Movement of Jah People

The word "Exodus" is derived from greek, "exodos", meaning "departure".

To be on exodus is to leave a world in which you are familiar, and head toward the "new", the "unknown". It can be physical, geographical, mental, or spiritual.

Exodus is a difficult path. It is dangerous and scary, it often feels sad to leave, and many times bitter as well. But Exodus is also exciting, promising, liberating. This makes it an extremely alive and intense experience, encompassing extreme emotions, ranging from our highest hopes to our deepest fears.

But Exodus is also an essential process of life, by which we make our major leaps and breaktrhoughs.

For when you leave your old familiar world, and sail in the wild sea, in the unknown, you have no means to rely on any reflex or old pattern. And as you are continuously moving, you have no possibility to develop new systems, new habits. You have no option but to continuously create yourself, and the world around you.

"So we gonna walk, all right
through the road of creation
we the generation
trod through great tribulation"

Yes, Exodus is the Road of Creation.

...

In my own life, I started to understand what Exodus means when I left my own country and went to France to study. I was suddenly in a place where I was a stranger, where I knew very few people, and have no history. I needed legal stamped papers to be allowed to stay, papers that I would need to conitnuously renew with supporting justifications. I felt cold. I was lonely. It was expensive for me. Everything I took for granted in my life was suddenly missing. My mediterranean sun, my sea, my lovely friends and family. I was in a new world. With an uncertain unknown future, big dreams and few means. The land below me unstable. The way back was closed. The way forward was blur. Without realising it, I was too on my Exodus.

In these early days I would stay in my little student room in Cergy where my french university was located. Unable to focus on any of my studies, joints will be rolling in my lonely nights. From my first-floor window I could only see an un-inspring parking, between two lost buildings in a quiet french suburb where I had absolutely no connection. On my desk would be piled stacks of undone homeworks that were the last preocupation of my mind. And in my heart were sunny lovingful memories that were geting more and more far every day, seeming to fade away. In these lonely days, Bob would would be singing in my room, and for the first times his voice would strike deep into my heart.

"Open your eyes
And look within
Are you satisfied
With the life you're livin?

We know where we're going
We know where we're from
We're leaving Babylone
We're going to our Father land"

And I would dance. I would cry. I would jump. I would hope. I would want to believe. Until I get tired, I vanish on my lonely bed, to wake up and face another cold day.

...

In the years to come, I would try to understand. I would open my eyes, I would read, I would look around, I would look within.

And i would see the same old Exodus story repeating itself, each time in a different place, each time in a new way, and yet always the same. The story of people who were forced, or chose, to leave a familiar world, and to venture in the unknown, in search of a better future.

You find it in the Bible. The story of the captive jewish people, who escaped from slavery and ran away from Egypt, wandering 40 years in the desert, before reaching the promissed land. This story is still celebrated today in yearly passover ceremonies, where people still recall the bitter taste of slavery, and the sweetness of liberation.

And didn't Sidarta Gautama disguise himself and escape from his palace? He left his comfort and wealth, family and inheritance, to wander with asetics and homeless, searching for the Truth. One day under a tree, he awakened, and he became the Boudha, the enlightened one. Statues and temples still celebrate him until today. And people from east and west try to follow his steps towards higher consiousness.

And didn't our Prophet Mohammad leave Mekka? Persecuted and harassed with his early community, he not only left his home town, but left the whole tribal system of Arabia, and all the beliefs of his day. He had to escape, make his way in the night, with one companion, two camels, and a faithful heart. In the years to come, he will return to Mekka, this time in the middle of the day, with thousands of believers, and he will break forever the foundations of the old world. The day of Our Prophet departure from Mekka, the Higra, has been chosen to mark the beginning of the muslim era, and the first day of its calendar.

And what about the thousands of anonymous emigrants who leave their home countries each year, in search of a better future for their families? And the students who leave families and friends, seeking a better education in faraway and lonely lands? And the millions of refugees who flee wars and conflicts, famine and natural disasters?

In truth, the whole world today is moving. The old foundations have already broken, and are in the process of collapsing. The new foundations are being laid, but are still incomplete and fragile. We are caught in the middle of two worlds. Can you feel the shaking of the earth? Can you feel the change? the hopes? and the tribulations?

Yes we are now living in Exodus time.

...

Bob too had to run away from Jamaica.

While he was rehearsing peacefully in his new studio in Kingston in year 1976, he was attacked by gunmen who shot several bullets on him. His left hand was touched by a bullet, but he miraculously escaped the shooting. The assasination attempt on his life was politically motivated, and changed Bob life for ever. Bob too was about to be killed in his own country, by his own people. His life was no more safe, and he had to quickly pack his community, his instruments, his belongings and escape to London. Gone were the days where he could record in this own hometown and play football with his guetto friends. Gone were the days where he could visit his old rasta friends at the remote jamaican beaches, swim and eat fresh fish and energise himself. Gone were the days were he could pick a mango fruit from the tree of his own garden, in between happy worry-free rehearsal sessions.

Now he was a fugitive, with a whole community running away with him, and living under his responsibility in exile. His Exodus would give birth to some of the most intense music ever made, and his Exodus album made during these times would immortalise forever the fears, the hopes, the turmoils, the fighting spirit and the love of this man on his way to "his Father land"

Watch carefully and listen, this is the sound of Exodus, its Bob singing live in Germany in his Uprising tour, few months before he collapsed from exhaustion in Central Park in New York.

"Jah come to break downpression
Rule equality yeah
Wipe away transgression
Set the captives free"