Yasus Afari was born in Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica as John Sinclair. He was a childhood friend of Garnett Silk with whom he collaborated on many best-selling recordings.
He attended St Elizabeth Technical High School, and worked as a repair technician for the Jamaican telephone company before returning to school after receiving a scholarship to the College of Arts, Science and Technology. While there, he became politically active and was elected vice-president of the student council. But he declined the position.
At the college, he began performing regularly at venues such as the University of the West Indies (UWI), a nursing school and a teachers college. His initial forays into recording were not commercially successful. However, his career began to turn around after he teamed with Silk. His first combination release with Silk was a version of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.”
His style compared to that of Mutabaruka. Apart from performing traditional poetry readings, he also performs his poetry live over dancehall music.
He toured throughout the United States and the Pacific Islands with Black Uhuru in the mid-1990s. In 1996, with Mutabaruka, Tony Rebel, and Uton Green, Afari toured Ethiopia. In 2006, he co-headlined the Cayman Music Festival, along with Freddie McGregor and Maxi Priest.. In 2007, he toured England, performing in a variety of places, as well as acting as poet in residence at the University of Birmingham, where his book Overstanding Rastafari was launched in the UK.. The book was described by Professor Barry Chevannes of the UWI as “a work by a Rastafarian scholar who is interpreting for the non-Rastaffarian audience his perspective. not idiosyncratically his own, but the view of the movement on where Jamaica and the world are positioned at this time.”
Afari’s latest album, according to Wikipedia, is Public Secret, recorded with his band Dub Vijan, and released in 2013.
He also recorded as a background vocalist and dub poet for Everton Blender, General Degree and Tony Rebel.
He is head of Edutainment Promotion, organizers (with the Jamaican Cultural Development Commission) of the Jamaican Poetry Festival.
Source: Wikipedia
Personal note: I found him a man too humble for his fame.
