Former Rising Star contestant O’neil Peart defended the two-day teachers’ strike in his performance at Susie’s Café on Wednesday in Kingston.

The singjay and teacher used his art as activism and was backed by Daniel on vocals, Reynard on keyboards and Marlon on drums.

“I took part in the strike,” he told the audience at the intimate Kingston Café at the weekly live events organised by Griot Music, the booking agency and recording studio founded by guitarist Seretse Small. “People ask why are we striking, it is because they owe us money and nah pay we.”

Peart then dedicated the 1964 Sam Cooke classic A Change Is Gonna Come, to teachers.

The song was part of the soundtrack for the Black American Civil Rights Movement, which opposed repressive laws imposed by the then US government. His performance of the song was aimed at paralleling the struggles of the Blacks with the Jamaican teachers.

“That goes to my teachers and anybody in the struggle who believes that a change must come,” stated Peart who teaches at the Greenwich All-Age School in Kingston.

Many of the island’s teachers on Monday and Tuesday stayed off the job protesting the government’s proposal to pay them $1 billion out of $4 billion owed to them.

The love for his job, he said, allowed him to continue despite challenges that include “gunshots beating everyday” at the school in Kingston’s volatile community. A teacher’s job is to “inspire and to teach”, he said before singing an anti-crime original, No Control.

“Mind how you mould them, further down the road you can’t control them,” he sang.

Peart can sing. He has the type of voice that tickles your back. He has the scalar dexterity of a R&B vocalist with the rhythm of a singjay. Sometimes he separates the styles, at other times he combines then switching from Cooke to Sizzla to Anthony Hamilton, then dovetailing into his own originals.

He also plays guitar, which drives many of his songs allowing his style to vary from the many keyboard junkies in the R&B or dancehall tradition. Peart is also part of the poetry group Nomadz, trio–including Everaldo Creary and Sheldon Shepherd–who most times performs individually.

Peart played for over two hours and ended by covering Jammin’ by Bob Marley minutes to midnight. The Griot Music series will continue on Saturday, May 8 when roots balladeer Della Manley performs at Jo Jo’s Jerk Pit in Kingston.