We Are Music – An Interview With Chronixx

Jamar McNaughton, AKA Chronixx, reggae’s biggest rising star, sat down with Jump Magazine’s Empress Jeanille for an exclusive look into how life and music are one…

EJ: First of all, I want to know personally, why do they call you ChronDada?

C: Well ChronDadda is a name where, I don’t really remember where it comes from. I think Ruinkus, either Ruinkus or Jesse Royal called me first. It has to be one of them two individuals.

EJ: What does Dadda mean? Why add Dada.

C: I think Dadda in Swahili means “sistah”. So all them people name sistah. But in Jamaican it means Father. Yea, in Jamaica you know you call everybody Dada. So if you’re great like Sizzla Kalonja, you’re the original DonDadda, so ChronDadda.

EJ: Wow. That’s quite funny actually. So let’s talk about your lyrical content. I’ve been listening to your music for years. It’s uplifted me and strengthened me when I needed it and helps with meditation on life, but you’re young with an old soul. Where does that lyrical flow, lyrical content come from, when you’re able to be so positive?

C: Everything in life is music ya know. When music overcomes you, it’s now left to what you feel yourself, and how able you are to physically channel this music. How is your lungs, how is your heart, how is your mind… All of that comes out in the lyrics. Like what are you thinking?

EJ: So when we hear lyrics with negative and dark energies around it, what do you think a young person or artist is feeling at that time?

C: Well you have to meditate negativity to sing it. Whatever you sing, you have to meditate it. You have to get your lungs, your vocal chords, a lot of strings and organs in your body working to get those lyrics out. In order for that to happen it takes a certain meditation of the mind. For someone to go into a studio and sing about killing, they have to be meditating about killing someone else, this and that.

EJ: But your songs are all about love and righteousness, so what were you meditating about at the time?

C:    Even for the most vicious murderer in the world, for him to get up one morning and sign about the beauty of life and the beauty of living, he would have to meditate about the beauty of life and the beauty of living. Yes, some people complicate the process with trying to use their intellect to have a better sleep in the night, but as an artist you are the music that you make.

EJ: See that is powerful. We never think that we are a part of the music we make.

C: Yea, we are the music. Yea man! We are the music.

EJ: So music is emotional. Should artist feel inclined to put their feelings in their music?

C: Well you can only feel music ya know. You can’t see it. You never see a song walking past you like that. You can only feel it.

EJ: The key then, is for talent to be in a healthy state of mind.

C: Yea man. For an artist, health is different thing. Mental health is a different situation, because it takes a different mentality for you to be an artist, you have to think differently from someone who is just a builder. You know, the architect is different from the mason, the carpenter, the builder they all think different.

EJ: So let’s talk about “Black & Beautiful”, because every African woman right now just screaming for herself, no matter what mood she’s in. What’s the inspiration behind that song?

C:  It’s a song I feel shows the one good thing about struggle, the beauty that comes out. The beauty that comes out of struggle and stress and things. Just from growing alone, there is a lot of sensations that comes and the body has to go under a certain amount of stress for growth to occur and that is reflected in every aspect of life. There’s a certain amount of pressure that needs to be present for things to change.

As being “African” changes throughout the years, for instance after millions were sent and taken to the west, the definition of being “African” changed. No longer someone born on the continent, ya know, what defines you as an “African” must change after such a big event. I think moving forward we have to be sensitive to the beautiful things that came out of that pressure and struggle as a people.

EJ: Can you identify some of those things?

C: Like the music that came out of it. With everything comes a relative vibration, and sometimes a lot of bad things come with a relative vibration that is very beautiful. So a lot of the music and a lot of the art, and the way how our expressions evolved throughout these different stages and phases of our existence as a people, ya know. I felt like it was good to say once more that, “Black is Beautiful”, just so it echoes because I wasn’t the first person to say that in a song. Many more people will come and see the importance of repeating, because some stories that come must be told to every generation, both sides of it.

EJ: Talk to me about balancing the spirit world and physical world, because the spirit world comes with the African’s as well. But we weren’t told much about that. How would you build it up so that persons can know how to create that balance?

EJ: So there’s a balance between spirituality and physicality, that many people believe comes with religion. I believe it comes with faith. Believing in yourself, what your doing, your cause. Like you mentioned earlier about meditating on a cause. I believe you’ve been able to achieve that balance in your music. So how do you maintain that balance so it’s used in the right way?

C: I think becoming a more spiritual and conscious person takes a lot of focus and work, and it takes a lot of repetition to, like the sun rises and sets each day just the same, it’s a daily thing. If the sun decided some days it would not rise, life would be different. The plants, the trees, even the humans will think different. It takes a level of consistency.

EJ: Can you share a tip to maintain this balance?

C: Well it has to do with lots of things, like even your diet, certain practices, the words you choose to use each day. How you use them. You have to regain control, or become aware of the unity that you have with your body. That it is not necessarily your body carrying yourself, but you carrying your body. Not even your mind and your brain knows everything that you yourself knows. Your car doesn’t know everything that the driver knows, but there is a drive there whether or not the car is conscious.

It’s the same thing, we have to keep reminding ourselves this everyday until it becomes consciousness. The things we can’t see; we have trained ourselves to not see them. I remember when I was 5 and 6, there were things I remember I could see. My brothers and sisters and all of my friends could all see, and being creative and creating images in our minds together. Then over time, you get trained out of it. You go to school and they are very rigid about training you out of that. So to become aware of that unity again, that you have this body. Like when you are a child you have this new body, and you’re so excited about it, you want to see how your finger interacts with electricity so you put your finger in the socket a get shock. Can my body feel electricity, can it get burned, what does water feel like, so you get excited. As a youth, you look at yourself and think, finger, hand, nose, and then after a while you loose that consciousness that you have this body to do several things.