When Safiya Sinclair was a child, her father made a living singing and playing reggae music for tourists at high-end Jamaican hotels.  

But if those sunburned, colada-sipping, mostly white visitors in the late 80s saw a talented, carefree musician, Sinclair knew her father believed reggae music and his Rastafarian religion would help overthrow white oppression.

She writes:  “What the tourists couldn’t discern … was his true motivation for singing. Night after night he sang to burn down Babylon, which was them.”

Sinclair, who is an accomplished poet, reveals in her memoir how rigidly disciplinarian her father became.  

Convinced that his daughters were “unclean” and “impure,” his attempts to control her became violent, particularly as Sinclair’s poetry began to attract literary attention.

My interview with Safiya Sinclair airs Dec. 1. Go read adventurously!

— Kerri Miller | MPR News