Acknowledgments Introduction
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Notes ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1. First published in Stewart Brown, ed., The Pressures of the Text: Orality, Texts and the Telling of Tales, Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 1995, 60-74. INTRODUCTION 1. English translation: “Those sound systems are no threat/ They sound as if I’m at home/ Listening to my cassette player.” Cocoa Tea, “No Threat,” Track 6, Little Sound Boy, VP Records. VPCD 1441, 1996. 2. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies and the Politics of Internationalization,” interview with Kuan-Hsing Chen, in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, London: Routledge, 1996, 407. 3. The American filmmaker Stephanie Black brilliantly critiques the socioeconomic and cultural impact of globalization on Jamaica in the film Life and Debt, Tu f f G o ng Pictures. 2001. In e-mail correspondence, July 13, 2003, Stephanie reports the following: “After screenings of LIFE AND DEBT, people from all around the world have come up to me and said repeatedly, ‘you could have filmed the exact same story in my country’—people from Brazil, people from Ghana, Argentinians—‘the IMF situation is, unfortunately, exactly the same, you could have shot it there.’ And I say, ‘yes, it’s true; only then the film wouldn’t have had this great reggae soundtrack.’” 4. First published in Jamaica Journal 22, 4 (1989): 12-31; 23, 1 (1990): 44-52. 5. I am indebted to Peter Stallybrass and Allon White for the formulation “disgust always bears the imprint of desire.” The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986, 191. 6. Carolyn Cooper, Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the “Vulgar” Body of Jamaican Popular Culture, London: Macmillan, 1993, 1994, 2004; Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995, 2000, 136-173. 7. Ibid., 174. 8. Cary Nelson, Paula A. Treichler, and Lawrence Grossberg, eds., Cultural Studies, New York: Routledge, 1992, 13. 9. Norman Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000, 18-19. 10. Mark Cummings, “I have learnt my lesson—Sean Paul,” Daily Observer, August 13, 2003, 25. 11. Anthony B, “Nah Vote Again,” Track 7, Universal Struggle, VP Records, VPCD 1510 2, 1997. 12. Carolyn Cooper, Noises in the Blood, 4-5. 304 | Sound Clash 13. Ibid., 138. 14. Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People, 266. 15. William Henry, “Reggae/Dancehall Music as an Autonomous Space for Cultural Expression,” B.A. dissertation, Goldsmiths College, London University, 1997, 25. 16. Ibid., 26. 17. Ibid., 27. 18. Ibid. 19. Cooper, Noises in the Blood, 136. 20. Ibid., 139. 21. Ibid., 172. 22. Henry, “Reggae/Dancehall Music,” 26-27. Henry reproduced this argument in a 2001 public lecture at the University of the West Indies, Mona, hosted by the Reggae Studies Centre. 23. Iris Myrie, “Distasteful Side of Dancehall Music,” Gleaner, February 14, 2003, A5. 24. Ibid. 25. Sugar Minott, “Can’t Cross The Border,” Track 7, Little Sound Boy, VP Records, VPCD 1441, 1996. Regrettably, permission to reproduce the song here has not been successfully negotiated. 26. Ibid. 27. Tony Rebel, “Chatty Chatty,” Track 9, Just Ragga, Charm Records, CRCD14, 1992. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. In the eastern Caribbean, dancehall is known as dub, and in the United Kingdom it is known as ragga. I am indebted to Moses “Beenie Man” Davis for the insight that what is termed “dancehall” music should more appropriately be called “rub a dub” music. In conversation, February 26, 2003. 34. Ian Boyne, ‘“Bling-Bling Christianity Run Things,” Sunday Gleaner, July 20, 2003, G2. 35. David Scott, “‘Wi a di Govament’: An Interview with Anthony B,” Small Axe 2 (September 1997): 100. The structure of Anthony B’s language seems more English than Jamaican in this interview. Though politically incorrect, I change the orthogra- phy from the specialized Cassidy system for the Jamaican language used by David Scott, “anglicizing” it in order to facilitate readability. I translate, in brackets, the distinctly Jamaican vocabulary and syntax. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People, 267. 39. Carolyn Cooper, “Slackness Hiding From Culture: Erotic Play in the Dancehall,” in Noises in the Blood, 142-43. 40. Ibid., 162-63. 41. Ibid., 164-65. 42. Ibid., 148. 43. Ibid. 44. Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People, 267-68. Notes | 305 45. Buju Banton, “Boom Bye Bye.” Track 1, Strictly the Best, Vol. 9, VP Records, VPCD 1291, 1993. 46. Carolyn Cooper, “‘Lyrical Gun’: Metaphor and Role Play in Jamaican Dancehall Culture,” The Massachusetts Review 35, 3-4 (1994): 447. 47. Andrew Ross, “Mr. Reggae DJ, Meet the International Monetary Fund,” in Real Love: In Pursuit of Cultural Justice (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 60. 48. Ibid., 60-61. 49. Cooper, “‘Lyrical Gun,’”447. 50. Ross, “Mr. Reggae DJ, Meet the International Monetary Fund,” 61. 51. Cooper, “‘Lyrical Gun,’” 440. 52. Ibid., 59. 53. Ibid., 439. 54. Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People, 19. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid., xiv. 57. Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy, New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1990, 56. 58. Corneldi Watts, “Ban the Nasty Lyrics,” Barbados Advocate, June 23, 2002, 11. I looked up Watts’s number in the telephone directory but she was not listed. I would have enjoyed talking with her on the matter. CHAPTER 1 1. Ninjaman, “Border Clash,” Track 4, Side Two, Warning You Now, Jammy$ Records, 1990. The song is worthy of much more ample quotation but because permission to reproduce it here has not been successfully negotiated, I have had to resort to paraphrase in the analysis below. 2. Donna Hope, “Inna Di Dancehall Dis/place: Socio-Cultural Politics of Identity in Jamaica,” Master’s of Philosophy thesis, University of the West Indies, Mona, 2001, 146-47. 3. Ibid., 147-48. 4. Ninjaman, in telephone conversation with me, August 10, 2002. 5. Ninjaman, in telephone conversation with me, August 10, 2002. 6. Ras Dizzy, a talented intuitive painter whose work has been exhibited in art galleries in Jamaica and overseas and reproduced in books, wrote occasional letters that were distributed on the campus of the University of the West Indies, Mona. The one from which I quote is dated April 18, 1971. Ras Dizzy still sells paintings on the Mona campus more than three decades later. 7. Weekend Observer, March 6, 1998, 4. 8. Denise Noble, “Ragga Music: Dis/Respecting Black Women and Dis/Reputable Sexualities,” in Barnor Hesse, ed., Un/settled Multiculturalisms: Diasporas, Entan- glements, Transruptions, London: Zed Books, 2000, 151. 9. Thanks to Professor Hubert Devonish, Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, for clarification of the “folk etymology” argument outlined below. 10. Shabba Ranks, “Back and Bellyrat,” Track 4, Just Reality, Vine Yard Records, VYDCD 6, 1991. 306 | Sound Clash 11. Terror Fabulous, “Praise Jah & Live,” Track 2, Kette Drum, Digital B, DBCD 2039, n.d. 12. The Guardian, December 8, 1995, 14. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. We borrow this clever turn of phrase from the title of a book fleetingly glimpsed in a London bookshop for which we do not have the reference. 16. “Free Thinker,” “Right to Hold an Opinion,” Gleaner, March 8, 1993, 7. 17. George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place, London: Verso, 1994, 5. 18. Buju Banton, “Deportees (Things Change),” Track 4, Voice of Jamaica, Mercury, 518 013-2, 1993. 19. Julian Cowell, “Jamaicans in U.S. Prisons,” Abeng Newsletter 3, 1 (January-March 1998): 10. 20. Winston James, “Migration, Racism and Identity Formation: The Caribbean Expe- rience in Britain,” in Winston James and Clive Harris, eds., Inside Babylon: The Caribbean Diaspora in Britain, London: Verso, 1993, 245-46. 21. There are two dimensions to this: the comic one of the Jamaican interpretation of returnees from the United Kingdom, as “maddy maddy,” not least because of the brisk, nontropical pace at which they walk. The second dimension is more tragic: There is a substantial literature discussing the violence that a racist Britain wreaks on the mental health of Caribbean migrants. See, for example, Errol Francis, “Psychiatric Racism and Social Police: Black People and the Psychiatric Services,” in James and Harris, eds., Inside Babylon, 179-205. 22. Richard Burton, Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition and Play in the Caribbean, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997, 6. 23. For an elaboration of this argument, see Carolyn Cooper, “Slackness Hiding from Culture: Erotic Play in the Dancehall,” in Noises in the Blood, 136-173. 24. This theme is elaborated in the February 2002 Bob Marley lecture entitled “‘Incline Thine Ear’: Roots, Reality and Culture in Jamaican Dancehall DJ Music,” given by Cecil Gutzmore at the University of the West Indies, Mona. 25. Anthony B, “One Thing,” Track 3, Real Revolutionary, Greensleeves, GRELCD 230, 1996; apparently issued as So Many Things by VP in the United States. 26. David Scott, “‘Wi a di Govament’: An Interview with Anthony B.,” Small Axe 2 (September 1997): 88. 27. Anthony B, “Fire Pon Rome,” Track 8, Real Revolutionary, Greensleeves, GRELCD230, 1996. 28. Jamaican cultural analyst and radio talk-show host Tony Laing also makes this point on an “Impact” talk-show program focusing on dancehall culture, hosted by Cliff Hughes on CVM Televsion and first broadcast on November 24, 2002. 29. Edward Baugh, It Was the Singing, Toronto & Kingston: Sandberry Press, 2000, 74. 30. David Scott, “‘Wi a di Govament,’” 83. Bobo is Richard Bell, Anthony B’s manager. 31. Anthony B, “Nah Vote Again,” Track 7, Universal Struggle, VP Records, VPCD 1510 2, 1997.