BOOM! FUH REAL, DEN! Dah is wha’ I talking ’bout in Bim!
If you are a Barbadian that revels in the vernacular, then these phrases should ring a bell.
That is, if you are even slightly addicted to the Internet, as many are these days.
Those are the words of Barbadian Internet blogger Kirk Phillips.
Who? Kirk Phillips. Who? Kirk Phillips.
Maybe we should just stick to what everyone, those that love and hate him, know him by.
Those are the words of Bajan Fari. Don’t ask, “Who?” again.
Bajan Fari, a little Rastafarian barber who one day decided to pick up a camera and talk to his people from thousands of miles away, has now become the spokesman for the less privileged both here and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Bajan Fari, who defined himself not by the concrete jungle that threatened to take away his very soul, but by the little gold pendant in the shape of Barbados that he wears with pride.
He did not fear criticizing his own people with some rather questionable, yet clearly understood, language, to get over his point.
Bajan Fari has now decided to step away from the fast-paced concrete jungle and call this little rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean his home again.
Phillips, or Fari, whichever you choose to call him, is big on the Internet. Small in stature as he stands a little over five feet tall, he became a ghetto folk hero over the past 18 months, by simply placing a Barbados flag in a prominent spot
in his home, buying a small camera and speaking his mind to the rest of the world.
He lived in Brooklyn at the time, making money as a barber, but making fame in his basement apartment.
No one was spared by his tongue, not Prime Minister David Thompson before his death, not his replacement Freundel Stuart, not Minister of Education Ronald Jones for calling him “too aggressive”. Not even Carol Martindale, online editor of the Nation Publishing Company, who was admonished for providing Internet news junkies only “half” of a news story on a daily basis.
Born in St Peter in 1970, Bajan Fari moved to Vine Street, just outside Bridgetown and adjacent to Nelson Street, when he was a young man and admits he got into trouble with the law. He decided to work off-island and took a job on a cruise ship.
It was in this profession that he matured and started thinking about doing his own thing.
The result was buying a pair of clippers in Alaska, and starting to provide haircuts for his cruise ship colleagues. From there, he started cutting hair in his Vine Street neighbourhood, but was attracted to the glitz and glamour of the Big Apple, emigrating there in 1998.
“I wanted to live on my own and to make it in the big city, but I soon realized New York ain’t easy, yuh. It ain’t nutten like Barbados. Fuh real.”
Throughout his time in New York, Fari never digressed from his Bajan dialect. “I is a Bajan, that would never change, so I speak like a Bajan. I left Barbados, but Barbados never left me,” he said, admitting that part of the appeal his blog has is that he speaks pure Bajan dialect all the time.
Fari first gained popularity when one such blog blasted Hollywood rag media entity TMZ, for incorrectly publishing things about Barbadian star Rihanna coming back to Barbados to engage in Crop Over.
“They had no idea what they were talking about and I asked myself: These . . . people fuh real? Wha’, dem ain’t know nutten ’bout Barbados and talking bare garbage ’bout it,” Fari told the SUNDAY SUN in an interview.
“I wasn’t even thinking ’bout Rihanna, even though the story was ’bout she. I was thinking as a Barbadian, and I felt insulted these people would talk about a country and say things they didn’t even know if it was true or false.”
It was then, Fari revealed, that the idea of the blog gained prominence. The result was a heap of criticism of American culture.
“I couldn’t believe it. The first day it had 1 000 hits (on the Internet),” he reported. “The second day it had 3 000 hits, and by de end of de week, it had 10 000. Dah blow my mind fuh real. One woman even told me I was a natural behind the camera, so I just started to continue.”
Before the blog on Rihanna, Fari had earned initial recognition with a blog that questioned the actions of young Barbadians involved in criminality. This was a few days after six young Barbadian women had perished when the Barbadian business Campus Trendz was razed on Tudor Street, Bridgetown.
At that time, he could be seen smoking cannabis on stage, as he spoke of happenings in Barbados. But then he had an epiphany.
“I realized I was doing wrong. Because the blog had hit off, youts were coming and telling me they liked how straight up I was and they respected me. These were the same youts I was telling on de blog to stop doing foolishness. So I decided then I wouldn’t smoke and t’ing on the video,” Fari said.
Now that he’s back home, Fari has admitted struggling to fit into some areas.
“I was at de airport running round like a madman looking for my luggage. A red cap tell me, ‘Fari, stop moving so fast. This ain’t New York, this is Barbados. You forget we does tek things easy?’”
The 42-year-old said he has been greeted constantly on the street, since coming home a fortnight ago, by people he does not know, but who have checked his blog constantly.
“I can’t believe de love I getting. It blowing my mind,” Fari said.
At the moment, Fari’s Facebook page, as they say in the concrete jungle, has blown up.
In 24 months he can no longer accept friends, having filled that capacity, with 200 more people on a waiting list. His fan page already numbers more than 10 000, with people joining from as far as Sweden and Britain.
Back in Barbados, Fari still lives in Vine Street, with his younger brother Julian Connell.
His barber business in the ghetto is about to restart, and by next week, Fari’s fans will get to see their beloved blogger again.
“It gine be big fuh sure. I know my peoples waiting for it. I gine deliver,” he promised.
Knowing Fari, he will. Boom. Fuh real!