rich whites n2 reggae

M

mms

sometimes
why is it that rich white people go for reggae so much and with such superficial fervour.
at the very good channel one night the other evening my good friend simon became quite infatuated with a group of young ladies dressed in full queen of sheba rasta lady clothing and headresses, they looked very serene and out of time and he was very excited so he talked to them. One of them was black the others were white and it turned out they weren't really adepts of rastafari but liked the clothes and the music and came from chelsea and wealthy backgrounds.

i dunnundertand the trustafarian thing, why do they choose reggae, i've nothing against it but it a bit fascinating. why is it roots reggae that attracts people and definitley not something like ska?

roots reggae is such marmite music, divides opinion, however everyone likes a bit of ska except probably them, even bonehead skins like ska!
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
replace reggae with any other genre in the subject line and you have the demographic of dissensus in one go!
 
M

mms

sometimes
gumdrops said:
replace reggae with any other genre in the subject line and you have the demographic of dissensus in one go!
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hardly, you should meet some of these people, common as muck, and im not just talking about me!
 
3

3underscore

Well-known member
I think this reflects my point on Stelfox's "world music" thread. It is anything to seem a bit more cultured, normally tapped onto having recently been travelling while the rest of the world has been working. Normally you will look into the deepest, darkest eyes at the mention of double seven, least of all anything a bit more adventurous.

I am a miserable cynic, btw.
 
M

mms

sometimes
3underscore said:
I think this reflects my point on Stelfox's "world music" thread. It is anything to seem a bit more cultured, normally tapped onto having recently been travelling while the rest of the world has been working. Normally you will look into the deepest, darkest eyes at the mention of double seven, least of all anything a bit more adventurous.

I am a miserable cynic, btw.
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its weirder than that, it's some odd replicant thing i think.
 
3

3underscore

Well-known member
I think - "why not ska?" is a difficult question. I can't see them having any problem listening to Jackie Mitto if you put it on, or a hell of a lot of other stuff.

If you are talking "why not suits, skinny ties and pork pie hats".... :p
 
M

martin

----
mms said:
even bonehead skins like ska!
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If a white rich kid is trying to come across as sophisticated, politically conscious and open-minded, they're not going to get that message across to potential new friends and admirers as easily if they slam on "Loch Ness Monster" or "Skinheads Don't Fear".

But I have to disagree a bit, as I think ska's become just as much a fascination for middle class ex-goth journos who like wearing Fred Perrys and playing a bit of 'Liquidator' while flicking through 'Zoo' and adopting fake Dennis Waterman accents (their girlfriends remain, however, solidly prim and proper - they know what sides their wheatgrain slices are buttered on)

And also, I knew someone who was a complete racist but he loved Culture, Jnr Murvin and Linton Kwesi Johnson
 
M

mms

sometimes
weird isn't it, i went to a leaving do a month or so ago for this girl who is going to brazil to become a teacher, one of the things she's teaching is capoira that hardcore brazillian dancing stuff, she's teaching it to brazillian kids, how fucked is that? She's from Dorset.
 
O

Omaar

Guest
Yeah there's quite a bit of that going on in Wellington, NZ too. Especially with respect to roots reggae. I think the appreciation of roots stuff has a bit of history here in NZ, and from what little I know it's been a part of contemporary Maori culture since the 70s which is cool. But for some time now its been one of the dominant genres in Wellington . So there are lots of white middle class males who produce this roots reggae emulation which apart from sounding pretty naff is just simulation without any authenticity or attempt to do anything interesting with the music. Mostly anyway.

I'm also irritated by the way this subculture bandies around all these slogans about one love etc but has no willingness to engage seriously with any political issues. It seems like it's all just for show.

Plus the fawning devotion exhibited by fans of this scene seems to resemble some kind of blind religious fervour.
 
B

Backjob

Well-known member
mms said:
weird isn't it, i went to a leaving do a month or so ago for this girl who is going to brazil to become a teacher, one of the things she's teaching is capoira that hardcore brazillian dancing stuff, she's teaching it to brazillian kids, how fucked is that? She's from Dorset.
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I dunno, this is presumably something that involved a lot of active commitment and action on her part, can't really lump that in with buying a woolly hat and some king size rizla...

(I mean I don't know the girl, but I'm assuming she must be pretty good at capoeira to be teaching it, right?)
 
M

mms

sometimes
Backjob said:
I dunno, this is presumably something that involved a lot of active commitment and action on her part, can't really lump that in with buying a woolly hat and some king size rizla...

(I mean I don't know the girl, but I'm assuming she must be pretty good at capoeira to be teaching it, right?)
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absolutley she looks good as well as i'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying. the point was she is going to teach brazillian kids something she learnt off Brazillians who have come to London, it's some strange full circle.

but these women i'm talking about also looked wonderful in a studied way, very otherworldy, quite brave to dress like that but these are superficial commitments after going so far and a bit unexplainable, maybe that adds to the mystery, maybe it's like wearing an empty weetabix box on your head because you want to, but it should surely mean more.
 
P

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
I'm with Polz.

I read a book about Francophone Africa a couple years ago that was written by an English businessman and one of the guys he met on his travels (in Senegal I think, but it's been a while) was a guy who was totally enthusiastic about Wales, to the extent that he had learnt Welsh and decorated his home with all kinds of Welsh memorabilia. Which is unusual for West Africa, but fun.

Eccentricity is cool.
 
M

michael

Bring out the vacuum
Omaar said:
Yeah there's quite a bit of that going on in Wellington, NZ too. Especially with respect to roots reggae. I think the appreciation of roots stuff has a bit of history here in NZ, and from what little I know it's been a part of contemporary Maori culture since the 70s which is cool. But for some time now its been one of the dominant genres in Wellington .
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Yeah, just a touch. ;)

Re: the connections with Maori culture, on Katchafire's website they used to say that NZers bought the most Bob Marley albums per capita outside Jamaica and that about half of those sales were to Maori. Statistically got to be completely impossible to verify, but the idea doesn't seem at all surprising.

Omaar said:
I'm also irritated by the way this subculture bandies around all these slogans about one love etc but has no willingness to engage seriously with any political issues. It seems like it's all just for show.
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Yeah, the local radio station that holds a big day time reggae party on Waitangi Day (which is also Marley's birthday) copped a bit of flak for saying this year they were actively opposed to having political content at the day.
 
O

Omaar

Guest
michael said:
Yeah, the local radio station that holds a big day time reggae party on Waitangi Day (which is also Marley's birthday) copped a bit of flak for saying this year they were actively opposed to having political content at the day.
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yeah an activist friend told me that on the day of the 'one love' waitangi day bob marley birthday thing some activists asked if they could announce on stage that there was going to be a demo at the governor generals's house .. about treaty of waitangi/foreshore issues? - I don't actually know what the protest was about. Anyway the 'one love' people wouldn't even announce it over the PA. If it was over treaty stuff, that seems to make that stance even more dumb considering reggae's history in NZ.

Is this the Ethno-Tourism/Murs thread or the rich whites n2 reggae thread?
 
M

mms

sometimes
polz said:
i saw a documentary some years ago about ghanaian girls (in ghana) who were totally into bollywood films and indian dancing (with the eyes and the hands) so what does this make them?

in discussions like this i always get the feeling that white people will have to pay indefinitely for the heinous crimes of their forfathers. So ok, some white people like reggae and capoeira. Some of them will be posers, some off them will genuinely love it and some of them will be somewhere in the middle. The same thing with the wiggaz or whatever they are called, white suburban fans of gangsta rap. I see that it might be interesting that people love or say they love something that is totally not of their world, but why has it always have to be about white people, most of the time with some hints to the fact that white guys cant dance, dont have soul or whatever.

When the discussion was about Living Colour (remember them) it was always about that black rock artists were discriminated against, that rock originally was a black thing. (Jimi Hendrix) It was never like "who do these guys think they are, messing with our white heritage" (and i'm glad it wasnt) Non white people also like things that are not (or supposedly not) of 'their' world. That might be interesting as well
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thats not what i am saying, i haven't criticised any of them anywhere,
the story started about a group of women that (bravely ) replicated rasta dress codes but not belief systems and came from wealthy backgrounds. i like reggae but i'm not a rasta or anything and i'm not about to beat myself up for being white and i don't expect anyone else to unless they want to.
i also made the point of asking why it is that rich people who wish to deiviate from their cultural baggage have made a point of using reggae as a carrier, so much that there is an expression to describe them ie trustafarian.
as for the capoeria girl i think that is just a very strange example of cultural exchange.
i think your sort of grumpy defensive argument has got the wrong end of the stick really .
 
D

droid

Guest
Tried to post this yesterday, but the site was down...

mms said:
why is it that rich white people go for reggae so much and with such superficial fervour.
at the very good channel one night the other evening my good friend simon became quite infatuated with a group of young ladies dressed in full queen of sheba rasta lady clothing and headresses, they looked very serene and out of time and he was very excited so he talked to them. One of them was black the others were white and it turned out they weren't really adepts of rastafari but liked the clothes and the music and came from chelsea and wealthy backgrounds.
Click to expand...

Ive never really understood how white men/boys can buy into the cultural and religious side of reggae, (apart from smoking weed ;) ) seeing as rastafarinism inherently excludes most non-blacks and anyone not from the 72 nations of the Tribes of Israel, but the white girl-turban+robe-rasta business is well freaky. Ive seen a lot of them at festivals and gigs (sometimes with black 'rasta' boyfriends), and Ive often wondered what on earth would attract them to a religion that discriminates against them on the basis of race, and is, in some ways as oppressive as fundamentalist Islam in its treatment of women?

It never even occured to me that they might just have been a bunch of poseurs!
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
i was at one of those bobs birthday/waitangi day things, in glen innes, in auckland. this is just an aside
by the wahy
it was pretty weird. all the gangs were out. they were riding big harleys through the crowd. they had leather waistcoats with gang patches on the back over bare chests. they had tattoos. the little aprentice kids were milling around i remember one of them being given a black power chain and it just transformed him. he started strutting around like he was ten foot tall. freaky day really. i did like it though. there was loads of little kids too collecting shellfish from the riverbanks. those gangs are so old skool. they're on a 50s thing.
 
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