Mikeylous asks Austrian president to ‘free di ganja’

Over three decades in the music business and veteran dancehall deejay Mikeylous, aka 'Wake Up Boss', is still managing to break new ground.

Currently on a tour of Austria, the St Ann artiste has drawn many positive reactions after posting a video of him meeting President Alexander Van der Bellen. The encounter saw the artiste hitting the studios immediately after to record a song urging Van der Bellen to "free up the sensi (marijuana)". Officially, marijuana is not legal in Austria other than by prescription.

The song Meet the President, which describes his encounter with Van der Bellen, is expected to garner much attention with lyrics.

" Ganja fi free, police mustn't trouble we. Africans and Austrians fi plant more tree. And when mi a come again I waa carry some with me. The good, good ganja from dung a Senti (St Bess)... ," Mikeylous says on the track.

From a career that started in the 1980s, Mikeylous, given name Michael Grant, has remained relevant, turning out records over the years. He explained how he ended up meeting the president.

"Mi come over fi a few shows and at the same time doing a lot of recordings, dubplates and promotion," Mikeylous told THE STAR on Sunday afternoon. He explained that while in Vienna, Austria's capital, he was with one of the promoters, Father Kutta, at an event which was being held across from the presidential palace. He said they both went to the palace's car park and then he got the idea to do a spontaneous video.

Mikeylous said that he told the promoter, "I need to meet the president right now, mi haffi meet the president, mi naw leave 'til me meet the president."

"And then it come in like, telepathically, we just speak it in the universe, and it manifest. Twenty minutes after we were sitting there, there was the president coming." He said Van der Bellen was approachable.

"We got up, we stopped him, and went out to meet him. He was just walking with a dog with one person behind him; there was no big security (team) nothing like that," Mikeylous said. The artiste is unable to say if Van der Bellen is a reggae fan.

"He knows about reggae and everybody's a reggae fan so apparently he is," Mikeylous reasoned. The artiste said that later in the studio, while doing other recordings, lyrics about meeting the president "just came up".

" Ah Austria we deh, Weh dem love reggae..." popped into his head. The song is on Sugar Minott's 'Dancehall We Deh' rhythm.

Mikeylous said a video of the song was previewed to very positive response in a club in Austria on the weekend.

He remains in Austria to complete his contractual agreements and returns to Jamaica at a later date.