“…BlackFire is a man to be heard” — Ricky McKinnie(five-time Grammy winner & lifetime award recipient, drummer and vocalist of The Blind Boys of Alabama)
BlackFire Poet-Tree was born in Kingston; his family migrated to the United States when he was three years old. After getting his baccalaureus scientiæ in biology at Columbia Union College (now Washington Adventist University) and serving as an English teacher in The Gambia, he took the next step towards his medical degree at Wright State University Medical School… but then went on indefinite leave, intent on exploring the social sciences as vigorously as he had previously studied biology and medicine.
His ascension into Dub Poetry Reggae — as he dove into the philosophy of history and modern struggles of the emerging West Indian and Black American victims of the brutal and peculiar institution known as slavery — culminated in the first volume of The Way of Rasta trilogy : A Healing Song, a fulfillment of a quest for helping resolve the clash of cultures. He is a devoted follower of the Rastafari faith, and his music is guided by spiritual love of healing humanity. Defying any ordinary classification, his music is of the genre we call Poetry Urban Reggae Energy (P.U.R.E).