A few months ago Jamaicans were greeted with the utterances from its Prime Minister concerning the nexus between the island's popular music and its nexus with criminality. Many Jamaicans were aghast with the Prime Minister's utterances and some even attempted to posit that he may have been looking for a scapegoat on which to pin the failure of his Administration to stem the island's blood-letting. While I disagreed with the generalized positions expressed by the Prime Minister, I am satisfied that his arguments were not without merit. In fact, I did make the connection between our music and criminality, this after tracing the early social conditions in Jamaica and the economic and geopolitical linkages.
The early 1960s saw the opening of the gates of self-awareness of Jamaica as a Nation-State and the charging of those with responsibility for governance to chart a course/direction for our developmental path as a people. It is clear that the Jamaica that emerged from the Independence process never involved everyday Jamaicans and those who piloted the process had very little connection with the social psyche of Jamaica that existed beyond Drumblair/St. Andrew and downtown now identified as the two Jamaicas.
For there was a Jamaica in which the governing class resided and a separate Jamaica in which the governed lived. Nowhere else reflected this disparity as did Western Kingston and from a political standpoint, nowhere else had the number of votes as did Western Kingston. In my book
“ Top Rankings-A Chronicle of the Origins of Jamaican Badness” I have delineated the birth and development of the “local bad-man” and the immersion of a huge swath of our people into acceptance of these states of affairs. For it is impossible to expect that having fertilized the development of a kind of negative-culture over the years and expect it not to eventually produce its real impact, a point made by Toots Hibbert in his classic 1969 hit “Pressure Drop” an anthem that said to the country "... we are all responsible."
The management and control of communities became commonplace as a political tool between 1963 and 1976 thanks courtesy of Edward Seaga and his antithesis Michael Manley. During this period the practice of “Benefits Politics” became normative and a key component of its maintenance was the local “Don” or “Top Ranking.” Again, the area of the greatest impact was Western Kingston and those caught up in the tornado produced by this debacle were ordinary Jamaicans who resided in these communities whose only desire was to make a living and to find a place where they could raise their families. John Holt captured these sentiments beautifully in his epic “Tribal War” (circa 1976 Channel One) as did Junior Murvin in the Anthem “Police and Thief”. Reggae music was therefore birthed as a vehicle to express the resentment felt by a huge swath of Jamaicans who the “system/ shit-stem” did not represent. Again mainstream or uptown Jamaica chose to ignore these voices through the refusal of radio stations to play this music. Consequently, the music developed its own outlet, thanks to the Dance Hall and the sound system movement finding oceans of space in a Jamaica fast developing an underground economy as ganja cultivation and export brought in bundles of US dollars that needed to find a way into the regular economy. Enter the modern stage show/dance-hall promoter and that too is another story....
The Dance Hall and the sound system had been around for decades where places like Bournemouth Social Club and Glass Bucket were the spaces where the big bands such as Byron Lee entertained upper and middle-class Jamaicans. Downtown developed its dance halls as well, and Forresters Hall, Chocomo Lawn where Coxsone’s Downbeat and Tom the Great Sebastain entertained the down-towners playing the music that would never receive airplay.
By the mid -1970s, the music had changed; the songsters were more prolific and the lyrical content more potent. Junior Byles’ Curly Locks and Beat Down Babylon; Bob Marley’s Concrete Jungle and Trench Town Rock challenged the system and called for a recognition of the everyday people but nothing changed. The music turned inwards and its faster beat reflected the anguish boiling within. Sound systems became the music outlets via regular dances…The great Oswald Ruddock (an engineer) built the formidable King Tubby’s High Fidelity sound system and as a new record producer burnt acetates for artists and made versions for himself to play on his own sound, some of which he offloaded to other sounds to use at sound clashes.
King Tubbys gave birth to Ewart Beckford (U-Roy) who 'niced' up the dances with his fast-talking over the versions and the modern DJ was born as did many more sound systems. Thus too was born the ghetto entertainment channel where weed and later cocaine became an integral element of the "feeling nice" culture. To protect these market channels, the guns normally engaged by the politicians became part of that “protective” landscape and the mechanics to provide cover for the ubiquitous “Promoter” giving further relevance (or) for want of a better expression a quasi-legitimization of the local “bad man.” Some of these promoters with their "New Money" became record producers and pointed/dictated (to the lesser-known more easily influenced artistes) the type of songs to be recorded and released. Much of this music was for the local dance halls and was never destined for "air-play" demonstrating the principle of "He who pays the piper, calls the tune."
By 1979/80 the music had again begun to change and the conscious lyrics of the enlightened singers had become too tame and sterile for the younger, fun-seeking crowd. Bob Marley had become an Icon and his message music had become global. Ghetto youth while revering Marley and the Dennis Browns’ wanted more. That was on the way…
More anon.
Painting : Black River, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. See more at: https://yardabraawd.com/
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