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Guava Jelly

Posted by giles on November 03rd, 2008 | Category: Camile Velasco

Recently, I was at a training for a few invited community organizations in Boston who were recognized for addressing issues of social change through art and youth work. (I’m sorry, what? Oh yes, I think I will gawn brush my shoulders off.) It was a diverse group in almost every way, and it was especially cool to have so many different perspectives and collective experiences all come into the air like that.

But what made it mad solid for me was when a fellow trainee – a 40-something Christian minister from Haiti – responded to a discussion of isangMahal, an arts collective for the Filipino community out in Seattle. iM is a direct ancestor of Boston Progress, and so some of us folks here feel a very strong kinship with them. Their name means “one love” in Tagalog, which was inspired by the Bob Marley song of the same name (although in English.)

So back to the training: as we talked about their influence nationally and locally, the Rev chuckled as we were talking and kind of blurted out “I’m a Christian but I love Bob Marley! I can’t help it!” You can’t plan this kind of stuff, but it was at that moment that I realized how almost absurd it was that I was talking about a group of old friends in Seattle with a group of new friends in Boston, talking about the influence of an all-API* group with a group of mostly non-API* folks, talking about Bob Marley with a Christian preacher.

(Many of you realize this was a gift Bob Marley had – bringing different groups together, including bringing leaders of the Jamaica Labour Party the People’s National Party on stage during a time of violent political protest in Jamaica to shake hands.)

So imagine my surprise and lack of surprise when I heard our recent shuffler Camile Velasco was releasing her first single from her new album – “Guava Jelly” – a cover of a vintage Bob Marley song.

But not just that, it was produced by Stephen Marley, Bob and Rita’s son.

Oh, and not just that, but Camile traveled to Kingston to record in the Marley home, where Bob Marley himself recorded so many of his special songs.

So I guess I’m saying that I encourage you to peep the single and support it if you dig it. Because you never know which of your worlds might end up connecting. Visit myspace.com/camilevelasco to get the download links.

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