Eric Smith was born in the parish of St.Andrew, Jamaica. Eric grew up with his mother, Lisa cox, in a working class community known as Pepine, near the island’s capital, Kingston. He credits his mother as well as his cousin and her husband, May and William Badroo, for many of his early moral teachings.
As a youth, Eric witnessed the social and economical inequalities associated with ghetto life in Kinston. These are the experiences that fuel the powerful and civil minded commentaries which permeate Eric’s music. He looks to the teachings of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi and Nelson and Whinnie Mandela for political inspiration.
Eric has chosen music as his medium to voice ghetto people’s life-long struggle for equal rights and justice.He sends a message of change to expose the decaying morality that is infecting and corrupting both the youth and contemporary society on a whole. Eric gets his spiritual strength from the Almighty, Jah Rastafari, in whom he rests his unbending faith and conviction. He acknowledges and reveres the work of artists like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jacob Miller, Black Uhuru, Junior Reid, Dennis Brown, Brigadier Jerry, and Burning Spear. It is these artists he credits for his musical inspiration and motivation.
Eric acknowledges the following people whose work, advice and support made this album possible: Elio Morgan, G. Arnold, N. Anderson aka Zion, red the Nyah Binghi. Jah Bless.