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Abstract
This article explores the role of Reggae music and Rastafari in the creation of alternative public arenas that served as spaces of resistance and sites of transcendental edification in post-war Britain. The approach suggests that wherever there were significant African Caribbean communities in the UK, Sound System deejays used the Reggae dancehall arena as an alternate site of learning. Significantly it was the practised use of ‘oral skills’ in Creolised languages, couched in Rastafarian and Garveyite sensibilities, that underpinned and ensured the perpetuation of these politically driven, vernacular cultures. It is argued that expressive musical cultures opened access to an alternative world view which, in turn, provided a space where the African diaspora thought themselves into being in a more conscious manner than has been previously recognised. The suggestion is that black music often spoke to the lived experiences of the disenfranchised in a racist society, and thus furnished a site for various types of inter/intra-cultural exchanges to take place, enabling them to debate and discuss their own ‘problem’ status in a language owned and controlled by them. At no point was this more apparent than during the perceived collapse of the post-war ‘consensus’ in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Notes
Matthew Worley is a Professor of Modern History at the University of Reading. He has published widely on British political history, particularly in relation to the labour movement and the communist movement. He is currently researching the links between youth culture and politics in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s.
[1] Sound Systems cannot be reduced to a ‘large mobile disco’ (Gilroy, There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack), as there is an aesthetic value that far transcends any such description. Additionally a Sound System is also known as a Set, or The Set, probably because you have to ‘set-up’ and ‘string-up’ (wire-up the amps, speakers, etc.) before you can play them. See Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, 164–66 for a comprehensive description of Sound System aesthetics.
[2] Deejays in the Jamaican sense are akin to MCs or rappers. They are not to be confused with DJ's (Disc Jockeys) who play records. See CitationHenry, What the Deejay Said, for an in-depth analysis of deejay culture.
[3] The Rastafari world view and doctrine are presented in great detail in Barrett, The Rastafarians and CitationClarke, Jah Music.
[4] See CitationMartin, Race First, for an overview of Garveyite doctrine.
[5] Jamaicans will often tell you they speak Patwa (not patois) and will more often than not spell it this way. See CitationMorris, Is English We Speaking, where he explains more about this process of language and self-reclamation.
[6] These taped sessions are generally recorded on cassettes and have since the late 1970s been commonly known as ‘Yard (Jamaican) Tapes’. However, from the early 1980s other points in the African diaspora began to partake in these exchanges, which by this time also included video-cassettes as well, most notably from Britain, the USA and Canada. These recordings are known as ‘session-tapes’ within the culture as they do not come from Yard (Jamaica) and that is what is meant by the term here.
[7] CitationGilroy, The Black Atlantic.
[8] CitationGarrison, Black Youth; CitationGilroy, ‘After the Love has Gone’; CitationJones, ‘From Punishment to Discipline?’; CitationSolomos, Black Youth, Racism and the State; CitationSolomos and Back, Racism and Society.
[9] CitationPryce, Endless Pressure, in particular the endorsement by Stanley Cohen in the second edition of the book (1986), xvi–xvii.
[10] CitationPryce, Endless Pressure, in particular the endorsement by Stanley Cohen in the second edition of the book (1986), 199.
[11] See, for instance, CitationDavis-Palmer, ‘Narratives and the Cultural Construction of Belonging in Sligoville’, 44–65, where she details the history behind how this kinship process gave birth to ‘Sligovillians’ within the Parish of Spanish Town, Jamaica.
[12] CitationLea and Young, What is to Be Done, 127.
[13] CitationGilroy, Small Acts, 25.
[14] Pryce, Endless Pressure, 156.
[15] CitationJones, ‘White Youth’, 56.
[16] Pryce, Endless Pressure, 154.
[17] CitationJames, ‘Migration, Racism and Identity Formation’, 244.
[18] For further insight as to the influence of Jamaican Rude Boy culture on wider British youth culture, see CitationStaples and McMahon, Original Rude Boy.
[19] Pryce, Endless Pressure, 271.
[20] See CitationBesson and Chevannes, ‘The Continuity–Creativity Debate’.
[21] CitationMintz and Price, The Birth Of African-American Culture, vii.
[22] CitationDavis and Simon, Reggae International, 26.
[23] CitationRex and Tomlinson, Colonial Immigrants in a British City, 291.
[24] CitationBack and Solomos, Theories Of Race And Racism, 132.
[25] Gilroy, The Black Atlantic, 36.
[26] Cooper, ‘“Rhythms of Resistance”: Jamaican Dancehall Culture and the Politics of Survival’. Unpublished paper received via email, 29 September 2000.
[27] See The Battle for Brixton (2006, Blast Films) where you will witness a police officer confessing that he went ‘nigger hunting’ with fellow officers in Lambeth during the 1970s and 1980s.
[28] For more on this, see CitationCooper, Sound Clash.
[29] Rastafari states that your enemy presses you down and therefore is a ‘downpressor’.
[30] Cashmore and Troyna, Black Youth in Crisis, 33. See also, for just two further examples of this approach: Brake, The Sociology of Youth Culture; CitationFisher and Harris, ‘Social Policy and Black Youth’.
[31] Call and response is basically a leader singing the main body of a song (the call), aided by an alternating chorus type response from the audience (the refrain), which represented a comment on the leader's theme. The call and response format is also used by groups of drummers (widely outlawed during the plantation slave era) who would assume the role of lead and chorus. This usage of call and response originates from the communal pattern of West African social commentary, which enabled the community to voice their opinions as a functionally expressive part of a greater artistic whole.
[32] Griots are West African social commentators who can be hired to sing about various issues or even individuals. For a more detailed analysis see CitationFinnegan, Oral Literature in Africa.
[33] For more on this notion see CitationCampbell, Rasta and Resistance.
[34] The Middle Passage was the route that was used to transport chattel slaves from Africa to North America. It was one aspect of the triangular trade that linked Europe with the Americas and Africa for over 400 years.
[35] CitationSpencer, The Rhythms of Black Folk, 151.
[36] CitationGilroy, There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack, 201.
[37] CitationNketia, The Music of Africa, 22.
[38] CitationNketia, The Music of Africa, 22
[39] Clarke, Jah Music.
[40] Gilroy, There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack, 165.
[41] Cooper, ‘“Rhythms of Resistance”: Jamaican Dancehall Culture and the Politics of Survival’. Unpublished paper received via email, 29 September 2000, 174.
[42] CitationTure and Hamilton, Black Power, 36.
[43] CitationBolinger, Language the Loaded Weapon, ix.
[44] Gilroy, There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack, 104.
[45] CitationHall, ‘New Ethnicities’, 394.
[46] CitationHenry, ‘Too Blak for Your Own Good’.
[47] Cooper, ‘“Rhythms of Resistance”: Jamaican Dancehall Culture and the Politics of Survival’. Unpublished paper received via email, 29 September 2000, 12.
[48] On 22 June 1948, former troopship the Empire Windrush docked in the port of Tilbury, Essex, with nearly 500 passengers, mostly from Jamaica, on board. The arrival of the ship marked the beginning of large-scale West Indian immigration to Britain, changing the country's social landscape forever. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Windrush-generation.html
[49] CitationSmall, Music of the Common Tongue, 290.
[50] CitationRodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
[51] The ‘Oppah’ is the Sound System Operator who would play the records that were given to him by the selector who was responsible for the music that was played on the night.
[52] Common Jamaican term used for ‘worse than’.
[53] During 1970s, there were many advocates of Rastafari who would use Reggae as a medium to encourage people from the African diaspora to return to the Holy Land of Ethiopia and many Rastafari now live in Shashemene. For examples of the Rastafari take on repatriation, see CitationChevannes, Rastafari, 248–9.
[54] See CitationBeckford, ‘God of the Rahtid’, 31–6.
[55] CitationCashmore and Troyna, Black Youth in Crisis, 73.
[56] Pryce, Endless Pressure, 154.
[57] Jones, ‘White Youth’, 61.
[58] CitationNettleford, ‘Discourse on Rastafarian Reality’, 313.
[59] CitationAlleyne, Roots of Jamaican Culture, 118.
[60] Spencer, The Rhythms of Black Folk, 68.
[61] CitationBarrett, The Rastafarians, 27.
[62] Outernational is a Jamaican term that has been used in Reggae circles for decades and it basically suggests that the influence of the music and culture transcends geographical boundaries.
[63] Nettleford, ‘Discourse on Rastafarian Reality’.
[64] CitationHebdige, Subcultures, 426.
[65] CitationBrake, Sociology of Youth Culture, 27.
[66] CitationBrake, Sociology of Youth Culture, 32; Cashmore and Troyna, Black Youth in Crisis, 3.
[67] CitationGilroy, ‘Steppin Out of Babylon’, 293.
[68] Barrett, The Rastafarians, 27.
[69] CitationBeckford, Jesus is Dread, 26.
[70] Gilroy, The Black Atlantic, 36; Hebdige, Subcultures, 434. By host community, Gilroy means indigenous and dominant white communities amongst whom immigrants ‘settled’.
[71] Gilroy, The Black Atlantic, 103.