Jamati:  What is Cultural background?

Musa:  I grew up in West Drayton, a small town just outside London; both of my parents are Ugandan, from the Acholi tribe in the north.  (My father was from Kitgum, a town so far north that people often joked that he was Sudanese.)

Jamati:  What is your professional background?

Musa:  I attended St. John’s College, Oxford University, where I did a law degree, and then qualified as a commercial solicitor at Lovells, a City law firm.  I left the law to focus more on my writing, and currently work as the Associate Director for Communications at the Institute for Philanthropy.

Jamati:  What led to your Poetic Journey?

Musa:  I had always wanted to write - poetry, prose, you name it - but about four years ago I finally got round to reading Othello, and I couldn’t believe it - there was just something so enduringly sorrowful about what this black man had gone through all by himself.  I began writing a rhyming novel about Othello, but based the story at Eton College, where I went to school - the novel ended up at over 100,000 words long, and was far too long for anyone to publish.  But I began reciting sections of the novel at the Poetry Cafe, and it met with positive responses.  I left my job as a solicitor, since it just wasn’t me anymore, and then spent the next seven months doing administrative work in an office, whilst writing every night.

Jamati:  What other literary accomplishments do you have?

Musa:  I won the 1996 WH Smith Young Writers’ Competition for short fiction, and the junior Bridport Arts prize for poetry and short fiction.  I also came second in the Chambers and Partners Legal Essay Competition.  Recently, I had my first book published, “A Cultured Left Foot”.

Heavyweight

Here’s a question.  Who’s the greatest

Fighter of all time? The latest

Theory is that its that man

Who didn’t fight in Vietnam

Since blacks had been done no evil

By those he called yellow people:

That same man who, far from humble,

Fought that Rumble in that Jungle;

Said he danced like butterfly,

Whose health has now been scuppered by

The harsh onset of that disease

That makes him shake like trees in breeze…

Some say Ali is the finest:

Some say his appeal is timeless -

But, if you ask my opinion

Then The Greatest is in England.

Who’s that, you might ask? Wait, listen:

This fighter treats opposition

With indifference, disdain-

Well, who’s this fighter? What’s his name?

You’ll ask again.  I’ll say: Calm down -

This fighter’s no man.  It’s a town.

A town? you say, somewhat intrigued.

Please. How is a town in the league

Of the great Muhammad Ali,

That man who defied his Army,

Who, filled with pride, blessed with special

Skills told black folk not to settle

For the third best, or the second…

What’s this town? What do you reckon?

Take a guess.  If your assumption

Is that I refer to London

Then you’re right.  This town’s a fighter:

It’s faced foes cunning as vipers,

It’s faced sly and swift invasion,

Embraced hasty immigration…

And it has retained its status

As The Greatest. See, this city’s

Fought them all: it’s fought the sniffy,

Snobbish, and obsessive souls

Each one of whom, nightly patrols

The King’s Road in a Merc or Rolls -

The fruits of their financial goals:

It’s fought the rudeboys on that bus

Through Brixton, fought their every cuss,

It’s fought punks and Goths in Camden,

Skinheads chanting national anthem:

And the reason that it’s fought them

Is that London will support thm

All - it will support the Muslim

And those who would wish to push him

 Down: it will support the Jew,

The Christian; in short, all of you

But London will defend its sense

Of self at anyone’s expense…

Veteran of thousand summers

This town’s ground down all newcomers…

See the victories it’s scored

See all the hits that it’s absorbed:

It saw off the Blitz, the Romans

Irish terrorists’ explosions:

And, more recently, it’s seen off

Bombers who blew theor heads clean off:

Sure, they rattled it a little,

But to fell it like a skittle

Takes a little more than violence:

To intimidate this island’s

Capital takes something greater

Than those who might smite skyscraper:

Takes more than that thick, unhealthy

Smog in slow flow over Chelsea:

Takes more than that endless cycle

Of commuters: snarling, spiteful,

Stuck on the M25

To tear apart London’s insides…

It’s a complex city, London,

With more layers than an onion,

Layers made of blacks, Jews, Turks,

White bankers high off City’s perks

Who snorted coke and swapped high fives;

Top football players and their wives;

Stars of the big screen with their chic

Apartments; here and there, a Greek,

A Russian, strolling through its parks,

Who with his fellow oligarchs

Has date-raped his state and escaped…

But this city still can’t be shaped

By those who’d see it gentrified -

Who’dlove it if gently died…

It’s a faersome adversary

That, for years, has had to carry

All this weight: though millions

Have fought it, its resilience

Somehow remains.  If its strength stems

From calm and cold blood of the Thames

I just don’t know.  I know this:

That London will one day dismiss

Us as it has dismissed all those

Who’ve tried to dress it in their clothes.

That’s why, if you staged a fight

Between Muhammad Ali, right

At top pf his game, in his prime -

And London, this home town of mine

I’d bet a few dimes he could blast it,

Outclass it - but not outlast it.