Pato Banton says, “I think every situation that a child is brought up into becomes normal for them.”
Hearing him reflect on his childhood in London reveals a “normal” most of us would find deeply traumatizing.
His experiences with his mother’s string of partners and their underworld activities is down there with Dickens compared to the Leave It To Beaver world of my youth. But Pato’s story reveals that one can press through years of childhood abuse and neglect, and emerge as a luminary of joy, creativity, and justice.
Pato’s 30 year career as a reggae artist includes worldwide tours, a Grammy nomination, over 12 albums, and work with such figures as Sting, UB40, and Paul Shaffer. But his light shines brightest in the seamless flow of spirituality throughout his performances. In a recent show at a Sixth Street bar in Austin, accompanied by his wife Antoinette and guitarist Andy Kushner, Pato delivered a rousing Saturday night show of roots reggae blended with sincere spirituality—part revel, part revival. Whether one came to this venue to slam a few Red Stripes and groove to Jamaican rhythms or get an experience of divine love, either was satisfied. Throughout the show Pato invited musicians and audience members up to share the stage. Everyone felt included. It was a family celebration.
Last April at a Urantia Book Conference in Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, I got to sit down with Pato for an hour and record his thoughts on a challenging upbringing, his spiritual quest, and his transformative beliefs.
This is a transcript of the entire video interview recorded April 15, 2018 at the NH Conference Center Leeuwenhorst, Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: I don’t know if you recall this or not, but we met in Texas several years ago. And you talked about your past. Your childhood. And it’s quite incredible where you come from. Can you talk a little bit about that?
PATO BANTON: Yes. I was born in London, England in a place called Brixton. which is pretty well known by a lot of people. And my earliest childhood experience was with my mum and my stepdad living in the Brixton neighborhood. And we had a basement apartment where I spent my first six years of life on this planet. In that basement apartment which doesn’t have a lot of good memories or happy memories. But that’s how life started for me.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: You said something about a fire.
PATO BANTON: Yes. So my stepdad ended up being forced to marry my mother when he got her pregnant at the age of 17. I don’t think he was really happy about the situation so he became abusive to my mother at a very early stage in their relationship.
And over the course of six years of their marriage she had three children from him. And she lived a very miserable existence in the basement of a building where she was beaten most of the time. And I was witness to her journey in this relationship. And I can remember crying many, many times. Screaming for him to stop beating my mother. And I can remember when she was nine months pregnant and he actually dragged her off the bed by her two feet. Grabbed her two legs, dragged her off the bed and started kicking her in her stomach and punching her all over the place. Very viscously, for some stupid, minor issue.
Then I remember one winter it was snowing outside and I was waiting for one of them to come home. ‘Cause I was left at home with the kids many times. And on this occasion I looked through the basement window and I saw a car outside, a strange car. And I saw my mum jump out of the car, run into the apartment, grab some of her stuff quickly and then run out again. And as she was leaving, about to jump into this strange car, I saw my stepdad pull up. And then he got into a brawl with this guy, and my mum jumped in the car and the guy jumped in the car and they drove off.
And then my stepdad came into the basement and piled up some newspapers by the bedroom door, and locked us in. The next thing I know the bedroom door is on fire. And me and my three brothers are in this bedroom which is starting to get filled with smoke. So we were either going to choke to death or burn to death. So I figured out a way to open this huge window. Those British windows are pretty heavy. And I managed to open it and get my brothers out. Thank God we was in the basement so I didn’t have to throw them far.
And then I got myself out and ran upside and told the neighbors who lived above us that the apartment underneath them was on fire. So they called the fire department. And the next thing I knew I was separated from my brothers and living with my grandparents, who were abusive to my mum, because they didn’t want to see me be born. I, my mum had me when she was 16 so I wasn’t welcomed by them into the world. So I think some of that animosity remained when they had to take responsibility of me because my mum was nowhere to be found.
My three younger brothers, the one just under me, he went and lived with his dad who tried to kill us. And he was abused for three years by his dad. And then my two youngest brothers, they went into care. And they were reunited with my mum maybe about six months after the separation. I was reunited with my mother two years later. And my other brother who was just under me, he didn’t come until a year after me. Until we were reunited in the city of Birmingham, a long way away from mother’s abusive ex-husband.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: That’s so much to overcome. How did you persevere through that as you got older? Because you are a very successful individual.
PATO BANTON: Yes.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: Very loved and very loving.
PATO BANTON: Thank you.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: How do you press through that and come out on the other side?
PATO BANTON: I think every situation that a child is brought up into becomes normal for them. So anything better than a horrible normal existence is a blessing. (laughs) Also, I believe that one of my first moral decisions was forced upon me by my stepfather who I remember one day, I was about five, he took out this big shiny coin and he got me and my younger brother, who is a year than me so he was only about four. And he told me, he told me and my brother to fight for the coin, for the shiny coin.
And I remember my brother punched me in the face immediately. (laughs) And I just stood there because I, I thought to myself, “I just cannot. As much as I would like to have that coin, I don’t think I could punch my brother in the face. It’s not worth that to me.” I think that was one of the first times I had to make a real moral decision, you know? So my brother later on became a professional boxer. So I don’t if that influenced him as well. (laughs) But for me, it made me evaluate.
My mother never told me that this wasn’t my dad. You know, I don’t think it was ever verbalized. But I knew that this man was not my father. I never felt any kind of parental love from him and I never really saw him show any parental love to his own three children. But something told me this was not my dad. And when I eventually left London and went to live with my mother, her next partner was a DJ. He was a Jamaican DJ. But he was also living a criminal life. You know, he was doing some very underground stuff. And I was brought up in that underground environment.
Our house was actually the community party house. And from Thursday to Sunday, at the age of eight, I was the lookout for our illegal parties. And I used to open and close the door from 10 o’clock till maybe four in the morning, just to make sure there was no police coming. And if police were coming, I would lock the door quickly, run and tell my stepdad to turn down the music. And tell my mum, who was working in the kitchen was re-which was renovated into a bar over the weekend to shut the bar, to hide the illegal drinks.
And sometimes when the police were really adamant that they wanted to come and stop the party, I would be given a crate of drinks to go and give the police to bribe them, to take the drinks and leave us alone. During my experience of working as a security lookout from the age of eight till about 14, um, I saw really every form of criminality that a child shouldn’t see. I saw attempted murders, I saw rape, I saw adults having sex on my bed when it was time for me to go to bed. I shared a bed with three other boys. And sometimes it would be time for me to go to bed and I’d see some strangers having sex on my bed beside my sleeping brothers. So I’d have to go downstairs and tell my parents to come upstairs and stop this so that I can get into the bed and get to sleep.
Standing by the door every night was a hallway of our late night parties. So I would hear all of the adult conversations. And I would hear some of the most vile things that was happening in our community and that people were doing, and bragging about it. I never, ever once heard one of these guys talk about God or talk about love or talk about human progress or spirituality. I only heard about criminality.
So from my early childhood, which was very violent, to my later childhood growing into my teens, which was highly violent as far as seeing certain things. And educationally this wasn’t preparing me to be a good person in the world. (laughs) I was challenged by the time it was time for me to step into the world. My values were highly challenged. And one of the popular things for the boys in my community to do when we left school was to become a pimp and have a girl who would sell her body. That was one of the popular things. Not go and get a scholarship or go and learn engineering or go to university. It was all about the street life.
So I quickly realized that I didn’t want that. And thank God when reggae music was created. Because reggae music was really what transformed my life when the Jamaican artists started to sing about God. When they started to sing about Jah. Rastafari, in their quest to abandon colonialism and oppression from British rule, they wanted to find something from Africa that they could relate to and feel encouraged by. And Haile Selassie, the king, the emperor of Ethiopia, was a beautiful role model. Not just for black people or Africans or Jamaicans, but for the world. He was an ambassador of peace around the world.
So when the reggae artists started to look at Selassie, some of them actually says that he was the return of Christ. And I started to study my Bible. I got a Bible and started to learn about spiritual things. I started to learn about Haile Selassie and what motivated him. And when I studied Haile Selassie, he said that he was a follower of Christ. That Christ motivated him.
So I decided that I wanted to go and check out this motivator. So I started to study about Christ. And my studies of Christ led me to study Islam, Buddhism, Paramahansa Yogananda, world history, some of the African history and culture. And this quest, this burning quest to find truth welled up in me and pushed me on a 15 year, non-stop quest of truth. And I just became an addict to books.
I never really went to school much during my early years. You know, I started skipping school when I was six and a half. (laughs) Oh, no, actually when I was five and a half I started skipping school, and that carried on until I was kicked out of school at the age of 15. So I never went back to school for any exams or I never took an exam. So I never got a college education. And my visits to the educational system, full stop, was very rare.
So I was challenged in my intellectual capacity to read books with big words. And so I had to really educate myself, so I started to read dictionaries and thesauruses, metaphysical Bible dictionaries. And then after 15 years of searching and being kicked out of a few churches because of my inquisitiveness, one day I just walked out on the street in the middle of the night and just looked up to the heavens and says, “God, please help me. I need to know the truth. I’ve been searching for years and I’m dissatisfied. And I just want to know. Please send me an angel, send me a sign, give me a deep vision. But do, do something so that I can know more than what is available to mankind at this moment of time.”
And within a short time I found The Urantia Book. And it changed my entire life. (laughs)
RICHARD JERNIGAN: As it’s done with so many others.
PATO BANTON: So many people.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: What was it that shifted your thinking? Or what, what, what was in The Urantia Book that inspired you?
PATO BANTON: I think my religious quest, my philosophical quest, my yearning for truth, over the years I was changing. And my music was always of a spiritual nature. I was leaning heavily towards spirituality. I always used to love finding new truths and then putting them into my songs or sharing my new ideas in my songs.
And when I found the Urantia Book, like I said, I’d reached a point of frustration in my search. And one of my frustrations was that I wanted to know who was Melchizedek. I was convinced that he was not, he wasn’t human. I was convinced that he wasn’t Jesus, as a few of my ministers tried to tell me. But I was also convinced that he was still available on our planet. Because in Hebrew 7 it says he had no genealogy, no mother or father, no beginning of days, no ending of life. But remains a priest continually.
And when I read that I said I believe in my heart and in my soul that these words are the truth. There was, there’s something about Hebrews that is very different than the rest of the Bible. Very different. So I started looking for Melchizedek and trying to find more truth about him. Which was a very tough thing to do. And then I was also convinced that evolution took place because the first God and, I mean, before Adam and Eve were in the garden, the Bible kind of made it pretty clear that human beings were on the planet, multiplying and being fruitful.
And then when Cain killed his brother he went north to the Land of Nod, found a wife and built a city. So for some reason I had a feeling that, you know, there was life before Adam and Eve. And I believe that with the scientific findings that it is possible for science and evolution and religion to be harmonious. I also was convinced that Jesus Christ was Michael from my Bible studies. Because I always thought that the angel Gabriel was the highest angel in the Bible. But then in the Book of Revelation, Michael tells Gabriel to go down and bind Lucifer and throw him in the pit.
And I’m saying to myself, “Hold on. If Gabriel’s the main guy, the main angelic guy, how can Michael come and give Gabriel an order?” Michael has to be above Gabriel and the only person I could imagine being above Gabriel would be Christ. So I was trying to find clues as well about who Jesus really was. I also wanted to know where the angels were ascending and descending from. I wanted to know where Enoch and Elijah had gone to. And I actually, because I never had a real dad or my own dad, you know, my real blood father disowned me before I was even born, so I wanted to know where my spiritual father lived. I was convinced that he had a home, a place that I could call home and visit.
And so with all these questions on my mind, I asked God for the answers. And when I found the Urantia Book, every single question I had was answered. And at the time I found the book, you know, my life was I was trying to be a good guy but I wasn’t living up to my highest standards by far. And once I found the book it inspired me to, to check myself even on a deeper level. On a personal level, not just with the norms or the mores of my neighborhood or community, but with the mores within my mind. And it caused me to start changing my life internally.
And I think that was another challenge for me to be a spiritual person but still be one of the guys. And then when I started touring the world, when during that transition I started to become very popular around the world, I was traveling with my Urantia Book, with a Concordex, with a dictionary and with a Bible dictionary. So I wasn’t one of the best people or one of the best guys to hang out with. (laughs) Because I was deep into my books. And also I had a book that was scary to most of the people I knew.
But your question earlier about what caused me to change or what caused me to be so positive, coming from such a dark background. And I think probably part of it is my mother. Because my mother always stayed positive. No matter what she was going through, she could always still find a smile, you know? And, and then the second part was, I do believe that when you’re passionate about God there is something that’s hard to explain but you want to help people, you want to love people. And you want to share with people.
So when I started reading the Urantia Book and kept finding all these things about prayer and service, communication with God and the desire to serve, it just seems to be that those two things keep coming hand-in-hand. Worship and service. The closer we get to God is the more we want to serve God. And we serve God by serving his children, all of them. (laughs) So that is my passion in life. And just to contribute to somebody else’s wellbeing, to contribute to somebody’s happiness, to contribute to somebody’s conflict resolution. To contribute to somebody’s desire to become a better person. To set an example for somebody to follow or to aspire to.
Those are some of the greatest blessings that you can have, you know, for me. You know? So I encourage people and in my encouragement of people I feel encouraged. And it’s just a beautiful cycle of, of love and sharing. And I think that’s one of the things that keeps me motivated. You know if I was just in the music business for business, I would have stopped a long time ago. But the beauty of music is it’s given me a vehicle to travel the world. And I don’t think I’m a great musician, I don’t think I’m a brilliant reggae MC. But I do think I have an awesome opportunity to take the talent that I do have and use it for good. And that’s what keeps me motivated.
PATO BANTON: And during my teen years some of the experience that really bothered me and, and really challenged me before I embarked into my music, musical journey, was that I started to, to experience racism in the UK. And there was a time period where the police were brutalizing us, and there was the rise of the National Front movement in the UK that made it very dangerous sometimes for us to step out of our house in the evenings. ‘Cause they would attack black people viciously.
And I had to defend my house from some of the local racist community. On more than one occasion too. And I think, you know, even this, though this was a negative experience for me and a troubling experience for me, it gave me a desire to want to understand why people dislike other people just because of the color of their skin or just because of their religious faith. And so it’s allowed me, because of those experiences, to be sensitive to the struggles of other people. Because it was a struggle for us.
You know, the UK has changed a lot since then but in the early days it was very, very tough for us to exist in a hostile and racist environment. And one of the blessings of finding the Urantia Book is that it’s also encouraged me to act and to be of service and to be sensitive to the needs of other people and other communities. And I think that passion to want to see change, to want to see an end to racism, to want to see an end to bigotry and prejudice, is not just based on intellectual knowledge or, or reading, but also based on personal experience. And, and they say, one of the sayings in Jamaica is “he who feels it knows it.” (laughs)
So, you know, I just want to encourage the people that haven’t been through those types of experiences to just take a moment to put your mind in somebody else’s shoes and imagine what it’s like to be beaten or attacked or to be marginalized, um, because of the color of your skin or because of your faith.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: Yeah. This, this is such a, this is such a critical issue. And I had a thought just now, I really wanted to ask you, what do you think about the Urantia Book’s discussion about race?
PATO BANTON: Yes. You know, for me, the words about race in the Urantia Book, I do believe it to be true. I haven’t found something in the Urantia Book that I do not believe to be true, you know? But for me there’s a balance in the race issue. Because not being aggressive, not being progressive, being the least progressive sometimes can mean being the least aggressive.
Which to me is a blessing. It, it won’t bring about the advance of human society being the least aggressively progressive. (laughs) But being less aggressive means that when you mix an aggressive person with a non-aggressive person, then you get a balance. Also I believe when, when The Urantia Book talks about race, you have to observe the race as a race, not as an individual. Because I believe that any individual from any race can be an outstanding individual and stand equally with any other individual in any other race.
And likewise, there are degenerate stocks in every race. There are people who are … one of the attributes of degeneracy is being antisocial. You know, it’s not just about your IQ. It’s also about how do you interact with people? You know? And there are a lot of people who just struggle in that, in that way. So on an individual level, I believe that the Urantia Book cannot and does not talk about the race, racial progress on an individual basis. Because there are religious geniuses recorded in the Urantia Book from every race. Great religious leaders.
But how does a race function together? How do they build together? How do they work together? Do they support each other or do they tear each other down? Do they look towards the future or just do they just look at the present? Are they in a climate that encourages them to strive for invention? Or are they in a climate that encourages relaxation and having a good time? You know? But the races will all improve and eventually when we are blended as one race, then the race issue won’t matter.
And the beauty of the Urantia Book, it talks about how it is now but it also encourages us to work towards light and life. Which means interbreeding and the blending of the races. So the real issue is for the people who are fighting, who know this information and are fighting against interracial marriages or the blending of the races. Those are the people that need to be kept in check. Or to be checked. Because they are becoming a hindrance to the Fifth Epochal Revelation which tells us how we can advance.
RICHARD JERNIGAN: And you wanted to talk about Antoniette?
PATO BANTON: Yes, I want to close by just saying thank you to my beautiful wife, Antoinette, who has been a real pillar of strength for me, you know? Our relationship started off, when she was in an opening band and I was playing in Virginia. I did a show in Virginia and she watched my show and was a big fan. And after the show she came and spoke to me about my show. And we ended up talking about all the subjects I was interested in. She came onto my tour bus and she saw my library on the tour bus. And she was very intellectual, very interested in all the same subjects.
And we spoke for about three, four hours after the show. And then I said, “You know something? It’s nice to meet you. I’ve got to go. Have a great night.” And she said goodbye and we just parted company. I didn’t see her for 10 years. And then I was in Hawaii doing another show that she was at, and she came and spoke to me. We played a game of pool just before I walked onto the stage, and she beat me. And after that I didn’t see her again for another 10 years. And on both occasions it was very respectful.
And then the third time I was playing at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, and she came and she found me after the show. She was in the dressing room waiting to try to get to talk to me but nobody could find me ’cause I was out the back of the concert in a prayer circle. (laughs) And so after the prayer circle I went straight to the bus. I didn’t even go back into the venue. And so she came on the bus and said hi, and I remembered her. And she told me that she’s moved to LA and she’s playing in local bands. And I told her I had just moved to LA and was getting ready to start a new band and I was looking for a keyboard player.
And she said, “I would love to be in your band.” So she became my musician and we did a 50 state tour of America, which was my mission. I think we managed to do about 46 states that tour. And the band, I told ’em I didn’t have a budget for them, that sometimes they would get paid and sometimes they would just get fed. And they said they wanted to do this mission with me. And so we traveled together for a year. And then at the end of that year, I said to her, “You know, why aren’t you in a relationship?” At that time I was single.
And she says she’d love to be in a serious relationship but she just can’t find somebody who wants to be committed. And I said, “I would commit to you. Let’s give it a try.” So it wasn’t really like some romantic kind of thing. It was like, an offer for us to be a part-partners and a team. And, and she agreed. So we set up a home and started working together. And within a short period of time she, she’d already started to fall in love with the book during the first year. Because the fans were asking her, “What’s this thing Pato’s talking about, Urantia?” You know?
So she had to go and start educating herself so she could tell the fans. And then once she started reading the Adam and Eve paper, she fell in love with the book and became a huge advocate. So I’m in a really beautiful relationship with a, a strong woman who, who believes what I believe and is not afraid or ashamed to share with the world that she believes in the Fifth Epochal Revelation to humanity. She’s not afraid to say she’s a Urantian. And she pushes me to be progressive in, in my spiritual works.
So, um, I’m just very happy. You know, we, we have our ups and downs like any other couple. But we try to pray about things and we try to respect each other and try to be honest about our shortcomings. And how we can harmonize our shortcomings and strengthen each other. And it’s a beautiful thing and I’m very happy. (laughs)