Here I am

A metamorphosis is a transformation, so I am about to transform myself. I was reading an interview done with my favorite group Groundation, and the interviewer told the lead singer that their latest album didn't sound like their last one. The lead singer, Harrison Stafford, told him that the group is constantly trying to reinvent and grow their music. They don't want every album to sound alike. The interviewer told him that he doesn't quite understand the album. Harrison told him he needs to continue to listen to it and he might find that he loves it. Wouldn't it be great if you could reinvent yourself each day? I mean, there are many different facets to my personality, to what makes me, me. Just in music alone, I love reggae, but I also like soul, R&B, some hip hop, jazz, and even classical. A lot of people only know me to love reggae, even people who've known me all of my life and know that I didn't start listening to reggae until ten years ago, in their minds, I must not like the music I listened to before, so now I'm just reggae. Why do people like to pigeon hole each other? Once they think they've got your number, that's who you are to them for eternity. If I wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, am I now labeled "country" and put on a shelf? There is so much more to my ingredients list than will fit on a label. Could you handle it if one day someone you love and thought you knew came to you dressing, speaking, behaving differently? Would you think they've completely lost it because, 'that's not who they are'? What if it is who they are but you just couldn't, or refused to see it. Though I am talking of a transformation, I'm not talking about changing anything about who I really am except how I censure my expression of all that is me. Harrison Stafford said of his music that he didn't want people to say 'that's the Groundation sound'. The truth is, I can tell when it's Marcus Urani making an organ soulfully whine, and if I hear horns telling a story in a reggae song, I know it's either David Chachere et al or Earth, Wind and Fire just did a reggae album. Of course there's no mistaking Harrison Stafford's unique sort of raspy sometimes horn sounding soulful voice passionately belting out a tune. My point is, what makes Groundation who they are is still there, they just express it differently on each album. So, Here I Am (not coincidently Groundation's latest album) ready for change, not a change in who I am, but a change in how the world sees me. If you think you've got me figured out, think again, I will not sound like the last album, but if you listen long enough, you might find you love me.