Wes­ley Gib­bings

It took a De­cem­ber 9 trip to the epi­cen­tre of the Oc­to­ber 28 as­sault by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa on Ja­maica to meet one of the is­land’s newest lead­ing mu­si­cal voic­es and ac­tivists for hope and re­ju­ve­na­tion.

Count on Irie FM’s Roger Has­fal—our des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver and guide—for an un­for­get­table in­tro­duc­tion to Kisha Or­then­sia “IBrave” Lat­tery.

“What do I call you?” I ask. “Just call me IBrave.” Then the songs be­gin to flow as we ne­go­ti­ate the long, te­dious dri­ve.

There are shades of Di­ana King and more than a hint of Ni­na Si­mone and/or Bil­lie Hol­i­day—the lat­ter ob­ser­va­tion prompt­ing a re­sort to Hol­i­day’s YouTube mu­si­cal mem­o­ra­bil­ia and a spon­ta­neous, com­pe­tent sing-along.

In fact, IBrave’s Come Save Me flags a strong Ni­na con­nec­tion along­side Bob Mar­ley, Bun­ny Wail­er, and Pe­ter Tosh. So, when we even­tu­al­ly get to the well-pre­served Tosh Mau­soleum four hours lat­er, tears flow amid the ad­join­ing hur­ri­cane dev­as­ta­tion.

What led you to mu­sic as your pre­ferred form of cre­ative ex­pres­sion? “The en­er­gy of nat­ur­al vi­bra­tion … spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy. The Most High wants me to do a lot in the mu­sic in­dus­try to bring back reg­gae mu­sic where it was … and even high­er.”

There is every in­di­ca­tion in her 2023 al­bum, com­pris­ing 18 orig­i­nal songs, that such a com­mit­ment is be­ing treat­ed se­ri­ous­ly. The same is true of more re­cent fare de­liv­ered a cap­pel­la on a long West­more­land dri­ve or on stage as a spe­cial guest.

The fo­cus is sharply di­rect­ed at young peo­ple. With­in min­utes, as we cruise along the toll road head­ing west, we are in­tro­duced to a Good Over Evil Treat and Foot­ball Com­pe­ti­tion di­rect­ed by the IB (IBrave) TJ Foun­da­tion and sched­uled for De­cem­ber 21.

“The pur­pose of this pro­gramme is to keep our youths un­der one um­brel­la, as well as to de­vel­op the tal­ents of skil­ful youths in the gen­er­al Man­nings Hill Road and Con­stant Spring com­mu­ni­ties,” an “ap­peal for spon­sor­ship” reads.

For IBrave, such in­ter­ven­tions are re­quired to se­cure the fu­ture of her coun­try.

Some artistes wres­tle with the ten­sion be­tween fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty and their art. Do your themes of so­cial jus­tice mesh with the need to al­so make a liv­ing from this dis­ci­pline? I ask at the end of the long day.

“Okay, when I just start­ed mu­sic, I was think­ing about mak­ing some mon­ey through the mu­sic,” she an­swers.

“I re­alised it’s more spir­i­tu­al than mak­ing the mon­ey be­cause mon­ey will come when mon­ey comes. It’s a strug­gle. It’s a deep strug­gle in this mu­sic in­dus­try, try­ing to get my­self to­geth­er, you know.

“I hope one day things will work out in a way that I have enough to share with every­one, most­ly the youths. It’s very hard for me—very, very, very hard,” she adds, her voice un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly low­er­ing to a near whis­per in the voicenote re­sponse.

“When I say hard, I mean ex­treme­ly hard, be­cause every­thing right now—if you’re not hav­ing sex with these peo­ple in the mu­sic in­dus­try, and I mean from all an­gles, and if you’re not putting out mon­ey—they’re not play­ing your mu­sic, they’re not do­ing cer­tain things. So, it is hard for me be­cause I’m not bow­ing to the sys­tem.”

IBrave has de­cid­ed to let her mu­sic speak for it­self and for its in­flu­ence to ex­ceed the de­mands of the in­dus­try and the grow­ing na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al chal­lenges. She pays spe­cial at­ten­tion to chil­dren.

“Every­thing that I do—my work with the chil­dren, the mu­sic and every­thing—is very im­por­tant,” she says. “And I’m see­ing my mu­sic trav­el­ling all over the earth, heal­ing the na­tion, heal­ing the earth, heal­ing the peo­ple of this earth, heal­ing the chil­dren. That’s my main, main fo­cus.”

As we jour­ney to St Eliz­a­beth and West­more­land—two of the ar­eas most se­vere­ly dam­aged by the hur­ri­cane—there is vis­i­ble con­cern for the chil­dren we en­counter along the way. Three women stand at the side of the road: two hold­ing ba­bies and the oth­er a spright­ly el­der­ly woman who boasts no med­ical com­plaints. Our at­ten­tion is drawn to a sign held by one of the women: “WE NEED HELP.”

IBrave’s lyrics find im­me­di­ate, uni­ver­sal ap­pli­ca­tion of the plac­ard as we stop, and she and Has­fal reach in­to the tray of the pick­up for cloth­ing, wa­ter, and canned food.

“The youths are my main fo­cus,” she lat­er says as the im­age lingers.

“And it’s a heal­ing process. And I know my mu­sic is go­ing to con­quer—my mu­sic is go­ing to live on for­ev­er.”

“I am go­ing to make my coun­try proud of what I’m do­ing—very proud,” she says. Through the grief of col­lec­tive re­cov­ery and the de­mands of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, IBrave re­mains con­fi­dent.

“I see the na­tion ris­ing and be­com­ing a bet­ter place for the youths to live, and for even me to live un­til I’m ready to pass on.”

“I see my mu­sic con­quer­ing all evil forces and mak­ing way for spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and up­lift­ment of my coun­try. I see my mu­sic ris­ing and heal­ing my coun­try—not just here in Ja­maica, but right across the world.”

IBrave has cho­sen a coura­geous path to have her voice heard. She ful­ly in­tends to win what she con­sid­ers an up­hill but worth­while bat­tle.