#yaba #yabass Jah Billah says: don’t sleep on this 2020 classic, no sah!
Art by Stanley Cush
If you don’t know Yabass, Alan ‘Yaba’ Blizzard, by now, time to know. Original UK sound from way back when you all had a smaller head. I remember the original DUB ark at Versionist.com would rejoice when new Yabass DUB would drop cause they were heavyweight guaranteed. Raw DUBness ahead!!! Respectfully recommended for all DUB heads who nah miss out on that old haunting roots DUB Sound. All instrument played with guests and mixed and recorded by Yaba himself. Released on Hornin’ Sounds label outta France. You can jump from easily selected Kunta Kinte version titled “Kinte Fights Pandemic” or start from the top to the very last drop. Fulljoy sound of Yabass Guardian of the Underground!
Writing music online is nothing new. In 1994 ResRocket was the first online ‘band’ project with over 1,000 participants who exchanged ideas and files via a mailing list and ftp server. By 1999 this had developed into one of the first live online music collaborations, screened on BBC TV in front of 55 million viewers. Bob Marley’s ‘Them Belly Full (but we hungry)’ was recorded live involving Sinead O’Connor, and Brinsley Forde in London, Thomas Dolby in San Francisco and Lucky Dube in South Africa. While this marked a radical change in online music production it would take another few years before such creative collaborations would have more mass appeal from a production standpoint.
An obvious change came in radical developments in music production itself. The advent of more accessible and affordable Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) which evolved from early pricey microprocessor based non-analogue tapeless systems, such as the Synclavier and Fairlight CMI to software such as DigiDesign’s Pro Tools, Logic Audio and Cubase ( the latter via the earlier pioneering Atari ST). Digitisation in more recent years has resulted in even cheaper or freeware options. A PreSonus soundcard for example comes with a free version of the company’s own DAW software called Studio One (Presonus, 2010). Reaper from Cockos calls itself ‘Audio Production without limits’ and while it can be purchased the free evaluation copy functions in exactly the same manner (Reaper, 2010).
Simultaneously, The Internet itself has changed dramatically in terms of bandwidth, speed and accessibility. We have moved from archaic (by today’s standards) brick sized modems for the few who knew how to use binary computer code in the mid-1980’s to more compact modems with increased bandwidth and more recently DSL and fibre optic connections. Ten years ago it was possible to send a wav or aiff file online, it may have taken a few hours but now, it is much faster and easier, taking perhaps 10-15 minutes for say a 54 megabyte wav file. This is usually done through file transfer web sites such as ‘Sendspace’ and ‘Yousendit’. Many musicians now work together through their own ftp sites accessible with a username and password through their own web sites.
These advances have made a-synchronous music collaboration much more accessible to more people online in different locations around the world.
Fully synchronised collaboration exists as well, although this is usually subscriber based with a fee and requires substantial outbound bandwidth, often not accessible to as many people.
So although it is possible to link up studios in real time by using a service such as ‘source direct’ or an Avid Satellite link the cost of these options would be substantially high. Synchronised music production online in different studios is still an emerging form of technology at least in terms of mass usage. It is likely, given rapid changes in technology that this may change through existing online communication tools, such as say Skype.
It is tempting at this point to view all these developments simply from a technologically deterministic standpoint, a view which one often finds in professional music production magazines which can be interpreted like a bunch of reviews on products, software and releases which exist in a kind of non-social world. I find such approaches based on technological determinism to be flawed from the outset as for me it is more important to understand how we can utilise various tools to create and make music through social engagement. The bottom line is not so much how the tools use us but how we use the tools and how these changes have had a sociological impact in interactive creative processes from symbolic and symbiotic points of view.
We have moved from a ‘sit-back-and-be-told culture’ to a ‘making-and-doing culture’. There are many social media web sites now which allow us to upload, share and exchange music, such as FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, ReverbNation, Myspace, Soundcloud and Soundclick to name just a few. More niche oriented social media sites and web portals that specialize in particular forms of music and music scenes also exist. So people work within specific genres and across them. For example, Dubstep, The Dub Scrolls, BeatPort, and HipHop Makers. Through such sites, generic and niche, I found myself working online with people in Greece, Malta, Portugal, Sweden, UK, USA, and Cyprus.
The main reasons why I engaged in online musical collaboration was partly a frustration I had with studio based work, particularly being a spoken word based artist based in Cyprus making reggae, where many local studios and producers lack experience in these genres. I also entered into online collaborations by being approached by various people, who were more grounded in the kinds of music I engage in, to work with them online.
What appealed most to me was the openness of the Internet and the fact that it allowed users to explore so many different avenues in an accessible and democratic manner. Immediacy was also a major bonus. A song as I found out could be created, recorded, edited, mixed and mastered in different places in say 24 hours. Additionally, various aspects of music production, distribution, promotion, and management became demystified. It became that much easier to make and share music with specific audiences via free social media web sites.
So independent net based labels, which Chuck D from Public Enemy dubbed as ‘Winties’ (web based independent labels) sprouted up in many countries around the world. The traditional filtering role played by radio and TV in the music industry in some ways became obsolete, after all much of the time they played only material that was signed to major labels and artists that had spent substantial amounts of money on their video clips. Now it is much easier to set up say a myspace account, upload some songs, live band footage, and gets known. Guerilla music making and self-marketing techniques are nothing new. They were deeply embedded in so many popular music scenes from punk rock to reggae. But the Internet suddenly gave that much more power to musicians to simply make, share and raise awareness of their existence. It is for example pointless and many people could also argue that it was from time, to send hundreds of cassettes or CD’s or vinyl demos out to record companies for consideration. Now an electronic press kit (EPK) could be assembled for free and sent to hundreds of targeted people with the click of a mouse.
Parts from Background – The Revolution has many interfaces! found in
#rebelmusic #reggae #rasta Ultimately, however, international reggae‘s appeal to international audiences may have had more to do with changes in the image of reggae artists, the packaging of the albums, and the sound of the music itself.
In his efforts to market the Wailers, for example, Blackwell first molded the Waiters‘ image into that of a rock-and-roll group. While reggae “groups” typically had consisted of a loose collection of singers and hired studio musicians, Blackwell promoted the Wailers as a stable, self-contained “band”—much like the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin.
Second, Blackwell led a new trend among Jamaica’s record producers toward original, thematic, and full-length LP (long-play) albums, again following the lead of rock-and-roll groups. Previously Jamaica’s record producers had distributed mostly singles or cheaply produced compilations of “greatest hits”.
Finally, those albums came packaged in glossy, well-produced jackets promoting the image of the rebellious, ganja-smokingRastafarian. On the back cover of the Waiters‘ 1973 album Burnin‘, for example, Marley was pictured smoking a 12-inch spliff, or marijuana cigarette. On Peter Tosh‘s 1976 album, Legalize It, the singer was photographed crouched down in a ganja field. Reggae album covers also emphasized the Rastafarian’s symbol of black defiance, the dreadlocks, or displayed the Ethiopian colors of red, green, and gold. The cover of the Wailers‘ 1980 album Uprising, for example, featured a drawing of Bob Marley, along with the album’s title in red, and a background of green mountains and a gold sun.
While most of the major instrumental innovations of international reggae were established during the early reggae period, international reggae was marked by a more sophisticated and polished studio sound. Most early reggae songs were recorded in primitive studios in Jamaica. International reggae, however, generally was recorded in state-of-the-art studios in the United States or Great Britain.
According to Jones, this helped to undermine “the common accusation made by rock fans that reggae was a music of ‘inferior’ quality”. In the first attempt to reverse this trend, Chris Blackwell took the Wailers‘ instrumental tracks for Catch a Fire, previously recorded in Jamaica, and remixed, edited, and mastered the tracks in a London studio.
Rock critics Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ken Tucker highlighted the dramatic change in reggae’s new sound: “Catch a Fire” was a “revolutionary example of reggae recording, far superior in its technology than most other reggae records”.
U.S. and British record producers also manipulated the instrumentation in reggae arrangements to create a lighter, “softer” reggae. Some U.S. record producers would deemphasize reggae’s dominant instruments, the electric bass guitar and drums, and push the keyboard and electric guitar to the front of the mix. In 1980, Jamaican dub poetLinton Kwesi Johnson provided a clear rationale for the systematic manipulation of the reggae sound: “[there was the] belief that the hard Jamaican sound, with the emphasis on the drum and the bass, would not be as accessible to the non-Jamaican listener as a lighter sounding production would be”.
To appeal to international audiences, reggae musicians also incorporated familiar genres of American music into the reggae arrangement.
During the remixing of the Wailers‘ Catch a Fire, for example, Blackwell dubbed traditional rock-and-roll instruments, including rock guitar and synthesizer, over the reggae beat. During the recording of the same album, a session guitarist, Wayne Perkins, also added guitar solos. Throughout their career, the Wailers dabbled in blues (“Talkin’ Blues” [Natty Dread]), funk (“Is This Love?” [Kaya]), and folk music (“Redemption Song” [Uprising]). Similarly, Toots and the Maytals, in their 1973 Funky Kingston, fused R&B and reggae into the album’s title song.
In sum, the new international success of reggae music in the 1970s may have been more the result of marketing and changes in its sound than changes in its “message.” Reggae was still a “rebel music.” Growing up in some of Jamaica’s worst slums, reggae musicians still critiqued Jamaica’s neocolonial society. Reggae musicians also expressed concern about international affairs, specifically political problems on the African continent. While still sensitive to the problems at home, they also began to identify themselves more as Africans than Jamaicans. In the final analysis, however, reggae’s international success probably was more the result of changes in its sound. Record producers improved and “softened” the reggae sound and incorporated new instruments, such as synthesizers and rock guitars, into the reggae arrangement. Reggae musicians also borrowed freely from musical genres including rhythm and blues and funk. Yet whatever the explanation, reggae’s sudden status as an international musical sensation focused unprecedented attention on the Rastafarian movement and exacerbated tensions within the move-ment. Indeed, the music created whole new groups of supposed Rastafarians apparently attracted to the movement by little more than the image of the “Rastaman” and the music itself. These “pseudo” Rastafarians had little in common with traditional Rastafarian principles and beliefs.
Parts of Chapter Reggae Music in the 1970s: “Bubbling on the Top 100” from:
Stephen A. King (1998) International reggae, democratic socialism, and the secularization of the Rastafarian movement, 1972–1980, Popular Music and Society, 22:3, 39-60, DOI: 10.1080/03007769808591713
Real versus fake Rastas Not unlike in many other Rasta communities around the world some of the more conservative religious brethren have introduced a view and language of authenticity with regards to what it means to be a Rasta. Framed in a discourse of cultural purity, they speak of so-called "real" and "unreal or “fake" Rastas. But, given the myriad of ways people in Cuba identify with and express Rastafari, who can be considered a “real” Rasta? The aim of my research has precisely been to go beyond fixed ideas of what constitutes a Rasta and instead look at how and why people define themselves as such and what processes go into making that identity. Apart from this all-inclusive approach, the movement’s own fragmented entrance into Cuba and the many ways in which it has been appropriated have led to the wide array of definitions and expressions of the movement.
Although I have grouped certain main characteristics together and created certain "types" of Rastas for analytical purposes, in actuality every individual has his/her own idiosyncratic understanding and way of manifesting Rastafari. Ulf Hannerz’s views on the social organisation of culture are particularly helpful in understanding Rastafari’s heterogeneous character in Cuba:
The social organisation of culture always depends both on the communicative flow and on the differentiation of experiences and interests in society. In the complex society, the latter differentiation is by definition considerable. It also tends to have a more uneven communicative flow - that is, different messages reach different people. The combined effect of both the uneven flow of communications and the diversity of experiences and interests is a differentiation of perspectives among the members of the society.
Rastafari in Cuba has been localised in just such a fashion. In an almost consumer-like attitude towards culture, individuals have selectively chosen, imitated and modified Rasta elements as well as mixed and matched them with other cultural practices. Whilst some have thus consciously hybridised different cultural elements together, others have kept them consciously apart by way of “cultural crossing” or “milieu-moving". Others yet again have adopted what Swidler (1986) has referred to as a “toolkit” attitude towards culture, in which people engage in their everyday activities by “selecting certain cultural elements (both such tacit culture as attitudes and styles and, sometimes, such explicit cultural materials as rituals and beliefs) and investing them with particular meanings in concrete life circumstances“. In illustrating their skills at maintaining, mixing and serially selecting facets of different lifeways and styles all Rastas have demonstrated a high degree of multiple cultural competence as well as an attachment to a multiplicity of identities. In addition, all Cuban Rastas, even those who insist on an ideology of purity, have to a greater or lesser extent juxtaposed and fused objects, symbols and signifying practices from different and separate domains and in so doing have produced new, creolised versions of Rastafari.
On the whole, what we thus find is a wide variety of identifications with the movement, which can perhaps best be described as a Rasta continuum, ranging from orthodox religious brethren and sistren to those who identify with Rasta as a style. This same continuum is in addition in constant flux as individuals engage in an ongoing process of learning, adding, copying and reinterpreting Rastafari symbols and doctrine. As a cultural phenomenon Rastafari can be said to be in a constant state of cubanisation.
Chapter from:
Katrin Hansing (2001) Rasta, race and revolution: Transnational connections in socialist Cuba, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27:4, 733-747, DOI:10.1080/13691830120090476
Wu Tang Clan acapellas and King Tubby riddims were pioneer champion mashups choice by Macro Dubplates and staple of Jah Billah selection since way back when.
Seems there is Wu Tang everything prophecy coming true. We reported about Wu+Fugazi as Wugazi before, here comes:
Wu-Tang Clan x Led Zeppelin – The Wu-Tang Zeppelin
Wu-Tang Vs. The Beatles – Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers
Wu-Tang Clan vs ATCQ – A Clan Called Wu : Enter the Marauders
Wu-Tang Clan Vs. Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Wu
Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Meets Rhythm and Blues
Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Meets Jazz
…And many more out there in digital wilderness including Wu Christmas mashups!
BONUS:
Wu-Tang Clan vs B.B. King – C.R.E.A.M
One of the most haunting remixes of all times with 85M views:
Wu-Tang Clan – Back In The Game – Phoniks Remix
Wu-Tang Clan vs Notorious B.I.G. – The Notorious Wu
Strictly vinyl mix from main man BissoMan with 50 crucial cuts of Bob Marley.
Tracklist: 1. Judge Not (Beverley’s Records) 2. Love and Affection (CBS) 3. Simmer down (CBS) 4. One Love (Studio One) 5. Mellow Mood (Wail ‘n Soul ‘M) 6. Stir It Up (Island) 7. Rock My Boat (Upsetter) 8. No Water (Mcps) 9. Reaction (Upsetter) 10. It’s All Right (Mcps) 11. Sugar Sugar (Impact!) 12. Mr Chatter Box (Striker Lee) 13. Soul Shake Down Party (Upsetters) 14. Soul Captives (Imperial International) 15. African Herbman (Babylon) 16. Sun Is Shining (Island) 17. Concrete Jungle (Randy’s) 18. Mr Brown (Mcps) 19. Kaya (Babylon) 20. Gonna Get You (Wea) 21. Do It Twice (Fonit-Cetra Internatinal) 22. Lively Up Yourself (Mcps) 23. Bunin’ and Lootin’ (Island) 24. Rastaman Chant (Island) 25. Rebel Music (‘3 o’Clock Road Block) (Island) 26. Them Belly Full (Island) 27. No Woman No Cry (Island) 28. Jah Live (Tuff Gong) 29. War (Island) 30. I Shot The Sheriff (Island) 31. Punk Reggae Party (Island) 32. Guiltiness (Island) 33. Want More (Island) 34. Rastaman Live up (Tuff Gong) 35. One Drop (Island) 36. Jammin’ (Long Version) (Island) 37. So Much Trouble In The World (Tuff Gong) 38. Exodus (Island) 39. Easy Skanking (Island) 40. Ambush in the night (Island) 41. Time Will Tell (Island) 42. Natural Mystic (Island) 43. Redemption Song (Island) 44. Rat Race (Island) 45. Work (Island) 46. Coming From The Cold (Tuff Gong) 47. Pimper’s Paradise (Island) 48. Could Be Love (Island) 49. Buffalo Soldier (Tuff Gong) 50. Iron Lion Zion (Collection Series)
Rastafarians have as common parlance the philosophy that word sound is power! After the 1960s, one can identify the development of a fraternity of Rastafari faithful, taking their message into musical expression. In much the same way perhaps that the Psalms are constructed as sacred records of the ‘livity’ of the Old Testament patriarchs. The philosophy of the Movement moved to some extent (but not entirely) off the street corners, due partly to colonial repression and police brutality, into ‘the mixing lab-Oratory’ to create music that would teach the lessons of Redemption of the African. Planno, in philosophizing to his students who would congregate in his yard in Trench town, West Kingston (including ones such as Don Drummond, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, Alton Ellis and Jimmy Cliff ) taught them to ‘tell out King Rasta doctrine around the whole world . . . Get your bible and read it, read it with understanding’ as his basic guide and teaching on liberating the individual. He would conduct his class room in the informal gatherings in his yard as together they built verses animating the experiences, ideals and aspirations of the Movement. The King James Bible consisting of its 66 books, the laws, Prophets, wisdom songs into the Revelation provided a source of reading, reasoning – analysis and interpretation. It was from this source that the Knowledge of liberation was to come, in particular from the Revelations in the Bible – revealing the identity of the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Sellassie I, the Power of the Trinity as the returned Messiah. Planno and a number of other brethren were to develop on the earliest teachings brought by the elders of the 1930s, a multifaceted cultural approach, and a network of over 60 bases in the west Kingston and the surrounding corporate area.
At these bases, the hitherto wayward – brothers in particular – became transformed, they could find hope, a receptive environment to mould and teach themselves about their identity, their history, the politics of the time, self-sufficiency and most importantly in the context of their survival how to develop a habit of industry – mostly focused on the development of self-employment ideas, and especially music that when it hit ‘yu feel no pain’. Music has been the product emanating from what has been described as the business of hardship resulting out of the Poverty Laboratory.
These bases provided vibrant centres for debates on life, philosophy, the politics of Jamaica and the globe especially as far as it affected the people of Africa, some centres even provided training in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. The community bases also provided shelter, humble though this may have been, where warm meals (often a one pot of porridge or ‘a sip’/soup) for all who came, books and newspapers, instruments, recording devices and of course the Wisdom Herb as sacrament to inspire the meditation and reasoning a way forward.
Soon west Kingston was to develop a reputation as a Mecca for musicians and scholars from all across Jamaica and surely enough became a fascination for researchers from around the world, the attraction being the Rastafarians and secondarily their cultural panacea – the emerging institution/industry of reggae music.
Excerpt from: Jalani Niaah (2003) Poverty (lab) oratory:Rastafari and cultural studies, Cultural Studies.
OUT OF MANY COME DUB AND OUT OF DUB COME ONE 