Rebel Salute | General Trees’ eldest daughter makes a ‘forward’, with no slackness
Published:Saturday | January 18, 2020 | 3:54 AM
Stephanie Lyew /Gleaner Writer
It was at Sunsplash in 1987 that General Trees (given name Amos Edwards), one of Jamaica’s most popular dancehall toasters, first invited his daughter Kareen on stage to perform with him.
The two delivered Gone a Negril, with a spoken intro in which the female on the track approaches Trees with, "A long time me love yuh enuh and me a beg yuh a visa fi guh a faren". And he asks if she has a passport.
The lyrical banter continues: “Suh how yuh a ask fi visa and yuh nuh have a passport ... . I say you want to go to Negril, or even to MoBay, I’m going to send you down to Ochi or a St Ann’s Bay and nuh feel no way.”
The song became a hit with tourists and locals alike, as the deejay zeros in on the beauty of various towns and parishes from Kingston to Negril. And tonight at Rebel Salute inside Grizzly’s Plantation Cove in St Ann, Trees again called on his musical daughter.
Back then, she boasted the name Fat and Fast, but having matured from the little eight-year-old daddy’s girl into a woman in her 30s, Kareen now goes by the stage name Lady Plus Plus.
It has been many years since the father-daughter duo has performed on a major concert stage together, said Trees, “and it definitely makes me feel proud to see that she has made a forward ... . This is not a comeback.”
He added: “All I want to see her do is good music - absolutely no slackness. She can’t carry no slackness roun’ me, only music to set example for other female artistes.”
Though the set list did not include the song that birthed their iconic performance over 30 years ago, Trees and his daughter had the crowd rocking with tracks like Eye No See, Bible and Key and Mini Bus.
“It was the first time on stage for a very long while with him and me cyaa lie, I was nervous. But as soon as I touched the stage, all the memories of my childhood, walking on like it was nothing to perform alongside my father, reminded me how to handle the crowd,” Lady Plus Plus told The Gleaner.
“I also had me own song then too, ‘baby degree me seh baby degree ... this dedicated to all baby, baby inna a hand or inna belly’, but I was young. I’ve grown and there’s a lot more conscious music to, as my father seh, forward,” she added.
The female toast lover said that she missed the adrenaline it gave her to perform as she had retired her microphone for over 15 years. A chef by day, expected to be at work in the morning, she said, “I won’t be able to take in the line-up for later [Saturday night] so I’m watching all of who I can tonight.”