During the same decade, it inspired the first rappers in the USA, giving rise to hip-hop culture. Finally, since the end of the s, it has also influenced singers originating from Africa, the Ivorian singers Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly, and the South African Lucky Dube clearly illustrating this point.
Thus, my paper will examine the impact of reggae music on the worldwide cultural universe, focusing particularly on Europe, the USA and Africa. And despite the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, the immigration of Jamaicans to the UK, especially England, remained rather significant throughout the s. Thus, in the late s-early s, England had a large Jamaican community. Most of Jamaican migrants lived in working-class districts such as Tottenham North London and Brixton South London , the latter having probably the largest concentration of Jamaican immigrants in the UK.
It was basically in that context that the Jamaican popular music of the time, ska, rocksteady and early reggae, gained followers within the Jamaican expatriate communities through the sound system subculture 1.
In the meantime, a youth counterculture movement was surfacing in the same London working-class districts: the skinheads. They used to cut their hair close, both to help their fashion and prevent their hair from impeding them in street fights. They used to meet every Saturday to attend football matches and support their local teams, which often ended in massive fights between opposing supporters.
At night, for example, mods used to dress in their finest clothes and go to Black night clubs to dance to Afro-American music like rhythm and blues and soul music which they were absolutely fond of. They also often went to dancehall 2 so as to dance to new sounds brought by Jamaican immigrants such as ska, rocksteady and early reggae.
At these gatherings, mods and Jamaican rude boys danced, laughed and drank together, sharing their taste for these musical genres. It is worth underlining that the rude boy movement erupted in the early s as a distinct force among the unemployed young males of Kingston.
Many of the young became rude. Thus, mods and rude boys merged together giving rise to the skinhead movement. In an interview that I conducted with Roddy Moreno, leader of The Oppressed and an emblematic figure of the skinhead movement, the latter said:. We would attend all night Blues parties together and many young Blacks were skinheads themselves.
Remember the [Jamaican] migrants were relatively poor and so the working class kids had more in common with them than with the middle and upper classes of Britain. We lived on the same streets, went to the same schools and we partied together. Indeed, they lived in the same poor London areas, they were bound by their country history, and they were united by the same spirit of rebellion and a mutual love of football, street fights, clothing, music, drugs above all marijuana called ganja in Jamaican Patois and so on.
But, by the mid s, the British National Front BNF started recruiting skinheads as street soldiers since they were known for their violence and there was an ideal breeding ground for racism. It was at that stage that racism infiltrated into the skinhead movement.
However, despite this regrettable divide, the traditional skinhead movement has perpetuated itself, giving rise to similar branches throughout the world, especially in Europe and the USA 6. Photo 1. Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster surrounded by Spanish skinheads. In an interview that I conducted with Don Letts, he explained to me how he happened to play reggae in this famous punk-oriented club:. With your hands on your head Or on the trigger of your gun When the law break in How you gonna go?
Actually, punk rock and reggae music, though completely different from a musical perspective, shared some similarities, to begin with the fact that they both were counterculture musical movements, spreading a message of rebellion against the Establishment. In other words, punks and Rastas shared a same idea of freedom and of rebellion against social norms and the setting of these norms 8. It gave rise to new musical genres such as drum and bass, jungle and trip-hop, the latter being pioneered by artists like Massive Attack, Portishead or Tricky.
The three of them are originating from Bristol South West, England. Besides remix, the sound system subculture has also greatly impacted on the British electronic musical scene, resulting in the rave or free parties, namely events held outdoors or in disused buildings.
Spiral Tribe, a group of artists originating from London were among the first to organize this type of unlicensed parties in the UK in the early s.
It is worth adding that dreadlocks and ganja which belong to the world of ravers also seem to result from the Jamaican reggae universe. Such musical and social phenomena are not exclusively linked with the UK, but they have spread throughout Europe. France, for instance, is another European country which has been greatly influenced by reggae both musically and culturally.
In the meantime, numerous young people of African and French Caribbean origins recognized themselves in the socio-politico-spiritual message conveyed by Jamaican reggae music, which gave birth to a French reggae school pioneered by artists like Pablo Master, Princess Erika, Daddy Yod, General Murphy, Daddy Nuttea or Tonton David. The previous mentioned artists remained on top until the mids when they got overshadowed by a new wave of reggae artists mostly composed of white singers such like Pierpoljak, Sinsemilia, Tryo, Baobab and Mister Gang among others.
Among the latter, it is important to mention singers like Lord Kossity, Mr. The second fact is that France is a former colonial power, which has played a direct role in the fact that French society is clearly a multicultural and multiethnic one.
Consequently, many immigrants and young people of African and West Indian origins have been recognizing themselves in this musical style denouncing slavery, colonialism, exclusion and oppression. Indeed, Blacks are generally spiritual and mystic people. Finally, the Jamaican-African reggae rhythm does appeal to these people of African and Caribbean descents.
The following excerpts will give the reader a general idea of what French reggae is:. Est-ce toi qui ne veux pas perdre la face? Who represents a threat? It denounces slavery, African unity and solidarity as well as Black pride. This tune is obviously built in the purest Rasta tradition. They also implicitly defend the multicultural and multiethnic aspects of French society. So for almost three decades, reggae and dancehall, just like rap, rock and techno music, have been part of the French musical universe and numerous French people, from various backgrounds and origins, have embraced the Rasta lifestyle and ideology.
Photo 2. Daddy Mory, founder member of Raggasonic. These migrants remained in contact with Jamaica through regular trips to their homeland and never lost touch with the cultural evolution that took place on the island. Thus, when in the late s-early s, toasting also known as DJ style became in vogue in Jamaica, pioneered by artists like U Roy or Big Youth, this new genre deriving from reggae rapidly reached New York. Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc, who moved to the Bronx, New York, in , was instrumental in originating rap music and hip-hop culture Chang In the following decades, numerous American rappers of Jamaican background became famous such as Notorious B.
Firstly, they both emerged from a context of oppression and both reflect the lifestyle and sensibilities of black inhabitants of urban ghettos. Secondly, both cultures rebel against the Establishment. In the late 50s, ska, the direct ancestor of reggae music, with its rhythmic guitar stabs and concern for issues both personal and political, shot straight outta Kingston, bringing with it rude boy culture and a certain bad boy swag.
Its stars, such as Prince Buster, The Skatalites and The Wailers a vocal group which featured a youth called Robert Nesta Marley , enjoyed lengthy careers, and one of the record companies which specialised in issuing it, Island, eventually became a major label in a wide range of genres. Nickie Lee was not the last non-Jamaican artist to fall under the influence of Prince Buster. But though pub-rock was a back-to-the-roots music, some more illustrious British bands of the era were also reggae-aware.
The Rolling Stones also enjoyed Jamaican grooves, recognizing a rootsy parallel with the blues that had originally inspired the band. A few rungs down the star status ladder of British 70s rock , some prog acts also took a fancy to Jamaican groove. A prog band playing ska songs? Reggae around the world The possibilities of Jamaican rhythm were not only explored by British bands. Ace Of Base enjoyed several hits with a re-tooled Swedish variant of the lates Jamaican dancehall sound.
But proof that reggae music had really touched US musical consciousness arrived when major US rock bands adopted its rhythms in the 70s. Punky reggae parties While Eagles and Steely Dan were enjoying their reggae-hued hits, a very different rock and skank fusion was being forged in the UK. British punk bands, seeking non-mainstream allies, queued up to pay homage to Jamaican sounds. Sometimes the results could be clunky but the intentions were sincere. British post-punk rose on a sea of skank.
There was no resentment for their rise in Jamaica: when they covered reggae songs they made sure the original writers got the payday of their lives. There were numerous reggae labels founded by Jamaican expats in New York City and Miami in the 70s, but the music was generally drowned out by the wider culture of soul and funk.
The birth of hip-hop In the late 70s, some jazz-funkers were tempted to skank; flautist Herbie Mann made an album called Reggae , and guitarist Eric Gale played on Negril , a jazzy jam of an LP featuring US and Jamaican musos. DJ Kool Herc, often cited as the pioneer who made hip-hop rock the block in the first instance, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, before his family moved to The Bronx when he was Reggae music gets heard because mobile sound systems play it, while DJs — MCs, toasters, rappers, whatever you want to call them — talk over the top.
A way of life Reggae music is so ubiquitous that, to some extent, it is now regarded as just another resource for pop and rock musicians, which makes it curious that previous generations of non-Jamaicans struggled to capture its vibe. Some white rockers who tried to play it in the early 70s came up with clunky if interesting results, but a fusion of pop and skank comes over as perfectly natural today. But it was the topical character of so much reggae that launched a musical revolution.
But it was not the Rastafari themselves who enabled this template. Nor could it be taken for granted that a Rasta-influenced music would prosper given the traditional hostility of the political elites and the middle class to the Rastafari. Emperor Haile Selassie I—deified by the Rastafari from the early s as their God and King—had attracted the support of the entire Black world when Italy invaded his kingdom in Lightning flashed and torrents of rain fell in the hours prior to his landing, but those present swear that the sun broke out immediately as the wheels of his plane touch Jamaican soil.
The moment served as a stunning wakeup call for to political leaders who heretofore failed to gauge the scope of the influence the Rastafari had upon the Jamaican masses. The Rastafari, who had heretofore never taken the national stage, were thrust into the spotlight on that occasion when the Emperor awarded gold medals to thirteen Rastafari leaders for their Pan-African works and commitments.
The act had enormous social and political impact. Much has been written about the relationship between reggae and the philosophy and worldview of the Rastafari, but one aspect of this relationship that warrants special note is the sense of time projected in so many original reggae compositions. The peremptory upbeat of the traps [drums], which seldom vary from song to song, is less an introduction than the articulation of a flow that never seems to have stopped.
This is no climax, there is no end. The music merely fades out into the continuum of which it seems an unending part. Some have argued that it is the spirit of African resistance found in reggae that constitutes its wider appeal. It was from this spirit that the seeds of roots reggae would flower into a golden age ca. Rastaman, live up! Congoman, live up, yeah! Think of reggae compositions that expressed support for armed liberation movements in the frontline states of southern Africa during the s.
As Winnie Mandela would attest when she visited Jamaica in the early s, reggae songs like these were routinely listened to in South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique and were a very real source of moral support to African freedom fighters during the years of their liberation struggles.
These songs also created a popular concept of racialized belonging shared by both diaspora and continental Africans. While male artists tended to dominate the reggae the roots reggae scene during the s both at home and abroad, as well as during the s when it was popular mostly abroad, female artists have made their contributions.
She had her own solo career and arguably remains the most successful woman in roots reggae. Since the transition of her husband, Bob Marley, Rita Marley continued her recording career and became a Pan-African activist working with governments and groups on the African continent to assist communities.
Through her foundation, she mounted the Africa Unite concert series which stive to spread global awareness about and find solutions to issues affecting Africa. Starting in the mids, a revival of roots reggae again swept Jamaica, with a host of female artists rising to the fore.
Certainly there are women in other genres of reggae, most notably in dancehall, but this new generation of artists reflects a promising development with respect to the role of women in roots reggae. Can you think of a country of comparable size to Jamaica with approximately 2.
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