ROOTS 'n' RAP

Bob Marley: Global Black Revolutionary

Most people think

Great God will come from the sky

Take away everything

and make everybody feel high

But if you know what life is worth

You will look for yours on earth

And now you see the light,

Stand up for your rights! Jah!

Get up, stand up!

Stand up for your rights!

Get up stand up!

Don't give up the fight!

- Bob Marley, "Get Up, Stand Up" (1973)

**********

I funnel through the tunnel, disgruntled

Tryin' to find me some light

In the rim of darkness, a'ight you see

I may not be the darkest brother

But I was always told to act my age, not my color

Not knowing that my color, was that of the original

So now I sing the new Negro Spiritual

It goes:

Get up, stand up!

Stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up!

Don't give up the fight!

-- Common Sense, "Book of Life" (1994)

Bob Marley is the most revolutionary Black voice in music in the

past three decades, and his death in 1981 has done nothing to

change that. It's not without reason that Common Sense talks

about the "new Negro Spiritual" -- and what's new about it is

that, unlike songs about the sweet by-and-by, it demands justice

in the here and now. It's a legacy that stretches from the alleys

of Trenchtown to the streets of the South Bronx, from the tin

shacks of Soweto to the mean streets of Compton. And, however

different the hip-hop beat may be from reggae riddims, the message

remains the same: Don't give up the fight! It's a message that

echoes through the history of hip-hop; as Kool DJ Herc says, "Yes,

a de Yardman start it, yes it came from de roots, de island ... "

The story of Bob Marley is bound up with the history of 'slavery

days,' the Trenchtown ghetto, and the struggles of oppressed

people around the world.

Robert Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in a rural area in the

north of Jamaica; his mother was a young Black woman named Cedilla

Booker, and his father was Norval Marley, a white quartermaster

for the British army. As a teenager, he moved to Kingston with his

mother and settled, like many new arrivals from rural Jamaica, in

the neighborhood known as Trenchtown (after the long open sewer

that ran through its midst). It was here that Bob met Bunny

Livingston (later Bunny Wailer), and here that they began their

long musical collaboration. At the time, American R&B,

particularly of the New Orleans school, dominated the music scene.

DJ's with portable speakers and turntables, the so-called "sound

system men," ruled at local parties. And, while most of them spun

imported American vinyl, a few had begun to make their own

recordings. Marley first hooked up with Leslie Kong, a small-time

entrepreneur (and arch-rival of Prince Buster and Duke Reid, then

the major forces on Kingtson's Orange Street music row). Marley

cut only a few sides with Kong, only one of which -- "Judge Not"

attracted much attention. Discouraged by the poor support Kong

offered, Marley went to Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, the undisputed

king of the system men. This time, he brought Bunny, as well as

Peter Tosh, with him to the studio, and Dodd was duly impressed.

The new group, known as the "Wailing Wailers," released their

debut on the Coxsone label in 1963, and within a few weeks it

rocketed to the top of the Jamaican charts. This was the only the

first of many sides the Wailing Wailers recorded for Dodd, though

eventually the group grew dissatisfied with the rigid house style

Dodd tended to impose on his recording artists. Marley himself

produced some of their final sessions in Dodd's famous Studio One.

After leaving Dodd, Marley re-organized the group, and set up his

own independent label, Wail 'N' Soul, in 1966. Yet like many

other such efforts, Wail 'N' Soul was unable to stay afloat

financially. Marley and the Wailers floated around in chaos for a

while, working with different producers, including a brief return

stint on Kong's Beverly label. After another falling out with

Kong (legend has it that Bunny put a curse on him, and Kong in

fact died not long after), the Wailers went in search of a new

producer. In the meantime, the musical tide had turned; a new

generation of Rude Boys preferred the slower, bassier beat of

rock-steady to the more upbeat ska rhythms. The optimistic spirit

of Jamaica at independence was fading along with the hopes of the

thousands who came to Kingston only to find that the jobs they

sought were nowhere to be found. The Trenchtown ghetto was growing

along with the frustrations of this new generation. It was at

this time, in a fateful alliance, the Wailers hooked up with the

legendary Lee "Scratch" Perry. Perry, then as now a producer with

a strange mix of genius and insanity, brought a new sound to the

Wailers. Check out 1970's "Soul Rebel"

I'm a rebel

Let them talk!

Soul rebel!

Talk won't bother me!

The Wailers/Perry tracks -- among them "Soul Rebel," "Sun is

Shining," "Don't Rock the Boat", "Small Axe," and "Duppy

Conqueror" -- opened the way for a new, conscious style of music

that was built around a larger ensemble, with driving bass and

vocal choruses. It was music built on a Rastafarian foundation,

but with an international message to oppressed peoples everywhere.

All that was missing was the kind of distribution that would

enable the Wailers' music to reach the global audience. It's hard

to imagine in retrospect, but in 1970 only a few Jamaican records

broke into the international market, and they were all singles (or

compilations of singles). In many cases, the licensing fees paid

were substandard, and even if paid tended to enrich the producers

more than the musicians. The idea of a reggae artist cutting a

studio *album* was unheard of -- but all that changed with _Catch

a Fire_. Chris Blackwell's Island Records, which at the time was

one of the largest independent labels in the world, provided the

backing and distribution. Given the money and studio time, Marley

created a new sound, what Linton Kwesi Johnson has called

"International Reggae." The bass was funkier, the keyboards more

up front, guitars alternated steady riddims with rock riffs, and

Marley's rich voice drove it all home. Part of this sound was in

fact due to Island's owner, Chris Blackwell, who felt Marley's raw

sound might turn off white audiences; he re-mixed the original

Kingston sessions, pulling back the bass, pushing up Marley's

vocal and bringing in British session guitarists to add fills.

Yet, while true reggae fans may still prefer the Kingston

versions, aspects of this new sound were soon incorporated into

the Wailers' recordings and stage shows; check out the live 1975

recording of "I Shot the Sheriff," where scathing guitar fills

dynamize the rhythm, at no expense to the pulsing bass. The

Wailers' albums crossed into the U.S. market with increasing

success, and by the time "Rastaman Vibration" came out in '76,

Marley showed that he could drive a single straight up the charts

without any need for a cover version.

Trouble was brewing, though. On a return trip to Jamaica to hold

a free concert in Kingston to promote peace among warring gangs in

the city, Marley was shot and wounded. He survived the gunshot,

but left Jamaica for an extended time, settling for a while in

London where he recorded the "Exodus" album. The UK had long been

home to a large community of Jamaican emigres, and reggae was

beginning to have a powerful influence on the entire English music

scene; the album spent over a year on the UK charts. Marley

finally had the full international audience his music deserved. A

return concert in Jamaica, along with full-fledged American

concert tours, brought the energy of the Wailers' live

performances to tens of thousands. Concerts in Africa followed,

along with a European tour of stadiums, including a crowd of

100,000 in Milan. Yet it was just then, at the pinnacle of his

career, that Marley found he had cancer. Various herbal

treatments were tried, but they proved of no avail -- Marley died

on March 21, 1981.

Marley's death left a huge vacuum in the international reggae

scene. There was no other artist with his stature, and in fact

while the audiences in the U.S. were still swaying to the Wailers'

beat, music in Jamaica has already taken many different turns.

The development of dub (remixed instrumental tracks) by the

legendary King Tubby had opened the door in the early '70's to

many new kinds of artists. Sound system DJ's who were pumping dub

began to use more elaborate rhymes and toasts, and some took on

stage personas harkening back to the days of King Stitt and Count

Machuki. Among leaders of this new school of DJ's were U Roy, I

Roy, and Big Youth. And, while some early DJ hits such as U Roy's

"Wake The Town" (1970) were filled with crazy rhymes or slackness,

there were many conscious grooves as well. U Roy, the microphone

madman, dropped "Dread inna Babylon" in 1975, as heavily

Rastafarian as any Marley album, and I Roy's "Black Man Time"

(1974) was still more militant:

I talk to break oppression and set the captives free

So you got to understand I talk to rule the musical

Nation with justice and equality.

So black man you got to be free like a bird in a tree

And live in love and unity for I and I

So maybe you can make it if you try

Say it's a black man time. It a black man time.

At the same time, the spread of dub led to a new school of

conscious "dub poets," led by Linton Kwesi Johnson, who brought

together the deepest dub grooves with lyrics that, like Marley's,

give voice to the 'sufferin man' (and woman -- dub poets such as

Ranking Anne, Queen Majeeda, and Breeze have been on the forefront

of political poetry in Jamaica in the UK, though they are less

well known in the U.S.). Check out Johnson's "De Great

Insurrekshun" and Ranking Anne's "Kill De Police Bill" for their

powerful comment on the Brixton uprising of 1981; when rappers

have stepped to the mic to talk about Rodney King or the L.A.

rebellion, they are following the footsteps of these dub poets. At

the same time, the deeper instrumental strands of dub have

interwoven with all kinds of music, from the almost catatonic

"ambient dub" of Bill Laswell and his various groups (Material,

Praxis, etc.) to the high-bpm UK "Jungle" school. Dub continues

to evolve and expand its territory, carrying its bassy meditations

to every corner of the globe, and among DJ's and dub poets alike,

Marley's influence was still strong.

But back in the dancehalls, a different kind of DJ's ruled -- and

in his hands, the tempos grew faster and the beat more insistent,

and the toasts and shouts were more likely to be slack than

conscious. By the late '70's and early '80's, dancehall artists

like Yellowman, Frankie Paul, and Tenor Saw held sway on the

Jamaican charts, even though their music had a much harder time

finding any airplay in the U.S.. Rock stations which had played

Marley scorned them, and Black radio tended to avoid anything that

violated its silk-sheets R&B flow (this even though the Wailers

often toured with R&B groups, from Sly and the Family Stone to the

Commodores). In fact, Marley's death showed up another strange

twist in the airwave apartheid of the music industry; while Marley

and his imitators were certified "safe" for white radio, the

dancehall sound was taboo, while Black radio outside of NYC hardly

ever played reggae in the first place. It was in some ways the

death of Bob Marley that challenged these exclusions, renewing the

connection between Jamaican music and urban Black audiences.

The return, in both New York and Kingston, to the "raw ghetto

sound" signaled the reclamation of riddim by urban Black youth.

The historical connection between hip-hop and dancehall became a

tactical alliance. Jamaican emigres in the New York area were part

of the earliest hip-hop scene, and many Bronx DJ's, like KRS-One,

put a strong taste of ragga flavor in their rapping. The New York

club scene was a formative ground for hip-hop and dancehall alike,

and hits such as CJ Lodge's "Telephone Love" (1988) proved that

there was an immense overlap between the two audiences. But it

wasn't just musical style that linked Jamaican DJ's with their New

York and Cali brothers, it was the sense of music as a form of

cultural expression and resistance in the face of oppression.

Marley was the one who forged the way, turning Rude Boy antics

into global Black consciousness, and while in its early days the

dancehall scene was heavily into slackness, the underlying energy

was still the same. As Beres Hammond said, the music was still

"puttin' up a resistance." By the time Shabba Ranks was officially

hailed by the industry powers-that-be with his Sony debut, he was

a sure thing, and in his wake numerous other acts from Buju Banton

to Tiger to Terror Fabulous have broken into the U.S. market.

In the fertile crossroads between ragga and hip-hop, collaboration

and competition have forged all kinds of likely and unlikely

alliances. Doug E. Fresh and Papa San, Asher D and Daddy Freddy,

KRS-One and Shabba Ranks, Ice T and Black Uhuru, Scringer Ranks

and Queen Latifah, Tiger and Q-Tip -- the list goes on and on.

Switching in and out of the Jamaican patois has become a test for

prowess on the mic, and ragga rhythms and casio keyboard sounds

are as much a part of the hip-hop mix as P-Funk loops and Malcolm

X samples. In recent years, crews such as Worl-a-Girl and the Born

Jamericans have proven that hip-hop and dancehall are part of the

same transatlantic mix. A new generation of artists, such as Mad

Lion, Jamal-ski, Red Fox, the Poor Righteous Teachers, the Fugees,

and Mad Kap are as at home with ragga riddims as they are with

hip-hop breakbeats.

Yet while breakneck riddims and roughneck rhymes still rule in the

East, West Coast beats just seem to get deeper and slower every

year. Is the metronome swinging in the other direction? One

thing's for sure, whether it's the ganja or the Chronic, that

blunted feeling is back, and it's not just a Cali thing, as the

Philly sound of groups like the Roots and the Goats proves. But

it's at times like this that you realize that it's not the tempo,

the bass lines, or the horn riffs that make the music, it's a

consciousness, an awareness, a solidarity. The music industry

wants to put it all in bins with labels like "Hip-Hop," "Reggae,"

"Dancehall," "Dub" or "World Beat," but true listeners know that

the same heartbeat that pulsed through Bob Marley's veins is still

pumping out speakers all around the world. It was Marley that led

the way, that provided the model without which a wide range of

artists -- from KRS-One, Queen Latifah, or the Fugees, to Patra,

Buju Banton, or Beres Hammond -- might never have commanded the

massive audiences they do.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Selected Discography

Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom (4 cd's) -- Island 512-280-2.

Tougher Than Tough: The Story of Jamaican Music -- Mango/Island

162-539-2.

Word Sound 'Ave Power: Dub Poets and Dub. Heartbeat CD HB 15.

Ranking Anne: A Slice of English Toast. Ariwa/RAS ARICD 002.

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Making History. Mango/Island CCD 9770

Ice T and Black Uhuru: Tip of the Iceberg. MESA R2 76003.

Funky Reggae Crew: Strictly Hip-Hop Reggae Fusion. Warner 9-

26011-2.

World-a-Girl: Worl-a-Girl. Chaos/Columbia OK 57549.