King Kong, I want to start with a little compliment. The speech you opened your concert with here tonight was one of the most conscious and inspiring concert openings I've heard in a long time ("We say greetings in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, who has this day revealed himself in the personality of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, king of kings, lord of lords, conquering lion of the tribe of Judah, the elect of God, earth's rightful ruler. Also greetings through the Twelve Tribes of Israel, one that was lost and scattered, these days regrouped and reformed by our dear beloved prophet Gad, dr. Vernon Carrington, on the Island of Jamaica in 1968 for the repatriation of all race, creed and kind of people who desire one love and one heart. Also greeting through the Orthodox faith, not one of writs nor writes but a divine conception of the heart; in other words to be born again but not by water. Change your heart, consecrate your heart and love your brother as you love yourself. King Zere Yacob sits upon the throne of the Godhead. We give him all hail and praise. Selassie I!", red.)
King Kong: "Well, all honour for that has to go to the Prophet Gad, may his soul rest in peace. He was the man who saw the vision. The Twelve Tribes of Israel are mentioned in so many places in the Bible. Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter, Dinah. Each son was born in a different month, representing the horoscope and the twelve faculties of the human body. Every human body needs these twelve faculties to function properly. Now when His Majesty came to Jamaica in 1968 he declared the Jamaicans and the Ethiopians were one. He said that we are many tribes but one people. That speech touched something in the Prophet Gad and he started reading about the Twelve Tribes. In the Bible Abraham had three sons, Ham, Shem and Japheth, who represent the three main races on earth. Ham was black and Shem was Caucasian or white. All white people live in the north because that is where Noah's ark ended up. When the ice of the North Pole will melt they will find the ark underneath it! So, all honour to the Prophet because he really discovered that there is no real division between Jesus Christ and Haile Selassie I. There are many brethren out there who preach certain things, contradicting certain things and who are even acting as Babylon themselves. When Jesus came Babylon did not believe him because he came in the flesh, so they decided to kill him, because they believed only God could conquer death. They put him on the cross and saw him conquer death. It's only then that they started to praise him. Now when he returned as Emperor Haile Selassie I, it was Babylon themselves who crowned him king of kings, lord of lords. Every country he went to treated him with the highest regards. The leaders of the world all knew he was God in the flesh, but they wanted to fool the people and denied it, because if they admitted it they would have had to give back all the riches that were stored in the Vatican. They crowned him though wishing he would take part in their society and become the same hypocrite as them. For years they tried to conquer Ethiopia and colonize it but they never succeeded, but Haile Selassie never liked to fight wars, to conquer. When he came to the Geneva Conference, they never wanted him to come in but he went anyway and told them: "Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally..." His Majesty opened up his country to people of all race, creed and colour who wanted to live there. He said: "I come unto my own and my own will receive me not, but those from afar will receive me." A king never receives honour in his own country. When Jesus trod with his apostles, Philip also asked him: "Father, how will we know, when the Messiah will come?" and He answered: "Philip, thou hast been with me for so long and yet thou knoweth not that I am the master and the master is I?" (John 14 8-11, Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me or else believe me for the very works' sake.", red.). If God can create man in his own image than why can't he come down in the flesh himself should he choose to do so? At another occasion they asked him again: "Christ, how will we know you when you cometh?" and He answered them: "I shall come seated and judging on the throne of the Twelve Tribes of Israel." (Matthew 19 27-28 Peter answered him: "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?" Jesus said to them: "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.", red.). When the Prophet Gad got this vision, he started to form the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Today we have twenty-two houses functioning worldwide with people from all different races, creeds and kinds. Other Rastafarians have burnt the Twelve Tribes for years, because they considered it to be a society thing. We opened our hands and hearts to people of all colour, because Jah garden holds flowers in every colour you can think of. Jah created all races, so it would be foolish to create them and then to discriminate them. Only Satan or Lucifer want to put one against the other. They discriminated the Twelve Tribes for years and years, but now their eyes have opened because they have read the truth in the Bible. The Prophet Gad always taught us to read our Bible a chapter a day so we could discover the truth ourselves!"
You also mentioned the name of Zere Yacob on stage. He's the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie and the heir to the throne of Ethiopia, but what does he represent to you as a Rastafarian?
King Kong: "He can be anything you perceive him to be. How you see him; that will be the glory you will get. But you have to read! I was a youth that couldn't read and I only learned it when I was already in my thirties. They told me I had something called dyslexia. I went to prison in England and there I asked the Father to teach I to read. I learned and went back to school to get a business degree and I eventually got a master in business administration. I also discovered that Jesus Christ and Selassie are the same. When Abraham met Melchizedek (Melchizedek's name can be translated either as "Zedek is my king" or as "My king is righteous". The former, which treats Zedek as a proper noun, is the translation favoured by most biblical scholars and refers to a Canaanite deity with that name. In Genesis, Melchizedek is also referred to as king of Salem - generally believed to be ancient Jerusalem - and priest of El Elyon. Though traditionally El-Elyon is translated as "most high God", and interpreted as a reference to Yahweh or El, other scholars believe that it refers to Zedek - regarding El Elyon as referring to the most high god, and using Melchizedek's name as the indicator of who the deity was. In the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abraham after Abraham's victory over the four kings, led by Chedorlaomer, who had besieged Sodom and Gomorrah and had taken Abraham's nephew Lot prisoner. Melchizedek is also described as blessing Abraham in the name of El Elyon it was the same thing; just a different time and different flesh, red.) I knew that even before I became a member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. I'll go even further; it was that knowledge that made me recognize the Twelve Tribes as the right path for me. In prison I read the Bible in its entirety just because there simply wasn't anything else to do."
Have you had the chance to go to Ethiopia yet?
King Kong: "No, I'm still on the journey to reaching it. I will be there soon though, because I would like to be there for the millennium celebrations coming September (The Ethiopian calendar or Ethiopic calendar is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and is also the liturgical year of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church where it is known as the Ge'ez calendar. It is based on the older Alexandrian or Coptic calendar. Like the Coptic calendar, the Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of 30 days each plus five or six epagomenal days, usually called a thirteenth month. Furthermore, its months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but they have different names, that are in Ge'ez. The current year according to the Ethiopian calendar is 1999. Enkutatash is the word for the Ethiopian New Year in the official language of Ethiopia: Amharic, while it is called Ri'se Awde Amet - Head Anniversary - in Ge'ez in Eritrea. It occurs on September 11 in the Gregorian calendar, except for leap years when it occurs on September 12, red.). The Ethiopians also have the oldest version of the Bible. All versions are more or less the same but the Ethiopian version contains more stories."
Returning to the Twelve Tribes then, did you know the Prophet Gad or Gadman personally?
King Kong: "Yeah man! He was a jovial and nice man; a man that made you laugh and who spoke pure wisdom in parables. Personally I see him as the reincarnation of Moses who came to gather the people again. Only Moses was worthy to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. Now the Israelites were a very peculiar people. They were 144000 in total. In the time when the Immortal Power was still there and Lucifer, firstly a disciple of the Immortal Power, raged his war against His Imperial Majesty, H.I.M. chased him out with the help of the 144000. (The 144000 are mentioned three times in the Book of Revelation: Revelation 7:3-8 "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until after we have sealed the servants of God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of the sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: 12000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12000 from the tribe of Gad, 12000 from the tribe of Asher, 12000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 12000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12000 from the tribe of Levi, 12000 from the tribe of Issachar, 12000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed." Revelation 14:1 "Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." Revelation 14:3 "And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144000 who had been redeemed from the earth.", red.). After Adam and Eve became corrupted by sin He sent the 144000 on earth in the flesh as a counterbalance against the evil influences of Lucifer. That is why I&I were able to hail and recognize Jah when he came on earth. Selassie I was the only man who ever came on this earth that people actually called God. Not even Jesus got that title."
I can't leave out asking you where you got your name. Apparently your father already called you Jr. Kong.
King Kong: "Well not really my father, but some of my friends and brethren started to call me Jr. Kong because at that time my father was known as King Kong. After a while they started to call me King Kong too and I carried that name ever since I was about ten years old."
How do you feel about that name now, because it is of course still best known as the name of that gigantic ape from the movies?
King Kong: "(laughs) Yeah, I saw the movie just recently; it was the new version though, I still have to see the original (King Kong, directors Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933, red.). I still feel good about the name because in the movie he does a good thing when he protects the woman (Ann Darrow, red.). The real beasts in the movie are the people who want to make money and capture him to do shows. It's just a name, but if you take it literally and look at the works that I'm trying to do on this earth, bringing love and peace, I'm a king from birth! I'm from the tribe of Benjamin; the tribe that brought forth the first king of the Israelites, king Saul. So it's an inborn thing."
Just last weekend was the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean. In Jamaica a minute of silence was observed. What did that day represent to you?
King Kong: "Well, to me there's a lot of hypocrisy there. Some countries abolished slavery 200 years but others never really let it go. Really and truly, slavery has been a blessing to the world, because out of slavery came I&I to help the world. It built the world too, because slavery really built the West! However black people themselves were the first slave masters! Slavery is just a thing that mankind used through creation and through time. Even right now slavery is still going on. We might not be wearing any chains anymore, but the way we are restricted by the work you have to do to make a living still enslaves you. You can however free up your mind and recognise the Jesus Christ, His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I or even Buddha is the same man. You just have to have clean hands and be pure in spirit. Read your Bible a chapter a day and you will discover the truth for yourself."
If there is one King Kong tune that all the youths still know, it must be 'Rumble Jumble Life'. How did that tune come about?
King Kong: "That tune is a ghetto tune. When I returned to Jamaica, around 1996, I went to check Bounty Killer and I was just waiting for him, reasoning and just hanging around outside. Now I saw one person pass that place about twenty times that night, just going up and down the whole time. Those kinds of youths have nothing to do and their life is really rumble jumble as we say, so I watched them and said to myself: "Boy, what a rumble jumble life! When you check it out, it's just really poor people who pay the price." Most of my tunes started out that way, because I'm someone who gets inspired by reality, by the things that are going on around me. Sometimes people ask me why I don't sing any love tunes, but the reality is that I have recorded a whole heap of lovers tunes, but I kept them for myself. Only love can conquer this mark of the beast thing that is coming, the chip we will get implanted to be checked at the airport and all those things. These people would really love for us to be ruled by something created by man like a computer. It's really terrible to think that we won't even have any privacy left in our houses, without someone or something checking up on us. The people who aren't into this will really have to repatriate and go form the kingdom of God, like it is written in the Bible. There will be pure love there and a shield will be over us, so no matter what is going on somewhere else in the world, it will not affect us. Why would the oppressors, or whatever you want to call them, have rewritten or translated the Bible in English to discriminate their own people? You can read: "I am black and astonishment has taken hold upon me." (Jeremiah 8:21 "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me", red.) or "Ethiopia is the land of our God" (The Blackman's Universal National Anthem written by the Honourable Marcus Garvey "Ethiopia the Land of our Fathers, the Land where all God's love to be, as swift bees to hive suddenly gather, thy children come rushing to thee with the red-gold-and green floating o'er us and our Emperor to shield us from wrong. With our God and Our Future before us we hail thee with shouts and with songs.", red.) and Jeremiah says: "God shall rise Christ to sit upon David's throne in the last days according to the flesh." (this excerpt is actually from Acts 2:29-30 spoken by the prophet Joel: "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.", red.). You can find these kinds of things all over, so we know it's the truth. Read the Bible a chapter a day and you will see! And all who desire love and peace have to leave the West. It doesn't matter if it's Jerusalem or Shashamane or anywhere else in Africa. We might say Ethiopia now, but when we actually go there Jah might direct us somewhere else. So we really have to watch the whole earth, because the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof is man. It's all about the unification of the minds and spirits of the people coming together to make the New Jerusalem reign."
Alright nuff nuff wisdom King Kong! I want to thank you for taking out the time to share this with us.
King Kong: "Yeah man! Selassie I my brethren! Bless!"