Antoine Mitchell explains "Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom"
Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom, which is taken from a lyric in Bob Marley's prophetic Redemption Song, was an art piece that was nearly 9 years in the making. I've always wanted to do a drawing of the honorable Robert Nesta Marley and I had once before. But that drawing was just a simple black-and-white pencil illustration. This piece, however, is on a much larger scale as far as size and concept.
The Process
The drawing is actually 28 x 40 inches. It is not just a simple graphite drawing. Much of my work now consists of many mediums in one. Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom is a mixture of graphite, color pencils, charcoal, and a bit of acrylic paint. It took a combination of approximately 37 hours to complete. For four nights I spent between 4 and 6 hours on it. The first nights were spent laying out Marley in a graphite line drawing.
On the second and third day is where I began the coloring process with skin-toned color pencils. Much of the time was spent on his lovely Dreadlocks. Speaking of the Dreadlocks, in the original photo that I drew Marleys image from, he was younger and his locks were much shorter. This was during the Natty Dread days. So that I wouldn't face a copyright lawsuit, I altered the image by making his locks longer during his Survival / Uprising period and aged him accordingly. The pose was taken from the cover of the Songs of Freedom Box Set. Once the locks were done, I rendered the rest of Bob Marley in the in color pencil. The neck of the guitar and the below it were rendered with charcoal pencil to get a deep black finish. The other images, which I'll explain later on, were completely rendered in color pencil. When I finished the entire drawing, I took some black acrylic paint and painted the borders around the actual art work (not shown).
The final night / morning/ afternoon, I spent 13 hours straight trying to finish Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom. It was a deep challenge as I was trying to finish it before the opening exhibition of The Colors of One Love, in which I was unveiling the piece! The show was only a f
ew hours away. Fatigue had set in, but I kept going throughout the morning until I was satisfied. The time spent on this piece of art, and the cold I caught from the fatigue of my body, was well worth it.
Inspiration
As stated in the introduction, I've always wanted to do a drawing of Bob Marley and just as I have grown in the last 9 years, so has the concept. Ever since I first laid eyes on the cover of the Songs of Freedom Box Set, I wanted to do a drawing on it. That became stronger as I developed my skills as an artist, as well as learning more about who Bob Marley was.
This drawing was done the summer of 2008. That year I was indulging in many books about Bob Marley. Those books were Catch A Fire, Before the Legend, and Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius. Other books contributed more to my learning of Bob Marley and the Rasta culture, they were Rastafari and The Kebra Negast. My favorite saying nowadays when it comes to Bob Marley is, "I don't listen to Bob Marley anymore, I STUDY him." That studying of him lead to this drawing.
My favorite Bob Marley song of all time is Redemption Song. I have always known what the song spoke of, but it wasn't until I devoted myself to studying the lyrics of Bob Marley that I understood the depth of it. It wasn't until I devoted myself to studying Bob Marley that I understood my own self. Redemption Song began's with Bob Marley's telling of the slave trade. He then takes the listener on a journey of strength and pride through a horrible struggle. He asks the listeners to "help me sing these songs of freedom" because all he ever had was Redemption Songs. Then, Marley says his most famous and prophetic timeless line: "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds." The next line after that is "Have no fear for atomic energy, cause none of them can stop the time." Those lyrics were Marley speaking from a more universal standpoint verses his earlier music from Catch A Fire, Burnin', Natty Dread, and Rastaman Vibrations.The songs on those albums pertained to Jamaica and its social / political climate, although many outside of Jamaica still found a common element within the content of those albums. But Survival and Uprising, the album that Redemption Song appears on, not only shed light upon Jamaica, but also upon the atrocities happening throughout the rest of the world. Listening to all of Marley's albums from Catch A Fire to Confrontation one could see his evolution in his artistry and activism. I found a common element in my own growth. And that growth materialized itself in Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom.
The Other Images
Beginning at the top of Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom to the right of Bob Marley's head, is a collage of images that resemble the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, where as many as 6 million Africans lost their lives during back and fourth trips from the west coast of Africa to America. That 6 million is also a controversial number, for some believe that it was much more. This section represents the past, insomuch as the images are of a slave ship, named the Good Ship Jesus, which was allegedly the first Slave Ship sanctioned by the Pope himself. Beside it is an opening doorway to a shoreline. This doorway is one of the infamous "Doorways of No Return" found throughout the west coast of Africa. The Doorway of No Return, was literally that. This was the last place that my Ancestors saw before being shipped to the shores of the Americas. Some did not make the trip because they either died from the horrible conditions on the slave ships, were killed during rebellions upon the ships, or jumped over board into a watery grave