Roots-reggae fans are accustomed to hearing hard-hitting message songs from Yami Bolo, such as ‘Put Down Your Weapon’ and ‘Puppet Master’. The veteran artist shows a different side to his creativity with his first book of poems.
Titled ‘Yami Bolo: Poems and Songs the Cosmo’s Garrison’, it was recently released by Xlibris Publishing, a company based in Bloomington, Indiana. Like most of the songs he has done in his music career, the poems are inspired by the challenges of urban life.
“These are organic kinda poems; wi talking ‘bout spread di love, put down di guns, non-violent things. Wi talking to di youths dem,” said Bolo.
He added that after recording countless songs, he felt the need to express himself differently. Once he wrote the first batch of poems, ideas flowed and over 400 of those writings can be found in ‘The Cosmo’s Garrison’.
“Anything to do with writing excite mi, ‘cause mi like write stuff an’ bring things to reality,” Bolo explained.
Born Rolando McLean, Yami Bolo first recorded songs during the early 1980s for Sugar Minott’s Youthman Promotions label, but they were never released. He was just 15 years-old when he cut ‘Gotta tek it Easy’ for producer Winston Riley on the legendary Stalag ‘riddim’; that song was a hit in dance halls and earned Bolo a place on leading sound systems such as Kilamanjaro, Stur Gav and Stereo Mars.
By the late 1980s, he embraced Rastafari, and his songs became more roots oriented. Based in New York, his previous album, ‘Jah Love Will Rule the World’, was released in 2021.
