MORGAN HERITAGE - more than music

The Morgan Heritage group

Anthea McGibbon, Religion Feature Co-ordinator

WHEN A man has 29 children and somehow manages to raise them under one roof, the results can be amazing.

But not for Denroy "Denny" Morgan, who faced the challenge of raising his 29 offsprings (ages 19-28), and with the two mothers, Hyacinth and Pearl beside him. Adding more than his seed to the pages of history.

In 1981 he made the hit R& B song, "I'll do anything for you" and more interestingly he has produced a family of musicians. And of the 29 children, 8 have themselves become music icons. Two groups have been formed - The Morgan Heritage(5 members), and the (LMS) Laza, Miriam and Shypoo (3 members).

What's more is that the family's faith is quite intruiging. The family members are all both Rastafarian and Christian.

In a recent interview with Religion Today, Peter,28, the eleventh child and spokesperson, says his grandparents (father's side) were strict Seventh-Day Adventist. In 1975, Denny, his father, got his calling to be a Rastafarian.

The siblings all grew up in the Rastaraian faith.

Back in Bushwick, the border of Brooklyn and Queens, the family-home served as a home-base for the monthly meetings of the 12 Tribes of Israel. However, Peter says the family members got baptised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church of North and South America, situated in Harlem, New York.

He further insists the family belief in Christianity was in no way influenced by the grandparents. In fact he says they became Christian in keeping with the lineage of the Emperor Haile Selassie, who was baptised a christian. Interesting enough the family believes in reincarnation, as Peter says "Nobody never dead and come back come tell me yet". His brother Lukes also at the interview says that life is substance.

Reminiscing on the Bushwick days, Peter describes the lifestyle that paved the road of and scuplted the unit they are today.

The Bushwick community included Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Black Americans, Jamaicans with Italians in the neighbouring Queens. However they "were always identified as Jamaican among the Americans because everyone knew their parents were born-Jamaicans".

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the family lived together and was so large they never really saw the need for outside friends. And the friends they had were equally shared by everyone. Peter remembers that one Black American Muslim family and the Trinidad family in particular who were among their most intimate friends. And he remembers the family diet... practically anything but shellfish and pork.

All the children experienced the same education cycle - mostly in the Massachussets area. But most impacting were the twice-daily prayer and Bible study hour. In the mornings before school and evenings before dinner. An activity which Peter says bonded the members together.

But the family had its fair share of problems. Older siblings were sometines called spaghetti head. Family members were sometimes the subject of police harrassment and a few times had too their slice of family squabbles.

Since 1995 the family has moved back to Jamaica, residing in cool contemporary buildings along the seaside in Blue Mahoe, St. Thomas.

The group has travelled to over 10 contries, and with 6 albums, they too have testimonies. One such is the woman who shared that she now believed in God as a result of their concert she experienced in.

"The substance of life is spirituality." says Peter and Lukes, his brother and member of Morgan Heritage who adds that the group's aim is to "help to inspire those who lack inspiration and bring hope to the hopeless." Hope to encourage more peace, love to humanity.

The combined offsprings of "Denny" Morgan have produced fifty children.

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