Asani Morris is not Prince Zimboo

CHOOSING a high school, Asani Morris could have gone to the same as his brothers, just like every other normal person in Jamaica. In fact Asani had an especially normal choice, given that the school, Calabar, was around the corner. Instead he decides to enroll at Jamaica College on the other side of town.

"Because my brothers went to Calabar and it was too close to the house," shrugged the entertainer.

Life for Asani has never been about convenient, or normal, which can worry those around him. For the past five or so years he's been working with deejay Prince Zimboo Abakunamabooba, from 'Dbush in Africa', whose career has blown up this year with a single, 'Heh!', being released next month on M.I.A. producer Diplo's Mad Decent label, with an album to follow.


"The Zimboo thing won't work in Jamaica. Give it Up!" everybody had told Asani after the act was just two years old. But his stubbornness paid off when his artist appeared on a Black Chiney mixtape and dubplate requests soon started rolling in (Zimboo is reuniting with that soundsystem to play a show in Belize this Halloween night). At one point it got really weird when this article in Slate magazine led to Zimboo being featured on the MSN.com homepage for the better part of a week.

With dancehall being as conformist as it is, Asani was always destined to be a misfit. Even playing piano at Christopher's jazz bar in New Kingston didn't suit him. They paid handsomely in free drinks but then Asani doesn't drink or smoke, except to "put a little rum in some fruit juice".

However it was at that same venue this year, upstairs in the Quad nightclub, that Zimboo ran away with the launch party for Diplo and Switch's Major Lazer album, on which he also appears. Zimboo and his wooden alligator stole the night with their forwards:

"Practice safe sex dont exceed the sex limit, Zimboo don't drink water cause fish have sex in it... You wonder why the sea so salty, the Octopus is getting naughty."



Anyway, so last weekend I'm standing in Asani's family yard with his lastest associate, fellow producer SaniShowbizz – who like Zimboo is of course not the same person as Asani, just that he looks a lot like him. Showbizz sometimes works from the recording studio that Asani's brother Junior (aka deejay Benzley Hype) built around the back.

In between rapid-paced rants Showbizz is chain smoking Matterhorn cigarettes at a sickening rate, lighting each new one with the half-smoked last. He's wearing a black suit, fedora, shades and on his feet a pair of orange flip-flops, just like the ones Asani was wearing minutes before.

Showbizz is a familiar character to anyone who's encountered one of the many slightly inebriated and profane elder hangers-on found at studios across Kingston, telling elaborate stories of being robbed of their ideas and music; and generally claiming the credit for the success of other artists, no matter how tenuous.

"Yow, mi tell you someting. Mi... [starts thumping his chest, hard] Mi teach Pele how fi play football, mi! An' when mi watch Pele play football, a dem time mi see Bob Marley a come an' Bob Marley wah play football an' mi tell Bob Marley, 'Right ya now mi a di wickedes' ting inna football an' yu know dat, yu know dat! Mi can tell yu anyting you wah learn an' a matter of fact you can make some music yah so because mi cyan see the talent in yu from the way yu control di ball. Mi know yu gwaan be di greatest musician to ever come outta Jamaica because right now yu a di real man an' yu know dat too Bob.' Him did see dat. Zeen. An' yu know dat."


Back in the real world the local music industry is yet to be kind to Asani. Talented, and weirdly so, Asani's had occasional half-chances, like the time he played his first tune to the owner of a radio station. Immediately he had Asani re-record it and within 30 minutes 'Lose Your Number' was on rotation.

However from then on things didn't go entirely to plan. Dawn Dodd, wife of the late great Clement 'Coxzone' Dodd was tipped off by Gambling House Studio about his next tune, 'Mr Fixit', and was interested in releasing it on the Studio One label. But then the studio's computer crashed and his tune was lost.

Meantime he's finding more and more characters to work with. He plans to release a compilation album in 2010, led by Zimboo but also featuring himself; Ned Chigins, 'a black redneck from Texas'; Alfredo 'a chef from Italy' and Vlad! from Russia.

He's also going to continue eating tomato ketchup out of a cup.

Check out http://twitter.com/LetterFromJA for more photos of Asani & friends.