RUN COME RALLY: RASTAFARI TEXTS AND THE CREATION OF PUBLICS IN POST-COLONIAL JAMAICA A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Copyright by Thomas John Jenkins 2011 English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program October 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81108-5 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81108-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada ABSTRACT Run Come Rally: Rastafari Texts and the Creation of Publics in Post-Colonial Jamaica Thomas John Jenkins This thesis is an attempt to explore the role that musical texts and physical spaces played in the development of a Rastafari public in post-colonial Jamaica. By examining theories of public formation outlined in Jiirgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Michael Warner's Publics and Counterpublics we may establish a number of criteria which legitimately describe the creation of publics. These criteria provide a theoretical foundation for the analysis of the Rastafari movement and its expansion immediately following Jamaican Independence. The study positions the Rasta text (through Nyahbinghi ceremonies and the act of 'reasoning') as a self-authenticating, oppositional discourse which functions as a critique of normative constructions of reason. By tracing the musical text through Pinnacle, grounation ceremonies in Trenchtown yards, Soundsystems and Dancehalls, and recording studios, an understanding of the ways in which the Rasta text occupies both self-authenticating and oppositional positions simultaneously can be achieved. The study concludes by positioning Dub as manifested Rasta ideology, unconsciously staging the same kind of embodied critique of Babylon's insistence on its own authenticity, in part due to its lack of teleology. Keywords: Rastafari, Reggae, Nyahbinghi, Soundsystem, Dub, Publics, Counterpublics u ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study is, of course, indebted to several people, most of whom are, as is usually the case, those closest to me. First and foremost I'd like to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Hugh Hodges, whose inestimable wealth of musical and scholarly guidance has navigated this vessel through both the calmest and choppiest of waters. His ceaseless championing of this project provided me the confidence to continually push for a greater end result, and to him I wholeheartedly dedicate this work. I'd like to also thank Professors Lewis Macleod and Margaret Steffler, whose patience and guidance during the span of this project was invaluable. During the developmental stage of this study Lewis provided perhaps the single most effective piece of advice: "I know you get anxious about these things. Don't." Of my closest friends, with whom I have spent more hours than is perhaps healthy "dubbed out" over the last few years, two deserve a special mention: Dan and Andrew. Both have been essential sounding posts during all stages of my research for this project, encouraging and refining my strongest ideas while curtailing those that weren't. Their shared passion for all things one-dropped provided me the necessary community in which to foster my ideas and continually test the limits of my musical knowledge. Few people would have so willingly endured so much conversation about popular music. And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my mother - my single biggest supporter, despite not having a clue what all this "nonsense" was about. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Introduction Version Dread: Confusion Dub 1 Developing Publics: Theoretical Approaches 6 Abstracting and Recontextualizing the Habermasian Model 8 Towards a Definition of Modern Publics and Counterpublics 13 Chapter One Origins of a Rastafari Counterpublic 17 Salt Lane and the Emergence of Consciousness 22 Reconciling Bourgeois Europe and Rastafari Jamaica 35 Chapter Two (Intro) 36 Downbeat and the Pressure Drop 38 Door Peeps Shall Not Enter 49 Chapter Three (Intro) 57 Originator Dub 58 Evolution Revolution Dub 60 Rasta Meets Deejay Uptown 65 Dub Ina Babylon 74 Conclusion Outcomes: Reggae International 79 Bibliography 82 Discography 84 iv 1 INTRODUCTION Version Dread: Confusion Dub The origins of this study can be traced back to a precise moment in the summer of 2006. Fresh off a course on Caribbean literature, what had been a casual affection for reggae began to develop into a serious passion as a result of a single, serendipitous purchase. During the course of that previous semester we had studied a wide range of texts: apart from the standard codex fare you would expect in most literature courses, we had also looked at musical texts in a critical manner, an approach which was entirely novel to me at the time. Through analyzing both the instrumental and lyrical content of an entire album (Bob Marley's 1980 work, Uprising) the goal was to form a better understanding of the social conditions that fueled so much of the work we were studying. What I took from this exercise was two-fold: it expanded my idea of what "literature" could include, but more importantly this form of text actually seemed, to me, more visceral and was better able to encapsulate the complexity of social conditions than the traditional codex form could. No matter what Michelle Cliff had tried to express about the crippling socio-political and economic divide in Jamaica in her novel No Telephone To Heaven, nothing approximated this crucial schism as clearly to me as hearing The Wailers perform "We and Dem", in which Marley defiantly declares, "Someone will have to pay for the innocent blood that they shed every day... We no have no friends in-a high society. We no have no friends, mark my identity" 2 As this was performed, the slow, pounding reggae rhythms gave extra weight to Marley's words. It's at this point though that I should be clear that my intention with this developing anecdote is not to strike up a debate on whether or not a written form is better or worse than a musical one, but rather that there was something about hearing a text performed that intensified its messages. During that ensuing summer I made a point of accumulating as many reggae records as I could possibly get my hands on. Through this journey I found myself increasingly coming across mentions of "dub", which I'd come to understand was an extension of reggae which was often cited as the birth of remix culture, where standard reggae tracks were manipulated and "spaced-out" with mind-bending delays, echoes, and sonic effects1. Eager to delve into this exciting new musical territory I picked up an album called Version Dread: 18 Dub Hits from Studio One. Ready to have my aural senses titillated, I dropped the needle on the record, anticipating the sonic revolution that was about to happen... However, much to my chagrin what emerged from my speakers sounded almost exactly the same as the reggae I'd been listening to previously. Dub this was not. Remix culture, in the contemporary sense, seeks to re-dress a song, changing everything from the actual sounds of the instruments and the arrangements of them, to altering the 1 Effects ranged from panning techniques ("capturing" the trail of a repeated delay and manipulating it spatially within the mix in order to sound like it was spinning) to filters (flanges, tremolos, etc. which were used to effect the texture of the sounds) and synthetic, monotone beeps processed (augmented with echo and delay) in order to manipulate and alter the original track as much as possible. 3 rhythms and tempo of the track entirely. The goal is to reposition the song in order to adapt it to different social spaces and situations (the "club mix", the "down-tempo mix", etc.). What I was listening to on Version Dread wasn't this at all, or so I thought. It was the same reggae I'd come to love, only with holes.