74 ',1,.)ryry (n ro\ 6 o\ tz o a q o = Kingston 75 Reggqes Jomqicq's Rebel fUlusic By Rita Forest* "On the day that Bob Marley died from which this burst forth, has I was buying vegetables in the mar- been described as a "very small con- ket town of Kasr El Kebir in nor- nection that's glowing red-hot" bet- thern Morocco. Kasr El Kebir was a ween "two extremely heavy cultu- E great city with running water and res"-Africa and North America. ot streetlights when London and Paris But reggae (and its predecessors, ska were muddy villages. Moroccans and rock-steady) came sparking off U tend not to check for any form of that red-hot wire at a particular o western music, vastly preferring the moment-a time in the mid-1960s odes of the late great Om Kalthoum when Jamaica was in the throes of a or the latest pop singer from Cairo mass migration from the country- z= or Beirut. But young Moroccans side to the city. These people, driven 5 love Bob Marley, the from green a only form of the hills into the hellish Ut non-Arabic music I ever saw country tangle of Kingston shantytowns, d= Moroccans willingly dance to. That created reggae music. afternoon in Kasr El Kebir, Bob This same jolting disruption of a Marley banners in Arabic were centuries-old way of life has also strung across the main street. ." shaped the existence of many mil- (Stephen Davis, Reggoe Internatio- lions of people in cities around the nal, 1982). world today. And the best of reggae, Reggae, a music barely 20 years which righteously confronted the old, has penetrated remote deserts in horror that is "modern" life for the Mali, is played by aborigines in Aus- masses in these citadels, quickly tralia, has hit the top ten in countries found an international audience of all over Europe, and has influenced youth overripe to climb to some hig- musicians on every continent. When her heights: these sounds get carried around the planet to places where there are only *Rita Forest is a member of the batteries to power the rare tape Revolutionary Communist Party, player, it is certain that a very deep U.S.A., and an activist in the chord has been struck among the cultural sphere. This article has MASSCS. been slightly edited for publication Jamaica, the Caribbean island in AWTW. 76 "Burning and a-lootin' tonight the former home of Maas' Nattie, culture. Burning all pollution tonight the man who'd raised him like a fa- As it happened, a musical storm Burning all illusions tonight." ther, and discovered that two Ame- of such gigantic proportions and "Burning' and Lootin"' The rican tourists had taken over the deep roots among the oppressed was Wailers- backyard and were lazily smoking growing up from below that it would ganja and sunbathing, stark naked. spin out of their grasp. By any calculation reggae has Ivan watched while one of them There is more than symbolic signi- been a huge musical explosion com- tried to milk a male goat, then jum- ficance to the story of the son of a parable in some ways to the birth of ped on his motorbike in disgust and white Jamaican ruling class family rock n' roll in the U.S. Kingston, for sped away over the mountains and who was born in the U.S., gradua- example, has grown to be the largest through the foothills choked with ted from Harvard (and not Britain's producer of singles per capita of any bauxite dust, back down to Kings- Oxford) in the late 1950s, and retur- city in the world-and almost all of ton. From that moment on, he refu- ned home to Jamaica to do anthro- it reggae. sed to look back, and with nothing pological work among the peasants, What was it about Jamaica, the ti- to lose, he shot cops and sang his investigating folk practices such as mes, the world, that gave us this way to fame and notoriety. He was obeah and musical traditions asso- music? an outlaw, and a fearless hero to ciated with Pukkumina religion. He In Michael Thelwell's novel The those being ground up in this new soon moved to Kingston, set up a Harder They Come,adapted from urban "promised land"-a concrete small recording company to docu- the film of the same name, Ivan, a jungle where you couldn't even find ment this culture, then turned his at- Kingston "rude boy" (ghetto youth a clean glass of water, let alone a tention to the music scene in the in and around the Jamaican music day's work. West Kingston ghettos and became scene) tries lo visit his family's home one of Jamaica's first record produ- in the mountains after several years 1962: Jamaican "Independence" cers. This young music entrepreneur of living in the city. "Nothing was In the late 1950s, the Jamaican was none other than the current Ja- familiar....Bush-bush full up countryside was getting ripped apart maican prime minister and man-on- everywhere. But...dis coulden the by U.S. capital more intensively the scene for U.S. imperialism, Ed- right place after all? Right down than almost any other Caribbean is- ward Seaga. dere should be the tin roof. You land. They took over from the Bri- When he entered politics in 1959, mean say bush-bush grow up, cover tish plantation-style rule after disco- Seaga secured a constituency in one it?. vering bauxite there during World of the toughest new ghettos in West rr)e 6 "There was no evidence of the War 2. Major U.S. and Canadian Kingston with his music credentials, : passage of his generations, the an- aluminium companies appropriated and introduced guns onto the street cestors whose intelligence, industry huge areas of land from the peasants along with systematic gangster-style z and skill had created a self-sufficient and left gaping strip-mined valleys violence to force "loyalty" among homestead here. None-at aII...." of the burning red dirt all through this very angry and volatile section grandmother who had raised Jamaican hills. More people of the population. He also put to full =ot\ His the a him up there had died several years were forced off the land with the sta- use his earlier study of peasant reli- q earlier; his mother was back down in gnation of the British sugar planta- gious practices and superstitions in Kingston working at starvation pay tions, as well as the growth of tou- his political rallies and slogans. This o as a washerwoman; his uncles were rism. They flocked to Kingston to is the man, head of the Jamaican La- = long gone off the land and had met survive, pitching tin shacks on a re- bour Party, who came to be known their ends all over the globe. One claimed garbage dump in the har- internationally as CIAga for his died in World War 2 fighting for the bour. There were a few jobs on the mafiosa-style services and overall British; another went to cut cane in docks and in some new U.S. plants, political assistance to the U.S. Cuba and was never heard from but for most the pickings were slim bourgeoisie-which has continually again; another was serving a life sen- and many kept going. In the 1950s manoeuvred for a tighter hold on its tence in the Kingston penitentiary and 1960s, one-eighth of the popu- backyard island-and who was pu- for killing his wife.... lation emigrated. (Today only 2 I /2 blicly denounced for running guns "Ah shoulda did stay an' tek care of the 4 million Jamaicans in the for the CIA into Jamaica in the late of de place, he thought. The worst world actually live on the island.) 1960s. Exactly how much his early insult that people has was sneering, As Jamaica lurched from British career was sculpted along these lines 'Cho, you no come from crown colony to U.S. neo-colony, with outside interests is not entirely nowhe'.'...He wanted to go get a the island's local bourgeoisie got a clear. machete, to cut a path to the graves lift as they hitched themselves to this For the next two decades and con- and clear the bush away. But...what new capital and the freshly-stirred tinuing today Seaga and all rival de raas is de use. ..What's the fucken waves of nationalism that surged up bourgeois politicians, particularly use? He felt empty, and frightened, off the "independence" celebration the up and coming "socialist" lea- futile, miserable, and very alone. He in 1962. They had a new style of der of the People's National Party, would never, he swore, come back rule, and a greater freedom and ne- Michael Manley, would be forced to ever." cessity to promote and especially to deal in the currency of the "suffe- He continued down the road to try to gain control of a "national" rah," the sufferers in the city-and 77 reggae would figure large in this. Baton sticks get shorter/ horrified at. these rebels wearing Rudie gets taller their hair in thick "natty" dread- The Rise of Reggae ...Can't fight against the youth/ locks (long, tight curls) who were The first strains of the new music Cause it's wrong also beginning to gain a little noto- arose as transistor radios cropped up Prediction: riety internationally as well. on the streets of Kingston and the Them people a-going wild The country was further polari- rude boys started popping their fin- Dem a rude rude people..