iron told the Jamaica Observer.

“It’s great to see that there are lots of white people now standing up to say that police brutalising black people is wrong, and to see the resistance from the cops is amazing – almost like they’re saying the answer to your complaints is more police brutality so I say yes, dismantle all those racist statues and monuments.”

Since the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of police last month, there has been a wave of protests in the USA. But last week those protests started gaining traction in other countries around the world, too.

Protests in Bristol, England, for example, led to residents toppling the statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston and tossing it into a river. A statue of noted slaveholder Robert Milligan, a prominent British slave trader who owned two sugar plantations and 526 slaves in Jamaica, has been removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands. Thousands of people gathered outside an Oxford College in the UK to demand the removal of a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston was beheaded, and another Columbus statue vandalised in Virginia. On Saturday, after years of controversy, crews removed a statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, from the Kentucky Capitol.

“They should topple all racist symbols of oppression…all of them,” Tuff Like Iron said militantly. “I have been burning down Babylon a long time and it seems other people are catching up now.”

On May 28 the singer released her sophomore album, Ilemental, via Sam Diggy Music.

“ Ilemental is a way for us to affirm life. It addresses love and the environment, and is a soundtrack for renewed life and hope after the pandemic,” she said.

“This album features 10 tracks plus a remix, and skits. The first single released is Ganja Army. We shot a quarantine video for the song, we did it with a phone, and we invited fans all over the world to submit videos with marijuana plants and with them smoking the herb to incorporate in the video. The video is very pro-environmental,” she said.

Tuff Like Iron (given name is Kindele Aixe) said she was musically inspired by her Vincentian father, who was a reggae and soca drummer. She was further exposed to the music living between Kingston, Jamaica, and Brooklyn, United States. She initially made her name on the Brooklyn fashion circuit, but would eventually embrace music as her chosen career path.

She released her first EP, 1986, for Jah Ova Evil Records in 2014. Her debut album, Ironic, was distributed by Tuff Gong International.