Edward Seaga

It is not the first time that the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation has let down the trust of the nation in securing our heritage. In the 1970s during the last half of that decade when socialist destruction of the economy was rampant, JBC TV recorded news and other events on video and audio tapes that had precious material of the Jamaica Festival and other events of cultural heritage.

These recordings wiped out the original recorded material, as any user of recording equipment would know. Speeches, music, news items, festival events, dance, were all wiped out. This was not deliberate. JBC TV had no money to buy new tapes in those days, believe it or not. So the reuse of old tapes was the order of the day.

Now comes the news of the theft of most of the JBC archive collection of records, a precious history of the emergence of reggae, the only new music with staying power to have emerged in the last 60 years very little real reggae music is being composed today, the music is still strong in popularity. This makes it all the more tragic now that one of the important archival collections has disappeared. This is not to say that reggae music will not be heard anymore. It will still be heard on radio from the collections of other stations, notably Irie and RJR.

It might appear to be amazing that some of the names of reggae icons are unknown to today's youth. Generally, young people in Jamaica have little knowledge of the history of most of Jamaica's past. To them, the 1970s was history and 1960s ancient history. But at least it should be expected that the youth, which is the backbone of support for our music, should know the history.

little local interest

That is why, at the invitation of the University of the West Indies, before I had been conferred with the appointment as a Distinguished Fellow, I prepared a recording of the history of the different phases of the development of Jamaican music from birth in the 1950s to 2000. This recording has been shown on local TV by one of the new TV stations, but has elicited little interest from others who, apparently, prefer to reflect on the more current idiom of dancehall. It should not be surprising, therefore, that virtually every book on reggae music has been written by a foreigner.

This preference has also permeated the hotels where guests from overseas coming to Jamaica expect to hear reggae. They are treated, or bombarded, depending on the hotel, to dancehall instead, which is far from the reggae music which made Jamaica famous worldwide. Fortunately, the sounds of Bob Marley's genius, which is true reggae, are still given respectful treatment.

Dancehall is not reggae it capitalises on the name of the original music. Dancehall is a unique musical form of its own. It is a cultural clash of many elements of street or folk culture in which the music revolves around the rhythm (riddim) or beat, rather than lyrics. As to the element of melody which one expects to hear in music, forget it! That part of the composition often comes across to many listeners like the sound of a yard war.

another form of art

Yet, dancehall is an art form, it is part of a lifestyle, including a style of dress, with bling bling adornments, in which the girls dress with the least amount of clothes and the man with the most. In fact, men and boys make certain that the amount of clothing they wear is readily seen by the belt line of the pant falling so low as to display the underwear.

Dancehall involves some deejay music which has its own history. At the beginning of the 1950s, December 26, 1950, to be exact, Tom the Great Sebastian, owner of one of the top three sound systems at the time, left the scene of the session at which his sound was playing, according to Salewicz and Boot's documentation of Jamaican music. He went to buy ice, because the sale of drinks was the means of earning money from dance sessions. In his absence, his record selector, Count Machuki, made 'live jive chat' over the record in play. The crowd loved it but the popularity was short-lived and it remained a novelty for two decades. In the late 1960s, another sound system became involved in creating history when King Tubby, who was the master cutter for Duke Reid's Trojan sound system, turned off the vocals momentarily on some records while in play, allowing the beat and instrumentals only to be heard. The crowds loved it. Dub music was born.

But the vocal blanks left room for artistic creativity which allowed U Roy, who was handling the sound for King Tubby, to 'toast' the patrons with limericks, nursery rhymes phrasings, boasting and other live chatter.

three hits at once

U Roy went on to make three hit records in quick succession in 1970, which ranked at number 1, 2 and 3 on the hit parade at the same time:

'Wear you to the ball'; 'Wake the room'; 'Rule the nation'.

Deejay music was born, which gave birth to the same genre in the United States. But that's another story.

This use of impromptu vocals and infectious rhythm did not last long either, but it reappeared at the beginning of the 1980s after Bob Marley died, leaving a vacuum. One of the greatest deejays of all times, Yellowman, stepped in to fill the void by reintroducing dee jay music along with "slackness" lyrics. Yellowman had a long run of popularity which established deejay music as the beat of the 1980s.

Dancehall capitalised on the breakaway deejay idiom by producing a new music which scrambled lyrics, melody and beat. This created sometimes atonal, other times cacophonous sounds, which became its signature. There is no single rhythm. Every day a new record is produced with a new 'riddim' to satisfy the individualism of the artist to have his own 'beat'. In fact, this 'individualism' is the key to dancehall, which emerged at a time in the last generation of the 20th century when there was a strong pulse of freedom and a strident declaration of a demand for respect.

A section of the former JBC radio studios in disarray. - contributed

Dancehall did for popular music what the atonal Stravinsky did for classical music and surrealism, dada and cubism did for painting. They abandoned the strictures of classical modes for free expression of some elements, such as, in painting, colour or form, to produce whatever struck their creative fancy. Indeed, Kandinsky's 'Nude Descending a Staircase' of the early 1900s was a supreme example of the bewildering compositions of this period. To many, it looked like an explosion in a spaghetti factory. The cubism of Cezanne and Picasso at the turn of the 19th century gave birth to modern art in the same way that dancehall gave birth to the free-form expressions of modern popular music.

will this pass?

Some hope this phase will soon pass and there will be a return to composing music that one can whistle, but that day is nowhere in sight yet. dancehall is still alive and bouncing and, as an art form, it deserves to be preserved even if it does not appeal to all.

Unfortunately, not all our cultural institutions think this way about preservation of our culture. Just a couple years ago I asked a radio station to let me have a copy of a radio address which I made in July, 1961, in the referendum campaign I gave them the date, not only was it not found but the station admitted that they had no filing system for archival material which made it impossible to find anything.

I take the opposite view. Virtually all my prime ministerial papers and those from the subsequent period, some 600,000 pages, have now been scanned into a computer using a special software programme. Concurrently, 20 cases of videotapes are being transferred to archival DVD for secure storage. This archive, when complete, will inform the public about the last 60 years, the most vital period of Jamaican history.

Perhaps it may require amendment to broadcasting legislation to do what the Gleaner Company has done in creating an archive of its publications.

The culture of a people forms the most fundamental platform on which the society is built and is the most powerful force of change. It was western popular music, transmitted by satellite globally, that created the early dynamic for change among East German youth which decisively helped to bring down the Berlin Wall. That same musical medium is a powerful instrument in our society for good or for bad, depending on how we treat it. But we can't treat with it if it is desecrated because of a negligent administration that has failed the country twice.

Edward Seaga is a former Prime Minister. He is now a distinguished fellow at the UWI. Email: odf@uwimona.edu.jm