Rapper’s amazing journey from Barbados to Finglas

KEEMAR Edwards was born in Barbados, is living in Finglas but he’s American at heart. It’s in the way he dresses, the way he moves and talks.

It’s in his hip-hop influences. It’s an undeniable American swagger and yet, he never obtained US citizenship. It’s this blunder that led the 31-year-old rapper through a grisly seven years outside of the US, where he grew up.

Keemar met a Canadian girl when he was 18. He had a sour relationship with his American stepfather and despite being a ‘good kid’, left High School in his Junior year.

“I was suddenly an adult. I could chose to either stay in the States and struggle, or try to live in Canada with this girl I loved.”

As a Barbados native, Keemar did not require a visa to travel to Canada, a four-hour drive from Boston.

However, his passport was rejected when he reached his border.

“I had the picture taken when I was a kid, so they didn’t believe it was me. They rejected the passport and told me I had overstayed my welcome illegally.”

Keemar was now facing the prospect of being deported back to Barbados.

“It was my birth country but I knew nothing about it. I didn’t speak the language.”

With a court date looming, Keemar was unable to raise money for a lawyer. To add insult to injury, the girl he had risked everything for was now nowhere to be found.

“She just never came down to Boston one day. I confronted her and basically she told me that she had been cheating on me since day one.

“I messed up my whole life for a girl that cheated on me.” 

Keemar’s next girlfriend became pregnant with another man’s child.

“I’ve been cheated on a lot,” he said half-laughing. “In a song I wrote recently I say ‘wear my heart on my sleeve and hope for some comfort/ little did I know I’m attracting the monsters’.”

The judge in Keemar’s case was sympathetic. She allowed him a year to save money and voluntarily leave the country. In between this time, he began seeing an Irish-American woman. She would eventually become pregnant with their son Jaheem.

“I told her the situation, that I had to leave. But I planned to go back and be a father.”

Keemar never met his Barbadian father, who left his mother before he was born. He had never planned to follow in his footsteps, but it happened.

“I left on February 4, 2009. Jaheem was born on May 6. He’ll be seven-years-old this month and I’ve never seen his face or held him.”

Keemar describes moving back to Barbados in one word: “Hell.”

He was not welcomed with open arms by his mother’s family, including his two older brothers.

“My oldest brother put a machete up to my neck. It was envy. They thought I thought I was better than them because of living in the States.

“In a song I wrote I say my brother’s dog gets more love than me – it always gets something to eat.”

It was in Barbados that Keemar learned the truth about his father from a man that had worked with him: “He cheated on his wife with my mother and had me as a result.

“His wife told him he had the option of staying with her and their four children and leaving me, or leaving them. 

“I found this out from a total stranger and never saw him again.”

Keemar’s music became influenced by dancehall and reggae. In one track ‘Sweet Tooth’, he sings in a West Indie style.

“All of my songs tell my story. But they’re about hope.”

After a year of homelessness and poverty, he had Jaheem’s mother sell his car. Using this money, she bought him a flight to Ireland, where he would meet her family in Tipperary and begin a life there.

However, once he arrived, her family sent him packing to Dublin. By now, it was 2010 and the recession was in full swing. 

Again, Keemar was destitute, sleeping at Smithfield Luas stop and doing whatever it took to survive in harsh situations sleeping out in the streets.

He eventually met Ivan one night. Ivan, a Ugandan man, took him in for six months and become his best friend.

He describes Ivan as a Godsend.

“That’s why I say ‘never give up’. Something’s always gonna show up.”

Keemar launched his hip-hop career under the name Bstarr. He played in venues such as the Button Factory.

The real turning point, however, was meeting his current girlfriend, Rachel, through a friend. “It was love at first sight.

“My soul saw her and it just kinda went ’oh there you are. I’ve been looking for you’.”

He said that from the moment he met her, Rachel acted as a guardian angel and took him in. Her caring nature and the people she knows helped him turn his life around.

His song “Ghetto Love” tells the story of how they met.

Rachel has been acting as his manager and he credits her for helping him complete his album ‘War and Love’ which was released on May 1. He has also performed at the Penthouse of the Wright Venue, Swords.

Through her, he became involved in the Andy Morgan Foundation and their Buddy Bench project, an initiative for primary school kids that promotes social inclusion.

For the program, he and Rachel recorded a song and produced a video. Keemar said that helping the charity helped his own self-esteem.

“The kids at the school we went to started rapping my verse back! It felt like the song I wrote was working.”

Keemar and Rachel welcomed their first son Trey-Devon into their world last month.

“The saying seven years’ bad luck is too true. But everything is turning over a new leaf. I have another 40 years ahead of me.”

Keemar wanted to end on this note: “There is a special person I long to see again. I will not, and have not, forgotten them.”

REPORT: Aura McMenamin

Keemar and Rachel’s video of the Buddy Bench Song for the Andy Morgan Foundation.