Spanish Reggae Rant.

I think I must have waited 15 years for a piece like Wayne's. Ever since I heard about putative connections between the Clave beat and Steely and Cleevie's rhythms. Big up your hairy chest Wayne. When I at last made it to Kingston in 1991 and I picked up the seven inch of Dave Kelly's production for Buju Banton's "Batty Rider" in Halfway Tree (shameless boasting here) I had the feeling that the Jamaica I'd come looking for, at a time when I was obsessing over Coxsone had somehow disappeared over the horizon. Where did that freaky beat come from?

cf Spanish Reggae. The rogue seafaring father of an old girlfriend of mine told us he'd heard rapping years before it broke. He'd heard it in South America he said. I dunno if Roy knew about toasting in Jamaica, but obviously the meme was pan-caribbean.

Which makes one ponder, surely then Jamaica's music history could be subsumed in that of it's neighbours. Maybe Wayne's the one to write a proper delocalised version of that history. One which takes in Cuba, Colombia, Antigua and threads Reggae through Calypso and Mento. Sure Lloyd Barnes touches ever so lightly on this in "Bass Culture", but yunnuh, not really. There's talk of Kitchener and Sparrow inflecting Reggae isnt there.

But (sound of needle ripping across vinyl) HOLD ON FOLKS!!!! Isn't this starting to miss the whole point? Seeing it like this the "Shanty House" meme (or whatever the f*** you want to call it, frankly I couldn't give a shit) running virulently unchecked. And that point is that the Jamaican identity through those years of startling fecundity (at least musically) wasn't focussed on its local borders at all. It was an alien mindset, on the one hand intensely local, riding an eternal feedback loop and on the other, and surely this is the point, locked on to American R'n'B and Rock as though it's life depended on it. New Orleans and The South was the source. Listen to those early Upsetter instrumentals and it's strictly Booker T and The MGs and The Meters. And practically nothing else.

How many cover versions of Calypso and Mento can you name in Reggae? How many covers of Soul, Funk, Disco or even Rap tunes? Shedloads. Lots and lots innit. Lots and lots and lots. My favourite JA musical anecdote is Scratch saying that he got the idea for the Reggae Beat (and yes some people think Mento has something to do with it, but that doesnt really add up in the context), he got the feeling for the Reggae Beat from American Hard Rock. And that the heavy Dub took it's cues from things like Led Zeppellin and Black Sabbath.

OK sure this might be the case for today's dancehall. Dancehall really must be just another node on the glocal riddim network. But you know what, and this aint gonna make me lots of chums, that's exactly why Jamaican music is as boring and inconsequential as it's become. It's lost it's cosmic/stratospheric perspective and has sunk to the level of a dialect. Something like Grime (at least over the past 4 years, though it's future is currently in the balance with pabulum like "The Avenue", just heard this piece of crap, it's not on the Roll Deep LP is it, must have listened straight past if it it was) has been just that over-ambitious bursting-with-energy and ideas that Reggae was once, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Which brings me to my final thought, in this solid gold rant, if the future is Reggaeton, in the US and Jamaica (even!) what's that going to do but relegate the also fabulously fecund UK-JA axis to the dustbin of History? What room is there for English speakers in the underground ha ha ha? And I'm only being half-playful, KISS is on in the background at the office I'm working in and I've heard nearly 5 Spanish tracks today. Chortle, maybe we need a "Save the English tongue" mega-blog!

wayneandwax said:

woebot, you've essentially sensed the background to my dissertation/book: i.e., understanding jamaican music in the context of the caribbean, the americas (north and south and central), and the wider world, and understanding the music of the americas and the wider world in the context of reggae's international influence. i'll be focusing mainly on the interplay between JA and the US, but i'll do my best to put this in the context of a longstanding tradition of incorporating foreign music into a locally-produced (and largely locally-directed) aesthetic.

along those lines, though, yes, we see dancehall's reflection of its engagement with hip-hop and R&B (and soon perhaps, if not already, even grime and reggaeton), but i'm not sure that makes contemporary dancehall any less rich than reggae has ever been. yeah, there's a lot of crap out there, but that's to be expected in a mass market industry unfortunately. we find the same thing everywhere, i'm afraid. still, i'd side with stelfox in with regard to the so-called fecundity of jamaican music today.

the established story of reggae--as symbolized by the bradley book you mention--does seem to downplay, almost dangerously, jamaica's sustained engagement with the outside. this distortion, which fits neatly alongside nationalist narratives, is one thing i hope to "correct" in my work. understanding the contours of jamaican musicians' use of materials "from farin" gives us a better sense of jamaica's social history and of the cultural politics that have evolved in step with new economic and political situations, as burdened by the legacies of colonialism, and under the effects of US neo-imperialist dominance.

and, yeah, i hope to demonstrate all of this by following rhythms and riffs around, so i'm glad that you and others dug the reggaeton piece. (i'd blush but for the hair.)

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well, i'm tantalised by the prospect of the book Wayne! i'd probably restate my convction that JA did for those years have an improbably scewered focus. for all the political alliance's with cuba, identification with angola, occasional influences from calypso it does seem that the US Mass media via New Orleans and Hollywood (Dirty Harry, Sergio Leone etc) is what really caught the Jamaica's imagination, and gives it this "dreaming island" quality.

and again congratulations on that piece. i don't have anything like the proper musicological knowledge to draw those fantastically elucidating beat charts.

the fox said:

(paraphrasing)fecundity/grime/influence

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as for the impact of Jamaican toasting on Grime, well 'scuse me if this appears to be a bit of side-stepping (though Wayne himself makes the same kind of move in saying that the Reggaeton beat is influenced by an earlier phase of dancehall riddims) but ragga chatting was surely planted here a very long time ago. i wonder if Riko Dan doesnt owe more to Shabba than Elephant Man. and the Grime beat (with the exception of something like DJ Mondie's productions) owes little or nothing to Jamaica's current riddims....

also i'm glad people get stuff out of current dancehall, but in comparison to the sheer cornucopia of choons and breathless invention of the mid to late sixties and seventies, surely there's NO COMPARISON! even Grime, in its tiny capacity, has had bigger "Hits" than JA music! maybe this is my "western" perspective (obviously i'd try and palm it off as a universalist one!)