3 months ago
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Even when she’s mourning Christine Reynolds is a whole vibe. On Monday when The Sunday Gleaner reached out to her for a comment on the passing of Grammy Award-winning, American R&B legend, Roberta Flack, she was the soul of graciousness mixed with a bag of emotions. Her response was, “Oh, you want to talk about Mimi. Can you please give me a [of] couple hours? I’m on my way to visit someone in the hospital.”
By Wednesday morning she returned our call, asking if we had questions or if she should just talk, “because I can talk for hours”.
First of all, any conversation with Reynolds about Roberta Flack is a two-for-one special, because her father, late Jamaican artist and religious leader, Mallica ‘Kapo’ Reynolds enters the chat from start to finish.
The extraordinary nature of Kapo and Roberta Flack’s convergence is simply next level. The two met in the ’70s and bonded. A 1974 article on the National Library of Jamaica site, quoted Kapo as saying that Roberta Flack is “killing him softly” – the name of one of her many hit songs – and that she had set up a foundation for him.
“ Miss Flack has made handsome cash contributions to the painter, and on one of her many visits to Kapo, she handed him the keys of a brand-new air-conditioned Volkswagen bus,” the article stated.
It continued: “ Miss Flack has refused to purchase or accept as a gift any of Kapo’s paintings, but she has sung Killing Me Softly [With His Song] and I Told Jesus in Kapo’s tiny church at Ghandi Road in Kingston. The singer is also having a film made on the life and work of Kapo, and is planning an exhibition of his work at 12 universities in the United States, where the foundation is established.”
Coincidentally, Kapo and Roberta Flack were both born on the same day, February 10 and they both died on the same day, February 24.
“It lick mi dung a grung,” Reynolds said of Roberta Flack’s passing. “Yuh try to prepare yourself but you are never really ready. It’s as if my father came to guide her. ‘Hello Lady Roberta, I have some experience here, let me take your hand.’ I was remembering my father on the day he died and then Mimi passes on the same day. I have done nothing but feel her,” Reynolds shared, adding that just before she was aware of Flack’s death, she had found the track of her singing Let It Be Me on The Flip Wilson Show and had been playing it over and over again.
JOURNEY
The part of Reynolds’ journey which coalesces with that of the R&B legend started just after the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 12-year-old had just passed her Common Entrance Exam and was ready to go to high school at either Immaculate or Holy Childhood.
“I was floating on a cloud. I was like ‘Yeah … mi daddy a guh proud a mi. My father is the person I love the most. God up deso, Daddy one inch below,” Reynolds stated.
Unknown to Reynolds, her father had other plans for his daughter, his seventh child, who was born in the seventh month and who now has seven children. He sent her to live in America with his dear friend Roberta Flack.
“Me think me a get ready fi go either Immaculate or Holy Childhood, but I was sent up here. When I came up here I rebelled a bit, but the only problem was that I didn’t have much experience in rebellion,” she said, her infectious laughter ringing loud.
In fact, it was only a few years ago that she found out exactly why Kapo sent her overseas. She had visited a gallery where her father’s work was being exhibited and on the biographical notes it mentioned that his daughter, Christine, was sent to live with Roberta Flack in the ’70s for her safety owing to political upheaval in Jamaica. She was shocked by the revelation.
“My father didn’t do party [politics], but he was branded. He had close ties to Edward Seaga, but Norman Manley is my godfather. How do you think he got the gallery at the National Gallery? Through Edna Manley ... Norman’s wife. But ... when I see the things that him go through … yuh burn down him house, yuh try poison him ... me woulda give up. But he was given a task to do and he did it. I’m in awe of him. He was flamboyant, in-your-face, as black as night, with his mouth full of gold. He was misunderstood by the general population ... and he was determined. ‘My religion is one too and you are going to respect it.’”
Back to the not-so-rebellious Christine Reynolds. She did eventually go to the school that had been chosen for her and “had a wonderful time there”. So much so that upon Flack’s passing a friend whom she had not seen in half a century contacted her and reminded her of the time she had spent at their house “and me, she and Mimi were playing the piano”.
“Mimi understood that I was confused, so she neva mek this rebellion ting bother her. She was at the height of her career. Stevie Wonder [and] Miles Davis would come to the house. We were neighbours with Yoko Ono and John Lennon. I’m walking down the street and I see Morgan Freeman,” Reynolds recalled of her fairy-tale life, which she now wishes she had made a journal.
As to how Roberta Flack became Mimi, there’s a story.
“She and I were talking one day and she said ‘That has to change.’ And I said, ‘What Miss Roberta?’ because that’s what I called her. And she said ‘That. What are you going to call me?’ And I didn’t answer. She suggested ‘Mum’ and I gave her that [rebellious] stare and thought, ‘No way. My mother is still alive.’ So she said, ‘How about Mimi?’ And she has been Mimi ever since. “
English (US) ·