McPullish outta Texas releases 2015 “Journey” recording of late and great Judah Eskender Tafari featuring steppers anthem cut and fitting “niyacoustic” mix meditation mix in limited color sleeve 300 7″ vinyl.
From press release:
Judah Eskender Tafari’s musical journey began at Studio One (Jamaica) in 1978, voicing now-classic songs such as “Danger in Your Eyes,” “Rastafari Tell You,” “Jah Light,” “Always Trying” and many others. He worked with many producers and musicians over the course of his impressive music career.
In 2015 Judah traveled to Austin, TX to perform and work with McPullish at his Dubhaus studio. “Journey” is a co-production between these two friends that has stood the test of time and become a favorite, beginning or ending almost every McPullish live dub set in recent years. Judah was not only a great singer but a genuine and caring person who mentored McPullish and many others, always willing to share his musical knowledge and kind spirit with whoever he met. Judah Eskender Tafari passed away in 2020 and is greatly missed, celebrated by his many friends, family and fans.
In 2022 McPullish reached out to Dan I Locks (musician, producer and operator of Deng Deng Hi Fi in Sweden) to record Niyabinghi drums and percussion for a more acoustic version of the song which is featured as the B side.
DJ Kool Herc, the chief architect of hip-hop, was born Clive Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica. At the age of twelve, in the winter of 1967, Campbell moved to Bronx, New York. The year he migrated to America, sound-system culture in Jamaica had a ubiquitous presence in Kingston’s lower-class neighbourhoods. As a twelve-year-old preteen now living in the Bronx, Campbell already possessed a persistent reggae and sound-system consciousness having experienced the innovative music of Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Don Drummond, and dancehall deejay U-Roy.
At eighteen, Campbell attempted to recreate the Jamaican dancehall experience in the Bronx by spinning the latest Jamaican reggae records at neighbourhood parties, but his young African-American audience was not feeling the reggae beat and did not comprehend the Jamaican patois rhymes of sound-system MCs known as toasters. As DJ Kool Herc, Campbell shifted to playing funk records, but his reggae background caused him to favour funk with heavy-weight bass lines and lively percussive drumming. Kool Herc’s record selections were transmitted through hi-fi stereo equipment that spoke with the same awesome power and sonic quality of a roots Jamaican sound system. The selector, as a deejay is called on a reggae sound system, though using one turntable-the norm during the ’60s and ’70s- was still capable of altering the arrangement of a tune spinning off a record on the turntable platter. The selector skillfully inflicted a completely different sound context on a roots reggae recording by manipulating the controls on the sound system’s amplifier to briefly remove the bass on a tune, accentuate the singing of the song’s vocalist, and highlight the harmony of trumpet, saxophone, and trombone. The selector would create tension in a live remix by bringing back the bass booming like a compact implosion. By the ’70s, the selector had the ability to vary the sonic texture of the recording by creatively deploying reverb and echo chamber to repeat the sweetest elements of a vocal or horn solo and as a special sound effect that dramatized certain aspects of the recording with a live feel.
Kool Herc’s approach to creating something fresh from pre recorded funk on vinyl was different because he used two turntables. But his approach was similar in that he shared the same objective as the selector, which was to do a live remix of the record to heighten the entertainment of his audience. He extended the intoxicating rhythmic feel of percussive conga, bongo, or trap drums sizzling the break of records like Mandrill’s“Fencewalk,” the Incredible Bongo Band’s“Apache,” and the live version of James Brown’s“Give It Up, Turn It Loose” by playing the same record on two turntables using a sound mixer to seamlessly prolong the percussive breakbeats.
Herc pioneered the innovative use of two turntables and a sound mixer as active instruments that became more than passive facilitators, more than just pieces of electronic equipment that merely played what was recorded on vinyl.
These electronic instruments were now used to rearrange prerecorded music to suit the immediate needs of the disco and the dance floor. When DJ Kool Herc rocked a block party, dispatching African American funk with the overwhelming sonic power of a reggae sound system, no other deejay dared to compete.
There is still some confusion about cannabis plant being used as hemp or marijuana. This text will clear the confusion and show how propaganda made one plant into two varieties: drugless hemp and deadly marijuana. At this time we should all acknowledge that cannabis saved entire world in World War. It’s time to grow hemp for the peace.
The U.S. government was able to make hemp illegal for the United States citizens because it was constructed as a threat to society. This threat was overlooked as the advent of World War II created a problem for the U.S. industrial fiber supplies. The U.S. knew it would quickly use up the hemp stores it had along with the abaca and jute, other industrial strength fibers imported from the Philippines and Asia.
This shortage was critical because imports from the South Pacific, necessary for maintaining the armed forces, were no longer available. In this context the federal government was forced to contradict the laws against the threat of hemp, and thus began a campaign to make hemp patriotic. They’ realized the only way to get strong fibers for defense, cloth, rope, and gear was to grow it domestically. Thus began the federal government’s Hemp for Victory campaign to help farmers to grow hemp once more.
By creating a guaranteed market for the hemp and using educational campaigns farmers were encouraged to grow hemp.
The peak of the Hemp for Victory campaign was in 1945 and 1944. Estimates of the tonnage of hemp grown in those two years are about 75,000 tons in 1945 and 150,000 tons in 1944. In 1945 there was a wealth of articles written about growing hemp. Some showed a concern about growing marijuana. One expressed this fear by stating,
“What can be done to keep these enormous (75,000 tons) new supplies, from which there almost inevitably will be ‘leaks’, out of their (depraved addicted creatures) twitching hands?”, the government conveniently reconstructed hemp in order to calm these masses, which were afraid because of the 1920s construction of hemp.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said that it created a strain of “drugless hemp” through breeding techniques.
At this point the government began a thorough contradiction of its hemp policies.
As part of the new campaign, the USDA issued the movie Hemp for Victory in 1942 to tell of the advantages of growing hemp for the war effort. Although this movie, along with other forms of government documentation of the campaign, has been removed from public view, a few pieces can be found.
In fact, the transcript of the movie is available on the internet (USDA 1942).
In the movie the USDA states that the decline of hemp was due to an increase in imports:
“then came cheaper imported fibers for cordage, like jute sisal and Manila hemp, and the culture of hemp in America declined.”.
In this movie there is no mention of marijuana.
They conveniently separate them and create hemp into a harmless plant once more. In fact, hemp becomes a symbol of patriotism. The movie concludes with this imagery:
When the Manila hemp reserve is gone, American hemp will go on
duty again: hemp for mooring ships; hemp for low lines; hemp for tackle
and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as
in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen
shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for Victory.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of the reversal of the Hemp for Victory campaign is the education given to children of farmers. There were 4-H programs in place encouraging students to grow hemp. “Growing hemp gives 4-H members a real opportunity to serve their country in wartime…. Labor requirements do not interfere with school work.”
The plant was safe enough for America’s children to grow as a 4-H project when in a bind. There was no mention of careful handling, and no warning that they would be growing a dangerous plant. There was an outline of a typical growing season and a “hemp seed record” to keep track of the plants and quantities harvested.
The government heavily encouraged farmers to grow hemp. They were paid $30 to $50 a ton for the hemp fibers. The only rule was that a row of some other crop should surround the hemp field so that no one could access the hemp easily. Through all of the favorable publicity for hemp there were some warnings of things to come.
There was a mentality created that only poor countries grow hemp, which is why U.S. farmers would no longer need to grow hemp after the war.
“Although hemp is a very favorable crop now- in all probability after the war, we will find that it will again lose some of its importance. We cannot compete with the cheap labor of the East, and the hand separated hemp is superior [to mechanically separated hemp].”
After World War II ended, the anti-hemp constructions resurfaced. Hemp cultivation was no longer allowed without permits, special taxes, and DEA initiated intervention once more. Hemp was no longer patriotic, but a threat. People returned to either viewing hemp as the dangerous marijuana or as a crop only developing countries, such as the Philippines, should grow.
Wisconsin was the only exception to the rule. Until 1958 they continued to grow hemp, despite strong federal opposition. So even the federal government had to contradict its own law to use hemp.
There was no other substitute for the crop in a time of war. Hemp is a good plant when it saves the country, but a bad plant in peacetime.
Text source:
Industrial Hemp (Cannabis savita L): The Geography of a Controversial Plant by April M. Luginbuhl, 2001. California Geographer
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.
Straight outa Dub Strand studio comes Chapter II of Good Over Evil by heavyweight stepper BriZion. Nuff tracks and dubs (Verse I, II and III) for a lovely price of one pizza, so quench your dubbing hunger.
Make It Trapped mix features signature Dubsmith groundbreaking sound transcending all genres with invisible dub hand guiding sound to far future roots.
Release features extra Extended Dj Mix ready for sound system sessions.
A Pioneer in the Philly DUB scene, the Dubsmith has been producing and performing roots based dub and electronica since the 90s. With hints of Hip Hop, Reggae and World music, Dubsmith keeps the dancehall bouncin’ with heavy bass and his trans-national dub style.
The Dub Zone once again representing for global dub community with shout out to Friglob outta Croatia.
Tracklist:
1.In A Dream, by Dubsalon
2. Last Word, by The Talking Dog
3.Drift, by Bukkha
4.Once Upon A Time In Amsterdam West, by Dr RemiX
5. Aerocore, by Friglob
6. Ascetic Club, by Manudub
7. Pineal Dub, by Notty-D
8. Dubvida (Melodica Cut), by Dubplay
OUT OF MANY COME DUB AND OUT OF DUB COME ONE 