On role of the Deejay

Dominant and subversive versions of Africa and African history reproduced the dynamic outlined above but on an international scale.
In Britain in the 1980s imperial relations were being re-imagined in the context of humanitarian aid. Black youths in Britain wielded their African heritage as a tool to build their communities and give voice to their analysis.
Meanwhile the mainstream press, and charitable structures,were also building a version of Africa; one of helpless victims of natural disasters.

Given such a context, the ‘performance’ that is being considered here contains dialogues that traverse the African diaspora and are based on the acquisition of‘oral skills’ in Creolised language, which acted as a mode of response to the imposition of European culture on non-European peoples. Resistance became most evident in the contested spaces constructed around specific types of language-use that expressed an alternative black subjectivity that bridged intergenerational gaps within black communities.

The use of particular linguistic forms, both oral and scribal, continued the type of ‘pan Caribbean consciousness‘ that was necessary for the Windrush Generation’s survival and was passed down to the generations born in Britain thereafter.
For many deejays, therefore, the world view expressed through the usage of Standard English reduced them to the voiceless, passive victims of a Eurocentric historical bias.
By blending several aspects of Jamaican oral culture with their own local argot, deejays verbally presented critiques of certain entrenched ideas, for instance, poetry as an exclusively white domain.


This type of engagement was exemplifed in a lyric performed on Diamonds Sound System by the British deejay Papa Benji, which suggested that
‘poetry me better than Shakespeare, and me voice gone clear everywhere’.

The deejay thus became the veritable keeper of memories, for once the word was performed, recorded and disseminated, it became an artefact; a historical document.
It also enabled the performers to present their own arguments, in their own words and on their own terms in a ‘commonly agreed language’ that countered their ‘social problem’ status.

Photo from:

Without The Windrush Generation, British MC Culture Would Be Non-Existent

Excerpt from:

William ‘Lez’ Henry (2012) Reggae, Rasta and the Role of the Deejay
in the Black British Experience, Contemporary British History, 26:3, 355-373,
DOI:10.1080/13619462.2012.703024

On world turning Rasta and getting high without getting high

Jah Bilah intro:

This examination of the rise of Rastafari in mainstream following popular conversion of Snoop Dogg to Snoop Lion back in 2013 contains some reasoning by UK bredrin Benjamin Zephaniah and Maxi Priest.

“Regarding the body as a temple, which must be loved, respected and well looked after, is another Rastafarian mantra. And contrary to popular belief, not all Rastafarians smoke marijuana, and if they do, they don’t simply smoke to get high.

However, this happens today within the context of an ever-increasing amount of anti-smoking campaigns highlighting the negative effects smoking has on the body, which are being taken more seriously now and are much more chronicled and echoed from the rooftops.


The reasons Rastas give up smoking marijuana are the same reasons why tobacco users kick the habit. Although there are many Rastafarians who still smoke, others, especially those who follow a stringent orthodox lifestyle, advise smokers to respect their body.

Most people think all Rastafarians smoke marijuana, but I don’t smoke because I view my body as a temple,” says Zephaniah, who lectures at Brunel University.

I came to the conclusion that I didn’t need ganja to get high and I didn’t like the habit I developed. So I have been getting high from not being high for the last 30 years.

Agreeing, Priest adds: “You get one chance to live and you must learn to preserve it so that you can live a longer life with meaning, caring and understanding. 

“I had a heart attack, and even before the heart attack, I wanted to stop smoking. But when I had the heart attack – that made me realise how precious and delicate my temple is.

“The biggest myth about Rastafarians in terms of stereotypes is weed, but you don’t have to smoke weed. There is more to the understanding and the faith of being a Rastafarian than just weed.”

Foundation Roots Reggae with Danniella Dee

Strictly vinyl Golden era selection with Danniella Dee of Sisters in Dub (UK) on My Analog Journal.

Dub London – Bassline of a City

Great video about dub experience in London along with Museum of London exhibition (closed September 2021) featuring such items as original Channel One sound stacks.

Celt Islam – STARLIGHT – Future Jungle Mix

Alborosie – Police & DUB – Hermit Dubz remix

On Reggae as true world music

Thirty years after the release of The Harder they Come, the narratives and the images that the movie presented in 1972 remain a central aspect of a broader Jamaican narrative. In the interim, the political scene in Jamaica has experienced volatile and often violent changes.

Large multinational corporations like Sony and MCA have replaced the Mr. Hiltons of the early 1970s, Jamaica has become a bridge for transporting cocaine between South America and the U.S., and “Uzis have replaced hand guns.”

The tourist industry continues to thrive, achieving more and more isolation from the daily lives of most Jamaicans, and Jamaicans continue to migrate to Britain and the U.S. As reggae has spread through the world, like most music of “the black atlantic,” it has undergone tremendous transformations and mixed with rap and other forms of music.

As Maureen Sheridan reports, “reggae today is a true world music. From Siberia to the Seychelle Islands, from Agadir to Tokyo, the talking drum and bass of Jamaica have spread their seductive message, and there are no signs of its movement slowing down.”

Some social theorists and arts intellectuals speculate on the power of popular music style like reggae and rap to trigger social consciousness and radical change.

However, this analysis of The Harder They Come illustrates the precarious balance between music as a revolutionary force and the cooptation of cultural products for “producing, reproducing or destroying the representations that make groups visible for themselves and for others.”

Ultimately, the effectiveness of a cultural product like reggae does not rely in itself as an artistic form, as Herbert Marcuse would argue.

Instead, the subversive potential of the arts lies in the practices and the struggles over meaning around which they are produced and consumed. When new cultures encounter each other and when political processes force different cultural practices, symbols, and values to intersect and interact with each, as in the case of India or Jamaica, interstices
that emerge are the true “location of culture,” defined as an active process of negotiation, redefinition, and re-presentation.

Found in THE LAST “REDEMPTION SONG,” SELLING JAMAICA, from:
Reggae, Ganja, and Black Bodies: Power, Meaning, and the Markings of Postcolonial Jamaica in Perry Henzell s The Harder They Come
by Rubn A. Gaztambide-Fern ndez (2002.), Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies.
Art source: Words in the Bucket.

 

Celt Islam feat Mark Iration – Born as an Afrikan

Barry Brown​-​Step It Up – Hermit Dubz remix

Lovely vocal+dubwise cut from Hermit Dubz crew outta Birmingham.

DUBUMENTARIES SELECTION VOL 1.

DUB STORIES (2006)

DUB ECHOES (2009)

MUSICALLY MAD (2010)

From Kingston to Camden: Britain’s long lasting affinity for Sound system culture.

hannahlisa.

Since the birth of subcultures, music has played as much of a role in defining them as the clothes and views people have chosen have. Musical influence was diverse and widespread, sounds from Jamaica and the Caribbean fuelled the all night ska and reggae dances of the 1980’s whilst British bands such as The Beatles opened up the hearts and minds of the tie dye, trippy happy hippies of the 1960’s.

Before sound systems or even electricity had been invented, music has been utilised to bring people together, to celebrate and to convey messages. Before subcultures even existed, music played a key role in society and was enjoyed by both the rich and poor.

Whilst the era of rock n roll was causing girls to faint and guys to invest in Brylcream, thousands of miles away in the ghettos of Kingston, Sound system culture was starting to cause vibrations. At the…

View original post 1,209 more words

BANANA ZVUK FT. TENOR FLY – WHY?

%d bloggers like this: