Yea, they call me Red Beard, and this is My World. Growing up as a youth, my family split up when I was young. You know, I had epilepsy, so growing up with epilepsy, I hated that, man I hated that. I tried to talk take my life twice because of that. I couldn’t stand it. Being paid money to go and hurt people- that kind of thing happened back in the day. My roots are from Ireland, and you know, we’re kind of fiery people, and I’m a small frame of a brother, and if you hit me, I’m down, especially with my epilepsy. You’d probably kill me if you hit me in the head. So I was never the sort of person that would stand up and fight with my fist. I’d tell you sorry, make you turn your back and then stab you in your back.
Being into the music I was into, I’ve been exposed to Rastafarianism. I felt a real draw to that. It was like, all the oppression that was happening made me more righteous because, I mean, I was being oppressed, so that means I was right, and that was how I felt, you know what I mean?
People knew me as a white dreader, grew locks, my locks grew down to my bottom. I had nice neat dread locks, and that’s how my name Red Beard came about. My grew big, and when it got big, it got red, you know, like my daddy’s beard and his daddy’s beard. It’s the Irish thing, you know, the Irish blood.
You know, I believed in Jesus. I believed in God you know. I had grown up and heard these things when I was young, you know we went to church and I knew about these things. I heard about a guy who was teaching and this guy said he was a rastafar and and became a Christian. This guy made me vexed man, because he could never be a rasafar . How could he be a Rastafar and then be a Christian. That’s like being a Christian and then becoming a Jew. You know, it don’t make no sense going backwards. My intention was when he was teaching to go up on the stage and take the mic of him and tell him he was a fraud. People were coming up and giving testimonies and each testimony was a bit of me. Each one was a piece of me and a piece of my life. All of a sudden a guy came up and he put his hand on my shoulder, and it was him. It was the same guy, the same pastor, and he said to me, “God told me to come and talk to you.” My eyes started watering man. Another pastor came from the front, he tackled me from the front. There was two of them there now and they asked if they could pray with me. I said, “You might as well.” But I’ll tell you something. When they prayed for me, it was like everything just dissolved around me. The blinkers were taken off and I could see things as they were. Jesus Christ, you know, being nailed to the cross and bleeding. That’s what was done for me to make me right in the eyes of God.
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