ROOTS-n-RAP

Prince Buster, Ska, and Hip-Hop History

by Russell A. Potter, a.k.a. Professa R.A.P.

New York City

The place where it all came from

And also part of the West Indies

Roots! Yes, de Yardman start it

Yes! It came from the roots, the Island . . .

-- DJ Kool Herc

The question of hip-hop's relationship to Afro-Caribbean music has

been given too little attention; aside from a chapter in Dick Hebdige's Cut-n-

Mix and a brief article in the New York Times, most critics have preferred to

pursue the roots of rap in funk, soul, and "rhythm and blues." Yet in many

ways both the narrative and musical connection between hip-hop and

Caribbean music is the most central to its musical identity. For one, the

production of an indigenous music out of materials originally intended for

consumption (as records) was certainly practiced in Jamaica long before it

reached the South Bronx. Jamaicans, living within listening distance of

U.S. radio stations, heard the rhythm-and-blues music of the 40's, 50's and

early 60's and liked what they heard. Yet on account of their poverty, much

of the population had little access to the musical instruments, amplifiers, and

other sound equipment necessary to make such music on their own. The

pioneers of ska took American R&B records, especially instrumentals, and

play them over amplified sound systems at parties, mixing in shouts of

encouragement to the dancers. Later, when the first recording outfits were

set up by sound system men such as Prince Buster, their recordings reflected

these heteroglot beginnings; over a chorus of upbeat horns playing a slowed

New Orleans-style shuffle, Buster boasted and cajoled, calling out

challenges to his rivals on Kingston's music row:

Man, stand up and fight if you're right!

Earthquake on Orange Street!

Buster was one of the first sound-system men to go into the recording

studio; while the older DJ's like Duke Reid still valued imported American

R&B singles, Buster and the new generation of producers made their own

records, subtly altering the rhythmic emphasis, flattening the jump beat into

more of a shuffle, and intermixing the 'burru' rhythms of Rasta drummers

like Count Ossie.

The earliest Jamaican-produced records were mostly 'specials' --

discs pressed in very small quantities for the exclusive use of the sound-

system men who had footed the bill for their recording. It was only later that

these records were commercially distributed, mostly through licensing

arrangements that enriched the producers (though not necessarily the

performers). Yet even as these records moved back from the place of

production and were re-marketed for popular consumption, they returned

again as sites for production, through the 'talk-over' or dub records that

were produced from the late sixties onwards; these records featured b-sides

with only the instrumental tracks, b-sides that could in turn be used as the

basis for new recordings, talked-over at system parties or on the radio, or as

the soundtrack by the new school of dub poets such as Linton Kwesi

Johnson. And, while the toasts of the early sound system men had consisted

primarily of topical rhymes or exhortations to the dancers, the lyrics from the

mid-sixties onwards, along with the poetry of the dub poets, voiced social

protest and suffering. By the time ska began to shift over to the more

thoroughly Afro-Caribbean forms of rock-steady and 'reggae,' the music

had become thoroughly identified with the "concrete jungles" and other

impoverished areas of Jamaica, an identification which singers such as Bob

Marley helped create, and used as the basis for creating a global voice for

the disenfranchised in the 1970's.

That much has been widely known, but what is less often noted is

the strong similarity between the rhetorical and narrative conventions of ska

and reggae with those of hip-hop. Of particular significance is the early

"rude boy" style, which glorified the angry, young, tough-living kids of

West Kingston; there are striking similarities, both cultural and musical,

between the 'rude boys' of ska and the 'gangstas' of hip-hop. A case in

point in Prince Buster's well-known series of songs on the "Judge Dread"

theme. Each song contains a courtroom vignette narrated by Prince Buster

as Judge Dread; before him come a number of 'rude boys' who plead their

crimes. In the first of several 'sequel' songs, when a rude boy brings "a

barrister from Europe," Judge Dread is particularly incensed, dealing out as

harsh a sentence to the barrister as to the defendant; one unlucky rude boy is

sentenced to 'four thousand years imprisonment.' The next song in the

sequence (all of which share the same upbeat horn riffs), "Judge Dread

Dance," uses the courtroom drama as the pretext for a new witness, who

turns out to be the horn soloist who plays the dance's theme. Buster

finished the series up with his "Barrister Pardon," in which Judge Dread

releases the prisoners, followed by a celebratory ska dance; there are also a

number of answer records, including Derrick Morgan's "Tougher Than

Tough" (produced by Buster's arch-rival Leslie Kong), and Lee "Scratch"

Perry's "Set Them Free,' in which Perry comes before Judge Dread,

mentions the defendants by name, and makes a lengthy plea for mercy based

on their poverty and lack of education; this record runs out, however, before

the Judge can offer a reduced sentence.

Even before the 'rude boy' craze, Prince Buster had injected gangster

machismo into his mixes; in one early cut, "Al Capone," Buster tells his

listeners "Don't call me Scarface! My name is Kerpown-C-A-P-O-N-E

Kerpown!" In another Buster cut ("Dallas Texas"), recorded gunshots are

followed by Buster's unforgettable shouts of "Stick 'em Up! This is a

Holdup!"As the poverty and oppression of Kingston's slums increased, so

did the gangster/rude boy ethos, which eventually laid part of the foundation

for Marley's political reggae of the later 60's. Compare all this with the

courtroom drama which N.W.A. stages in "Fuck tha Police": The

courtroom opens with "Judge Dre in full effect," and the various "niggaz" in

the court step forth one by one to give their "testimony." Not only is "Dre"

an accurate dialect spelling for the Jamaican patois equivalent of "dred," but

the rude boys, now gangstaz, have effectively turned the tables; this Judge,

like Lee Perry, is on their side, and the trial ends with the white cop being

dragged off cursing his accusers. I don't mean to suggest here that Dr. Dre

took his name or the song from obscure old ska recordings (though he well

might have); even the courtroom drama has other analogs in popular song --

but only to observe that the narrative framing of power relations via music

adapted remarkably similar strategies in both hip-hop and in the early days of

ska. Part of this similarity may be due to similar social inequities, but it is

also clear that many of the influences at work here came via the Jamaica-New

York-Los Angeles connection. U Roy, Big Youth, and other Reggae talkers

produced major hits in Jamaica in the early-to-mid 70's, delivering a

powerful message with tracks such as U Roy's "Wake the Town" (1970).

DJ Kool Herc, one of the pioneering DJ's of hip-hop, came to New York

from Jamaica, where as a child he had heard and seen the system men. In

fact, the Jamaican connection is hip-hop's strongest claim to specifically

African roots, since not only the narratives and the basic technology, and the

concept of talking over recorded music arrive via this route, but also the

rhythmic, cut 'n'mix sound that is at the very heart of the hip-hop aesthetic.

Jamaican music continues to be a central influence on hip-hop,

particularly through the faster and more insistent "dancehall" sounds that

have come to dominate the scene since Marley's death. Some artists, such as

KRS-One, used Jamaican-style rhythms in their raps (listen to his chorus,

"Wa da da dang, wa da da da dang / Listen to my nine millimeter go bang"

on BDP's early cut "Nine Millimeter"); other rappers brought in dancehall

collaborators to add some regga flavor up their hip-hop mix. KRS-One

himself cut a single with Shabba Ranks, and similar collaborations took

place in the early 90's between Queen Latifah and Scringer Ranks, Ice-T and

Daddy Nitro, Q-Tip and Tiger, and Patra and Yo-Yo. In the mid-90's, many

hip-hop crews literally embody the black Atlantic continuum; groups such as

Mad Kap, the Fugees, and the Fu-Schnickens have a dancehall or

"ragamuffin" rapper as one of their lead members, and one, "Worl-a-Girl,"

includes women from Jamaica, the U.S., and the U.K. When Patra remakes

Lyn Collins' seminal "Think (About It)," or Worl-a-Girl cuts a new version

of Prince Buster's "Ten Commandments" (reversing the terms and listing the

"ten commandments of 'oman to man" rather than Buster's "ten

commandments of man to 'oman"), the cultural phonelines of the black

Atlantic are 'ringing off the hook,' and the odds are that this connection will

remain open.