BY JANIECE CAMPBELL
February annually marks an important month of celebration. Outside of the painful past, Black History Month is a cause for festivity, as it highlights the tireless work and hard-earned achievements of our people. This time around is no different, as we celebrate beloved reggae singer, songwriter, activist and Juno Award recipient, Kirk Diamond.
On February 28th, a park in Brampton, Ontario, formerly known as Harry A. Shields Parkette, will be renamed Kirk Diamond Park, an honour that will go down in history as he is the first recording artist ever to receive a park in the city. This is not the first of his many “first” accomplishments, as he also succeeded in being the first and only reggae artist to host ETALK Canada, as well as the only Canadian reggae artist to appear on BBC Radio 1Xtra, an urban music radio station broadcasted from London, England.
“When I heard the news at first, it was like yeah right! These things only happen to dead people. But now? I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m thinking of the magnitude of this and what it means to me. And it means a lot to not only me but the culture that I’m from. I also feel like this is even bigger for my family. They’ve worked so hard, both of my parents. This was never even a part of the dream coming to Canada. For me, it’s the ultimate honour anyone could give my family, a Jamaican immigrant family at that. I see it standing as an inspiration for people like us,” he says.
Kirk Diamond was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, and migrated to Canada in the mid 1990s at ten years old. To maintain his connection to back home, he would watch Master T on TV and listen to Ron Nelson on the radio, anticipating new music from the island each week. Due to his parents not wanting him to get mixed up with the wrong outside crowd, he often stayed inside during leisure times and would play old-school cassettes and VHS tapes of onstage music shows. He knew them all by heart and would lip sync to the songs, unaware that he was practically training for his career today.
“It was the only thing that kept me grounded in Jamaican culture. Have you ever heard people say how music chose them? For me, there was nothing else I wanted to do. There was no other option for me. Anything else would have made me miserable,” says Kirk Diamond.
Proudly identifying as Rastafarian, Kirk Diamond’s music is influenced by the philosophies of Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey. For him, his beliefs brought out an urge to seek knowledge and information in a way to view topics from a humanity standpoint and not just the mainstream depiction of Rastas which is simplified to being pro-Black or refusing to eat meat. With much of his music centered around unification and empowerment, he tends to stick to the old-school rootsy vibe, often replicating the heavy-bass, rub-a-dub and rocksteady reggae music style.
“I started out in the dancehall. I want to say I’m more of a singjay. I sing, but I also mix in the deejay style with it just so that I can be true to myself. I try to bridge the generation before me and the generation after me through music. I try to keep it very rootsy, because I find that the music that was being made in the 70s, like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, The Wailers… there was nothing wrong with it. These are the songs that were used to liberate countries and people and it’s kind of weird that we strayed from it.”
Aside from his origins in Jamaica and Canada, Kirk Diamond has taken his sound worldwide, having performed in several countries including England, Germany, Scotland, and Mexico. With a passion to drive international social change through his music, he has also been a part of various marches, protests, and other events in the quest for equality.
Kirk Diamond’s next album, Poetic Revolution is coming soon! Until then, you can check out his latest single “Ruler” on all streaming platforms, which speaks on our Black history from the perspective of where we were once kings and queens.
