Ms Dynamite, who has made a TV film for the anti-slavery law bicentenary, reveals her pride in Jamaica's first freedom fighter to David Smith
School near her home in north London. The daughter of a British mother and a Jamaican father, Niomi was has always been fascinated by her family's Caribbean past and wider questions of black identity. In Nanny she found a black icon who also happened to be a woman.
Niomi is now 25 and better known as Ms Dynamite, who burst on to the hip hop music scene five years ago with her debut album, A Little Deeper. The singer, who has taken time out from recording to look after her three-year-old son, Shavaar, went to Jamaica for a BBC2 documentary, Ms Dynamite in Search of Nanny Maroon, to be shown next Sunday at 8pm, marking the bicentenary of the parliamentary act to end the slave trade. She is passionate about Nanny and has some highly provocative opinions about the legacy of slavery among black Britons today.
Nanny, described in the documentary as 'a legendary figure in the style of Robin Hood or King Arthur', led a band of fugitive slaves who in the 18th century defeated the might of the British empire, at least according to Jamaican folklore. It is said that, under her formidable military leadership, the Maroons - the name was a corruption of the Spanish 'cimarrones', meaning wild or untamed - wore bushes as camouflage and used sticks, stones and machetes to wage guerrilla warfare, killing soldiers, raiding plantations and giving hope to slaves throughout the Caribbean.
Nanny is seen as a personification of black resistance to slavery, her armed insurgency challenging the popular image of passive victims who awaited their liberation by white abolitionists such as William Wilberforce, the British MP who led the case against slavery in Westminster.
Ms Dynamite said: 'I was always fascinated by the stories about my family's Jamaican past, especially the years of slavery. But the one that really got to me was Nanny. The main thing for me is the fact that she completely rebelled and said: "There's no way I'm going to belong to someone else. I'm going to live freely and I'm also going to help others live freely, and if anyone comes up here and tries to take my home or this land I've created for myself, I'm going to fight for it."
'She defeated the British on numerous occasions, which is hard to get your head around: the British suffered thousands and thousands of casualties, whereas the Maroons suffered next to nothing in comparison.
'What we would call human rights now, she took and fought to the death for. Women usually seem to take the caring, loving, motherly role like Florence Nightingale, but she decided, "No, I'm going to be on the front line, I'm going to get all these soldiers together, teach them the art of battle and show them how to fight in a war." You wouldn't expect that from a woman. If you dig into black history there are lots and lots of black men that are prominent figures but not so many women.'
Tales that Nanny could catch bullets in her hands, or even in her bottom, are generally seen by Jamaicans as British propaganda attempts to portray her as a witch. She is commemorated on Jamaican banknotes and by a sculpture in Heroes Park in the capital, Kingston.
'I found the men had the most respect and passion for her,' Ms Dynamite said. 'Maybe she reminded them a little bit of their mum, because she was quite a fighter and survivor and very courageous. She was very, very important in the abolition movement and paved the way to the end of slavery in the Caribbean. Other people on other islands heard of the Maroons on Jamaica and did the same thing.'
Ms Dynamite toured the island to study the full horror of slavery and its victims. In one arresting episode, she displayed her combative streak by visiting a plantation and demanding its white owner tell her how he can live with himself knowing that his property and wealth are inherited from slave-owning ancestors who 'tortured, killed, raped, stole and did all these disgusting things to black people'. He said he didn't feel guilty or have a cross to bear.
Ms Dynamite's most emotional moment came at a museum when she was shown sets of shackles and chains and a gibbet used to kill, incarcerate and torture slaves. 'I said to the guy who was with me, why is that one so small? He said, that was for children: they would put it round the kids' ankles and then hammer the giant nail into the floor so they didn't get under their parents' feet while they working, or as a punishment they'd put them in the sun and leave them in the heat for the whole time with no water, no food.
'That was the hardest thing, when I saw that. All I could picture was my son. I was fighting back the tears, but it didn't work for very long.'
Ms Dynamite's Jamaican father left her Scottish mother when she was a young child. The eldest of 11 siblings, she began her rapping career as a teenager with a slot on pirate radio and was the first solo black woman to win the prestigious Mercury Music Prize.
She has strong views on the problems facing black Britons: 'There are things which are the direct result of slavery which still affect us today as black people. For instance, there was a very famous slave owner called Willie Lynch and he made up this basic law called "Divide and rule", the power to enslave the people and divide them: make the darker-skin slaves work in the fields and do the hardest work, and the lighter-skin slaves work in the house and get a bit better treatment. It set men against women. I think that as black people we are still living that law. There's a lot of segregation among black people and not a lot of unity.
'There's stuff in the family and home which is also a result of slavery. Men were not allowed to be fathers but were used to breed to create more slaves. It's something that - not with everyone - is common in the black community, especially in our generation: the fathers are not always there. We're not that far away from slavery and that way of living, where a man is literally just a tool to reproduce.'
Ms Dynamite is dismayed at a lack of positive black role models and hopes that her music, at least, sends the right message. She might return to the recording studio, although the experience of presenting a documentary has given her a taste for TV. The audience will judge her against more established presenters amid an abundance of programmes marking the slavery anniversary.
Ms Dynamite looks carefree as she disappears into the crowd on Kentish Town Road after the interview. She does, after all, have the black, female and fearless Nanny Maroon on her side.
Hip hop to stardom
Born: Niomi McLean-Daley in London on 26 April, 1981.
Education: A-levels in English, art and media studies. Rejected place at Sussex University in favour of a music career.
Big break: Collaborated on So Solid Crew's 2001 single 'They Don't Know'.
Albums: A Little Deeper, Judgement Days
Awards: Mercury Music Prize Album of the Year 2002 - she donated the £20,000 award to charity, Mobo Awards Best Single, Best Newcomer, UK Act of the Year 2003.
Previous TV work: Presenter on Channel 4's urban music show Flava
High: Performed at Live8, July 2005.
Trivia: Friends picked names out of a hat to decide that Ms Dynamite would be her professional moniker.
Official Post Date: Sunday 18 March 2007
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