Love, laughter and music #2
March 15th, 2002 by freddie96
The language of love
One of the reasons why so many people fall in love with Jamaica must be down to the extraordinary amount of positivity in the air. This is a country which has seen international investment come and go, major industry rise and fall (its bauxite mines no longer command world production of that mineral), violence and poverty proliferate. Yet the Jamaican people are not down. They know they are heir to a spirit that can never be killed.
It is no exaggeration to say that spirit is the spirit of love. Unlike any other culture I can think of, Jamaican culture is unafraid to talk about love at every level of social discourse. Tune into a political discussion on Irie FM and you will hear politicians, local leaders and teachers speak of the need for love between people to heal the divisions that split apart families, communities and, more broadly, nations. The same is equally true of church preaching and bar talk. Everyone knows it is true: love is the only thing that can save humanity from its hateful ways. One love.
Reggae music is the driving force behind Jamaica’s love of love. Although it no longer commands the kind of international attention and sales that made it such a force to be reckoned with through the seventies and early eighties, reggae too is not down. Amongst contemporary reggae artists, there are a significant number of passionately conscious – and highly talented – lyricists and rootsmen who are committed to continuing the spread of reggae’s message of love to the world. Luciano, Sizzla, Ras Shiloh, Beres Hammond, Morgan Heritage…there is no shortage of talent out there.
Nonetheless the future of reggae is on a great many people’s minds. For wha appen if reggae die? It would be the death knell of an entire mentality and, almost undoubtedly, the dream of Jamaican independence. For the message of love embedded in reggae is simultaneously a rejection of the American culture of materialism that currently threatens to swamp the entire globe. Conscious Jamaicans know they cannot afford to get too involved with the US because it is a greedy, divisive culture that have no love for the black man. So reggae has in a very real sense been tasked with the job of sustaining Jamaican pride and self-belief. Lose that, and it loses the battle for black self-determination which has been raging in that part of the world these last few hundred years. It is an unthinkable prospect.
For that reason, great optimism attaches itself to figures such as Buju Banton and Capleton. Both were formerly dancehall icons who have abandoned slackness – Buju famously made his name with the homophobic ‘Boom Bye Bye’ – in favour of roots consciousness. At the same time, what is defined as roots consciousness is deliberately being broadened out. Morgan Heritage may have made quite a stir with their declaration ‘You don’t ha fe be dread to be Rasta’, but they know the old ways need renewal if they are to survive.
For Morgan Heritage overstan that while Rastafarianism might have needed to be rigorously exclusive in its early days as a faith – look back to St Paul or Mohammed to see how this was once true of Christianity and Islam too – it need not be so any more due to the widespread sympathy for its essential teachings. They are keen to use that sympathy as a platform for widening the spread of black faith even further.
Hence Morgan Heritage’s deliberate rejection of the idea that you need dreads to be Rasta. After all, they say, look how many people smoke ganga and eat ital (veggie) food – two central tenets of the Rasta faith. Are not these people part of the same struggle for an alternative, more loving way of life? If they have love for Rasta in their hearts, are they not to all intents and purposes Rasta themselves? Important questions which need to be asked.
It’s reasoning like this that leads Jamaicans to welcome overseas reggae lovers with open arms. They know that the continuing love for the golden days of reggae that is sustained in the UK and beyond by people like Dave Rodigan, Steve Barrow and Lloyd Bradley is a vital source of emotional, ideological and financial support in Jamaica’s struggle for survival. Conversely, it’s a very good reason why all music lovers – especially Big Chillers – should not forget what reggae still has to teach us. It is as relevant now – if not more so – as it ever was. Nobody committed to the dream of a society united through love can afford to ignore it.
Bob Marley, Lee Scratch Perry, Augustus Pablo, the Mighy Diamonds, Gregory Isaacs, Jimmy Cliff, Marcia Griffiths, Jackie Mittoo, Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Peter Tosh, Culture, Toots and the Maytals, King Tubby, Dennis Brown, Horace Andy, Coxone, Junior Murvin, Freddie McGregor, John Holt…great names all. Let’s not forget what they have to teach us. One blood, one love.
Freddie B, April 2001
