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The cycles of dread: reggae roots and culture amid processes of globalization
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Copyright 2022 Torp
THE CYCLES OF DREAD:
REGGAE ROOTS AND CULTURE AMID PROCESSES OF GLOBALIZATION
by
Zachary Paul Torp
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfilment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH)
August 2022
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures.................................................................................................................................iv
Abstract...........................................................................................................................................vi
Chapter 1: Blossoming Yards: Western Modernization, Rastafarianism, and
Original Reggae Roots and Culture in Kingston, Jamaica................................................................2
O Babylon!: Urbanization and Neocolonialism in Kingston.....................................3
Sylvia Wynter and the “Blossoming Imaginary” of Rastafarianism.......................18
The Counter-geography of the Rastafarian Movement...........................................28
Original Reggae Roots and Culture........................................................................33
Chapter 2: Reggae Roots and Culture Worldwide: A Global Anti-Racist Movement
Undermined by Neocolonialism and Cultural Appropriation........................................................41
Neocolonialism and the Formation of a Global Industrial Complex.......................43
Jamaican Bauxite and the World Aluminum Industry............................................46
Reggae and the International Popular Music Industry............................................51
African Unity, African Socialism: Putting Up Resistance......................................52
The Message: A Universal Anti-Racist Language..................................................61
The Emergence of Reggae Roots and Culture on a Global Scale............................64
Cultural Appropriation...........................................................................................67
Chapter 3: Conscious Drums: A Stylistic and Cultural History of the One Drop............................72
Basics of the One Drop...........................................................................................73
The Reggae Rhythm Section..................................................................................77
Cultural Origins......................................................................................................81
Generic Origins......................................................................................................85
iii
Sonic Roots............................................................................................................87
Studio Session Drummers of the Reggae Golden Age............................................91
Global Uptake........................................................................................................97
The Computer One Drop......................................................................................100
Electronic Instruments and African Reggae Music..............................................105
Chapter 4: Signal Flows and Dub Style: Recording Drums in the Reggae Golden Age................109
Jamaican Producers and Socio-economic Factors................................................111
Recording Rasta Drums........................................................................................114
Development of Drum Recording Techniques at Kingston Studios.....................115
In Conversation with Brian Eno...........................................................................118
The Vibe of the Studio: A Culture of High Fidelity Analog Sound.......................120
Dub Style..............................................................................................................124
Signal Flows at King Tubby’s Studio...................................................................127
Dub and African Diaspora....................................................................................130
Overdubbing: The Sonic and Corporate Influence of Island Records.................132
Babylon Things: Technology and Reggae Music.................................................134
Epilogue.......................................................................................................................................138
Bibliography................................................................................................................................145
iv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Visual breakdown of the dissertation’s critical methodology............................................x
Figure 1.1. Map of the Kingston waterfront during the 1960s..........................................................7
Figure 1.2. Back-O-Wall, 1962......................................................................................................14
Figure 1.3. Tivoli Gardens, 1968....................................................................................................14
Figure 1.4. Model of the Kingston Waterfront Re-Development Project.......................................16
Figure 1.5. Cover of The Daily Gleaner, Nov. 23, 1940.................................................................20
Figure 1.6. Kingston, census data, 1960.........................................................................................22
Figure 1.7. Recommendations for the government made by the Rastafarians, 1960.......................23
Figure 1.8. Emperor Haile Selassie's diplomatic visit to Jamaica, 1966.........................................25
Figure 1.9. Street murals of Marcus Garvey...................................................................................29
Figure 1.10. Rastafarian cultural centers and dwellings.................................................................30
Figure 1.11. Prime Minister Michael Manley with Joshua's Rod of Correction..............................38
Figure 2.1. Map of the Jamaican bauxite industry, circa 1970........................................................48
Figure 2.2. Excerpt from OAU Charter, 1963.................................................................................54
Figure 2.3. Beliefs and aims of the "TANU Creed"........................................................................58
Figure 2.4. The message according to Winston Grennan................................................................63
Figure 3.1. Diagram of side-stick drum technique..........................................................................74
Figure 3.2. Standard musical notation of the one drop....................................................................74
Figure 3.3. One bar of the one drop programmed on a drum machine.............................................74
Figure 3.4. Sheet music for drum part of “Stir It Up” by Bob Marley & The Wailers.....................76
Figure 3.5. Two measures of the one drop steppers style................................................................93
Figure 3.6. Musical score of the one drop rockers style..................................................................98
v
Figure 3.7. One measure of the computer one drop.......................................................................101
Figure 4.1. Drum set-up using the multi-mic recording technique................................................116
Figure 4.2. Coxsone Dodd at the controls of Studio One, circa 1974............................................116
Figure 4.3. Speculative sketch of a studio session configuration at Studio One............................117
Figure 4.4. The minimalist vibe at Channel One Studio................................................................123
Figure 4.5. The artsy vibe at Studio One.......................................................................................123
Figure 4.6. Studio configuration at King Tubb’s studio................................................................127
Figure 4.7. Sketch of signal flow at King Tubby’s studio.............................................................129
Figure 4.8. King Tubby’s DIY amplifier......................................................................................130
Figure 4.9. Island Records expense report....................................................................................133
vi
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
The Cycles of Dread:
Reggae Roots and Culture amid Processes of Globalization
by
Zachary Paul Torp
Doctor of Philosophy in English
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 2022
Professor Karen Tongson, Chair
Since original reggae roots and culture is a product of both the massification of the
Rastafarian movement and Western modernization in Kingston during the 1960s, its subculture
simultaneously represents the ethos of Rastafarianism and the historical conditions of
globalization. At the same time that reggae music and sound system culture amplify the message
on a global scale through the universal language of reggae roots and culture, the global uptake of
the movement is shaped by Western modernization, in particular economic development in the
sectors of urbanization, industrialization, technology, global telecommunication, and
international transportation and trade. In the dissertation, I explore this dualism of the message in
order to think deeply about why reggae roots and culture has sustained such massive global
impact in the realm of urban counter- and subcultures worldwide. I ask what elements of reggae
roots and culture enabled its globalization across such a deep and wide-ranging universe of race,
vii
class, nation, and geography. What historical, socio-economic, and cultural conditions paved the
way for the global uptake of reggae music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism? Is there
something inherent in the form/structure/sound of reggae music that lends itself to globalization,
some sonic element that is engineered to resonate worldwide?
In response to these questions, I argue that a key element in the globalization of reggae
roots and culture is the “one drop,” reggae music’s signature drum beat that has featured on
basically every Jamaican popular music release since the early 1960s. As Sly Dunbar and
Michael Veal have said, the one drop has thousands of variations in rhythm through subtle
changes in style, rhythm pattern, chord progression (BBC), and “micro-aesthetics” (Veal). I
suggest this is part of the reason why reggae roots and culture is prone to revitalization and
reinvention amid the processes of globalization, because the one drop offers an infinitely flexible
rhythm pattern. As a template, a universal language, and a musical form, the one drop travels the
world and resonates in powerful ways given certain complex conditions of African diaspora,
globalization, and cultural appropriation. When reggae roots and culture emerges in new race,
class, national, and geographic contexts, it has the potential to open up alternative ways of
knowing that can create a sense of release from the oppressive power structures of US-led
multinational capitalism (Henriques). The heavy beat of the one drop drives this global trajectory
forward, spreading the Rastafarian vision of one love, one heart, one destiny, not without deep
complexities and contradictions.
My dissertation traces the cycles of Western modernization, imperialism, and aesthetics
that occur amid the globalization of the one drop style and reggae roots and culture at large. In
Chapter 1: “Blossoming Yards,” I identify a historical struggle taking place in the 1960s between
the Western modernization of the Kingston waterfront and the massification of the Rastafarian
viii
movement. I suggest the socio-economic forces of Western modernization, in particular
urbanization and industrialization designed according to the internal logic of neocolonialism, are
in conflict with the rising influence of the Rastafarian subculture which blossoms into an
alternative cultural experience to the "official reality" of Jamaica (Wynter 89). I conclude that
this historical struggle is influential on Jamaica's profound yet underacknowledged role in the
processes of globalization, moreover showing that original reggae roots and culture is entangled
in these histories of Western modernization along the Kingston waterfront.
In Chapter 2: “Reggae Roots and Culture Worldwide,” I contextualize the global uptake
of reggae roots and culture alongside the integration of the Jamaican economy into a global
industrial complex of natural resource extraction in which the “base materials” of the global
south are exploited by Western corporations (Nkrumah). I examine historical context about the
privatization of Jamaican bauxite designed according to the internal logic of neocolonialism,
exposing the environmental degradation and capitalist exploitation that occurred when Western
corporations developed this industry. Against the grain of this socio-economic history of
globalization, the message is delivered worldwide through the rising global influence of reggae
music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism abroad from Jamaica. The message offers a
universal anti-racist language accessible to the masses across many borders and boundaries of
society, and today there is a reggae roots and culture movement concentrated in urban areas of
nearly every nation across the globe. The issue of cultural appropriation becomes a factor at this
stage of globalization, as people abroad from Jamaica take up reggae roots and culture,
(re)shaping the subculture according to their own local/national conditions, in some cases
transforming the music and the message in surprising and (r)evolutionary ways, in some cases
ix
commodifying or aestheticizing the culture to the extent that the message is deradicalized or
becomes politically neutral.
Chapter 3: “Conscious Drums” provides a history of the one drop rhythm’s cultural and
generic origins, and subsequent globalization. I discuss the heavy cultural symbolism of the one
drop with respect to Rasta drumming as well as the role of the one drop style in the steady
globalization of reggae roots and culture (Reckord). The stakes of this chapter are also about
supplementing a gap in research around the history of the drum in reggae music, in particular
reggae drum techniques and their stylistic development (Bilby). This history is important to
research and theorize due to the massive impact of reggae drum techniques on popular music
history as well as the cultural significance of the one drop in terms of African diaspora.
Chapter 4: “Signal Chains and Dub Style” shifts the focus of research to the techniques
used to record reggae drums at major and independent recording studios in Kingston during the
1960s and 1970s. It is widely acknowledged that the recording of quality drum performances is
among the most difficult and expensive tasks of the audio engineer, so each studio established a
signature sound based around their style of recording, mixing, mastering, and dubbing the one
drop (Hitchins). As audio engineers experimented with the recording techniques of microphone
placement, mixing, mastering, EQ, dynamics, reverb, and delay, the recording of the one drop
became an aesthetic and technical innovation in the history of popular music. In this chapter, I
detail the massive impact of these collective innovations around recording/dubbing the one drop
on popular music history at large, in particular the production styles of hip hop, dance music, and
Afrobeats.
The primary methodology of the dissertation is critical cultural studies, including (1) the
analytical study of popular culture “texts” (i.e LPs, zines, YouTube videos, documentary, etc.),
x
(2) the ethnographic study of urban dance music subcultures, and (3) the theoretical lens of
historical materialism. I also draw on the method of ethnomusicology, though I would not situate
the project in this discipline because the overarching terminology and questions driving my
research are more in realm of cultural history and analysis of the historical processes that underly
the production of culture. Therefore, I locate my project in the scholarly context of Caribbean
cultural studies, African diaspora studies, postcolonial theory, and urban studies, which are
significant fields in the broader disciplines of English and the humanities. Figure 1 is a
visualization of the dissertation’s analytic broken down by characteristics of each field of study
applied in my research.
Figure 1. Visual breakdown of the dissertation's critical methodology.
Special Dedication: Harvey aka Mr. Kitty
1
Chapter 1: Blossoming Yards
2
Blossoming Yards: Western Modernization, Rastafarianism, and
Original Reggae Roots and Culture in Kingston, Jamaica
This chapter proposes a theory about the historical conditions that produced Jamaican
popular music during the 1960s and 1970s. I argue that original reggae roots and culture emerges
out of a historical struggle between Western modernization in Kingston and what Sylvia Wynter
calls the “blossoming imaginary” of Rastafarianism (Wynter 169). To define this theory, I
provide a historical overview of the urbanization of Kingston during the 1960s, in particular the
industrial and modernist development of the waterfront and Central Business District. Then I
detail the historical trajectory of the Rastafarian movement during this time, specifically its shift
from a socially isolated subculture to a mass countercultural movement. I show how the
historical struggle between these societal forces is influential on the development of original
reggae roots and culture as a movement born amid cycles of urban decay and renewal. Lastly, I
conclude by linking these histories to the global rise of reggae roots and culture abroad from
Jamaica, as reggae music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism bloom in urban areas of
nearly every nation across the globe.
Many of the themes I discuss in this chapter are presented in Clinton Hutton’s essay “Oh
Rudie: Jamaican Popular Music and the Narrative of Urban Badness in the Making of
Postcolonial Society” (2010). Hutton analyzes the history around Back-O-Wall and other
Rastafarian encampments that were displaced by urbanization and industrial development
schemes along the Kingston waterfront, showing how the harsh socio-economic conditions of
postcolonial urban decay influenced the birth of dancehall music and sound system culture that
was more materialistic and violent, in which slackness, bling, gang affiliation, and drug
3
trafficking were in vogue. Hutton demonstrates how this culture of “urban badness” was the
result of significant changes in the urban conditions of Kingston that led to the youth generation
rejecting the orthodoxy of Rastafarianism and turning toward the sensibilities of hip hop culture.
“Blossoming yards” is in conversation with Hutton and the many other media and scholarly
works referenced below; the chapter builds on this discourse by providing insight into the socio-
economic and cultural geographies that undergird the rise of original reggae roots and culture
amid processes of globalization.
O Babylon!: Urbanization and Neocolonialism in Kingston during the 1960s
As a point of departure, I engage Derek Walcott’s play O Babylon!, first performed in
Trinidad in 1976, and then published in New York in 1978. By standards of drama and literature,
this rather obscure play by the celebrated Caribbean author is considered a failure, neither
receiving much acclaim during its short run off-Broadway nor much critical attention in the
nearly 50 years since its release. In one of only a few critical reviews of the play, Carolyn
Cooper asserts that Walcott’s “failed attempt to dramatize the Rastafari dilemma in Jamaica is,
perhaps, the best he could do given the commercial and artistic ambitions that have motivated his
opportunistic enterprise” (Cooper 200). Her critique is based on the play’s problematic
representation of Jamaican patois, which she argues leads to a “reinscription of stereotypes”
rather than a meaningful evocation of “the complexity of Rastafari livity and philosophy”
(Cooper 198).
1
In addition, Earl Lovelace critiques the play based on its “weakhearted”
1
In an Author’s note proceeding the play, Walcott admits that the Rastafari dialect he employs is “an adaptation, and, for
clarity’s sake, filtered.” His perspective is that to “translate is to betray.” This is related to Spivak’s notion of “Can the Subaltern
Speak?” which questions the power dynamics of translating urban vernacular and in general the voice of the dispossesed into art,
critical theory, and politics.
4
Rastafarian characters, suggesting that Walcott’s Rastafarians “elicit a pity, a pity that we do not
want to feel, since we feel that their real-life counterparts are capable of so much more” (Cooper
198). My objective in engaging O Babylon! is not necessarily to push back on these criticisms,
though I admit that in my opinion Rasta is not immune to stereotypes and existential crises –
after all, Rasta is human. Instead, I aim to shift the critical focus of O Babylon! to the play’s
historicity in terms of its representation of the urban and industrial development of the Kingston
waterfront during the 1960s. By reading the play through the lens of critical cultural studies, in
particular this field’s emphasis on urban subcultures and historical materialism, I unpack key
context that establishes the link between Western modernization, Rastafarianism, and the birth
original reggae roots and culture.
Set in 1966, in the historical setting of Emperor Haile Selassie’s famous diplomatic visit
to Jamaica, O Babylon! is about a Rastafarian beach community’s efforts to block the “New Zion
Construction Company” from building a luxury hotel on their settlement. The beach community
is a commune made up of around twenty households, whose inhabitants live a life removed from
mainstream Jamaican society, observing the customs and religious rites of Rastafarianism. At the
opening of the play, the New Zion Construction Company has zoned the community for
redevelopment, with plans to build a luxury hotel complete with a restaurant and bar that will
attract Western tourists and the Jamaican business elite. The play’s lead characters – Sufferer, an
Elder in the Rastafarian beach community, and Brother Aaron, a reformed outlaw who has rece
converted to Rastafarianism – pursue legal litigations against the New Zion Construction
Company to maintain rights to their settlement. But their attempt is crushed by the company’s
corporate lawyers and the state justice system that is biased toward Rastafarians. During
proceedings, Sufferer and Brother Aaron are mocked in court, and the community is ordered to
5
abandon their settlement. The play concludes with the Rastafarian community relocating to the
foothills of the Blue Mountains, with Brother Aaron singing a reggae tune about the injustices of
life in Babylon and the hope of one day finding peace in Zion, as the beach settlement is burned
in the background.
The New Zion Construction Company’s state sanctioned demolition of the Rastafarian
beach community dramatizes the real-life events of Rastafarian encampments being displaced by
urban development schemes during the 1960s. The location of the play’s settlement in an urban
beach setting is of significance because it identifies a specific history of urbanization taking
place along the foreshore area of West Kingston in which many Rastafarian settlements were
displaced by public and private urban development schemes. For context, I will now provide a
brief overview of this history of the urbanization and industrialization of the Kingston waterfront
and show how its construction was driven by the internal logic of neocolonialism and Western
modernization.
In the late 1950s, the Foreshore Development Corporation was set up by local capitalists
to (re)construct Newport West and the ESSO Oil Refinery along the waterfront of West
Kingston. This large-scale project commenced with the reclaiming of a large section of foreshore
area that wasn’t technically or officially in use by any government or private party, but
accommodated many squatters, tenement yards, shanty towns, farmers markets, fishing
communities, and garbage dumps. As such, the first phase of the Foreshore Development
Corporation’s project was clearing out the waterfront to enable construction. This took place in
waves from the late 1950s through the early 1960s, aided by law enforcement and public
agencies, during which time thousands were displaced, many of whom were Rastafarians.
According to Colin Clarke, “the government’s policy [was] not to rehouse squatters, and the
6
camps that were destroyed…either sought accommodation in tenements and yards with already
inflated population densities, or squatted in other areas of West Kingston” (Clarke 130).
Subsequently, the ESSO Oil Refinery was opened in 1964, and Newport West received major
renovations throughout the 1960s, including new warehouses, shipping yards, manufacturing
plants, and various other private commercial facilities.
The development of the foreshore area continued with the formation of the Kingston
Waterfront Re-Development Company by the government in 1967, which was shortly thereafter
incorporated into the Urban Development Corporation.
2
The objective of this conglomerate was
“the planned development and re-development of key areas throughout the country, so designed
as to arrest the forces of urban decay by providing essential planning and infrastructure, and
promoting orderly growth” (Richards 10). This imperative yielded a number of urbanization and
industrialization schemes along the foreshore area, carried out through “the subdividing of the
waterfront lands into blocks designed to accommodate hotels, office blocks, parking garages,
apartments, department stores and shopping centers” (Richards 10). This included the renovation
of major throughways such as Marcus Garvey Drive and Spanish Town Road, the construction
of Portmore Toll Road and Hunts Bay Bridge connecting West Kingston to Portmore, the
construction of Newport East, and the renovation of the Central Business District. A
visualization of these developments is depicted in Figure 1.1; the below map shows the various
major urban and industrial development schemes implemented along the Kingston waterfront
during the 1960s.
2
This occurred through the Urban Development .Corporation act of 1967. According to Basil Wilson, the Urban Development
Corporation Act had a “catalyst impact” on hotel construction in Jamaica (Wilson).
7
According to Clarke, “the Kingston waterfront is an outstanding example of the
integrated schemes for regional development which have recently been started in
Jamaica…Institutions are being created to deal with the problems of development and the co-
operation of Government with private enterprise is a cardinal feature of these schemes” (Clarke
239). That the Jamaican government sought to harness the skills of the private sector is evident
when looking historically at the innerworkings of the Urban Development Corporation. The
agency’s ties to ESSO, Newport Holdings LTD., Portmore Land Development Corporation, and
other private sector firms reveal how many capitalist corporations had stakes in the urban and
industrial development of Kingston during this time. This placed the power of deciding the
future of Kingston’s urban design in the hands of foreign investors.
Figure 1.1. Map of the Kingston waterfront depicting the major urbanization
and industrialization schemes of the 1960s. (Clarke 237)
8
For example, the Kingston Waterfront Re-Development Project commenced in 1968,
spearheaded by the Kingston Waterfront Re-Development Company, a subsidiary of the Urban
Development Corporation, who employed the United Kingdom Ministry of Overseas
Development to direct the project, who then appointed the British Firm Shankland, Cox &
Associates to produce a plan for the area. The British firm Block Office and Shop Investment
LTD. Were then licensed by Shankland to develop 400,000 square feet of land along the
waterfront, between Church Street and Princess Street, at the heart of the Central Business
District. Their development scheme included a 400-room convention hotel, two 150-room luxury
apartments, a 500 car parking garage, a department store, and a shopping area containing cafes,
restaurants, and nightclubs (The Jamaican Gleaner).
3
This is merely one of many examples of
the multiple layers of collaboration between public and private enterprise in the development of
the Kingston waterfront. Looking more broadly at this history of urbanization, the network of
private firms of foreign origin who were actively designing and planning the future of Kingston
expands to an almost exhausting degree. No doubt, the entanglements between the post-
independent Jamaican government and foreign investors run deep and these relationships directly
impacted the urban design and industrialization of Kingston.
These various projects of urban renewal promised to provide jobs for the Jamaican
working class on a massive scale as well as help Jamaica establish itself as a more competitive
economic player on the world stage, but they did not deliver in these respects (Clarke 85).
Development of the waterfront stalled during the 1970s when the Jamaican economy was
crushed by the 1973 oil crisis, forced to take out ridiculously high-interest loans from the
3
The cited article states that the Victoria Craft Market would be relocated to make way for a luxury hotel and a Cultural Centre
and National Theatre, which would be the only buildings on the seaside of Ocean Blvd. It is also mentioned that the start of the
project would require “demolition of some of the other buildings in the area” (The Jamaican Gleaner).
9
International Monetary Fund which left the economy buried by debt through the 1980s and
1990s (Alleyne 248). Moreover, the industrialization of Newport West and East during the 1960s
streamlined industrial production and the export of Jamaican goods and natural resources in
ways that exploited the Jamaican economy. Industrialization in fact paved the way for private
corporations primarily of US and UK origin to capitalize on economic incentives for foreign
investment set in place by colonial era legislation such as the Pioneer Industries Law, the
Industrial Incentives Law, and the Export Industries law. These laws ostensibly turned Kingston
into a “free port” – that is, tax and tariff free for international trade, thus allowing corporations to
route mass quantities of commodities and natural resources through Newport West and East for a
fraction of the cost (Clarke 84).
4
In light of these histories, the New Zion Construction Company can be read as an
allegory for the sprawling yet integrated nature of the legislative and corporate machine behind
the development of the Kingston waterfront during 1960s and the impact this had on the
Rastafarian movement. Walcott is picking up on how the changing landscape of the Kingston
waterfront is a symptom of the broader changes taking place in the Caribbean during the
postcolonial period in which large urban centers were being redesigned according to the
sensibilities and logic of Western modernization.
To put this in theoretical terms, the New Zion Construction Company is symbolic of the
rapidly developing system of neocolonialism in Jamaica. Among the first to define
neocolonialism was Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana. Through his
political work and scholarly research, Nkrumah realized that the colonial system was still intact
4
Clarke writes, “the proximity of Jamaica to the Eastern US, its position between the capital resources of America and the
markets of South America, its location in the sterling area, and its access to Commonwealth tariff preferences were thought to
make Jamaica an ideal location for ‘free port’ manufacturing” (Clarke 84).
10
even after Ghana won its independence, just operating in a different form. His book,
Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (1965), states:
The essence of neocolonialism is that the state which is subject to it is, in theory,
independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In
reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from
outside...the result of neocolonialism is that foreign capital is used for the
exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the
world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap
between rich and poor. (ix)
As Nkrumah’s definition indicates, the system of neocolonialism purports to operate in the best
interests of the independent nation, but in actuality its economic substructure is exploitative,
operating for the accumulation of Western capital.
5
Likewise, in post-independence Jamaica, it became apparent that, despite national
sovereignty, the economy was still very much directed by foreign investors, mainly from the UK,
US, and Canada. In the case of the Kingston waterfront, neocolonialism operates through British
firms directing and profiting from urbanization and industrialization schemes. The suggestion
here is not that the Jamaican government and its officials were in league with these Western
corporations and received a cut of the spoils of neocolonialism. In some cases this may have
been true, but on a deeper level the Jamaican government fell victim to systematic exploitation
through the false promises of Western modernization as a pathway to economic stability and
national prosperity for the less developed world.
5
In particular, Nkrumah’s chapter on “African Resources” is instructive on how the system of neocolonialism functions through
the latent exploitation of national economic resources, products, and labor for the accumulation of Western capital.
11
While theory helps define the power structure and economic operations of
neocolonialism, mapping out the actual actors in this history provides the means to hold certain
organization and institutions accountable, and subsequently develop plans for reparations. It has
been clear for a long time that the British government and certain multi-national corporations
carried out the systematic exploitation of Jamaica through their involvement in industrialization
and urban renewal, but there hasn’t been much movement toward restitution on an economic
level. Indeed, the Jamaican economy has had to struggle to become competitive on an
international scale as if the utterly destructive histories of slavery, colonialism, and
neocolonialism never happened. True, it is a difficult question to translate the responsible parties
into the present, to trace the legacies of capital from these various corporations which are mostly
debunked, especially given that the system of neocolonialism intentionally dissolves, rebrands,
and reorganizes its institutional frameworks in order to continue their exploitative enterprises
under a new name.
In hindsight, it is easy to see that allowing foreign investors to have stakes in domestic
schemes of urbanization and industrialization would inevitably feed into the system of
neocolonialism. However, it gets more complicated when it is admitted that the Jamaican
government, and perhaps in some cases foreign corporations, were guided by noble principles.
This is true of the urban housing schemes of Tivoli Gardens, Arnett Gardens, and Wilton
Gardens, which utilized utopian socialist design principles. The architect of these schemes,
Edward Seaga, was educated in the Social Sciences and commenced his political career with a
deep commitment to humanism and equal rights and justice for the poor, not to mention a
background in the popular music industry. After directing the rewriting of the Jamaican
Constitution to provide for a Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and a greater balance
12
between Parliament and the Executive branches of government, he was appointed to the Cabinet
as Minister of Development and Welfare in 1962, placing him in a key position to direct the
future of urbanization in Kingston. His ideals of democratic socialism and championing the poor
are inspiring to this day, and it is important to recognize that his work truly attempted to apply
these ideals. In particular, his Tivoli Gardens housing scheme set a precedent for community-
oriented urban renewal. It featured low-income housing, a community center with classes in art
and trade, public schools and childcare facilities, affordable modern healthcare facilities, public
parks, and a national theatre.
6
However, these projects are marred by questionable ethical compromises at their
inception and in certain cases disastrous long-term outcomes. Foremost among these was the
razing of shantytowns, tenement yards, and squatter camps in West Kingston, which displaced
thousands of Kingston’s most vulnerable population. According to Seaga, this was justified by
the extreme conditions of poverty and violence that existed in these areas, which could simply
not be allowed to continue. These conditions were described by Hartley Neita of the Government
Public Relations Office as “some four acres of squalor”:
Shacks, the walls of which were made of pieces of rotten wood and cardboard,
crocus bags and covered with rusty sheets of zinc. The families slept on pieces of
cardboard covered with scraps of cloth...There were no roads, just beaten tracks
winding around each hut…There was no grass or trees for shade or fruit. There
was no piped water. They had a tapped water main along Spanish Town Road and
6
It must be noted the degree of success that Seaga, the Department of Development and Welfare, and the Urban Development
Corporation had during this period, housing around 40,000 houseless persons by the early 1960s, as well as creating substantial
job opportunities at Newport West and East (Clarke). However, according to Clarke, “Since 1962 property developments have
provided a veneer of modernization, but they have not been accompanied by radical social and economic change…Population
growth has continued to oustrip employment and housing” (Clarke 127).
13
carried water inside the community where they had constructed a makeshift
shower...One man had built a latrine and he charged residents one penny to use it.
The alternative was at the edge of the community, sandy soil where men and
women scraped a shallow hole and squatted over it to drop their night food...The
smell from the combination of the rotting wood, mud, sour water and feces and
scraps of cooked food waste was a nauseous, stomach-turning smell. (Seaga)
These impoverished conditions were ultimately the justification for the razing of the foreshore
area and parts of Trench Town to make way for Tivoli Gardens. In Seaga’s own words, “For
more reasons than one, to create proper housing and to dispense the criminal elements, it had to
be demolished for the development of proper accommodation” (Seaga). No doubt, to renew, to
modernize, appeared the logical path forward, and very few would ultimately question Neita and
Seaga’s reaction to the living conditions of the shantytowns and the call to action it raised in
them.
The harsh reality of basic human rights inequities (scarcity of food, water, shelter,
healthcare, education, security, etc,) are not to be understated nor obscured by theoretical
posturing. There is slight room to critique the rhetorical appeal to pathos implicit in Neita’s
description of the living conditions of the foreshore, which are likely influenced by bourgeois
norms of domesticity, such as the idea that paved roads and toilets that flush are a necessary
feature of a happy and healthy life. Also, one may see great value in the communal living
arrangements of West Kingston, in which it was reported that the average household supported
2.5 families (Clarke 202). In general the pooling of resources that occurs in impoverished
communities, especially when this is mapped on to the moralist and community-oriented
Rastafarian belief system, is something to be admired. It does often seem that the less people
14
have, the more they’re willing to give and share. Yet, these arguments bring few productive
returns in terms of a solution-oriented approach to poverty, because the more serious matter of
human beings suffering from intense conditions of poverty looms large.
Comparatively, it is easy to critique the project’s outcomes, and the moral compromises
that marred its inception. It is reported that, during the construction of Tivoli Gardens alone,
around 6000 people were displaced, including around 2000 Rastafarians who resided at Back-O-
Wall and other original communes. It was not intended that the displaced would be the future
residents of Tivoli Gardens, despite verbal promises by certain public officials and the police
who oversaw the razing of the area (Clarke 130). Furthermore, not only did the project
commence with mass displacement, but also it is an unfortunate fact that many of the long-term
outcomes of Tivoli Gardens were, to a certain extent, continuations of the cycles of poverty that
urban renewal sought to undo. Extreme poverty in the form of decrepit housing, low standards of
education and healthcare, high crime rates, and many other social inequities persist in West
Kingston to this day, and Tivoli Gardens is notorious for its connection to drug trafficking and
cartel violence.
Figure 1.3. Tivoli Gardens, 1968, during the final phase of
construction. (Seaga)
Figure 1.2. Back-O-Wall, 1962. (Hutton)
15
Seen in a broader context, these historical events raise questions about the functional or
“necessary evil” of shantytowns in the processes of Western modernization in the developing
world. Shantytowns benefit the city by housing mass populations of citizens without the
necessity of government support. And then, when zoned for urban renewal, they pose no legal or
financial barriers for displacing the inhabitants. Since shantytowns form on unregulated land –
not owned by private investors nor sustained by public funds – they basically preserve the land
from development until a large-scale public or private conglomerate identifies a purpose for the
land. There seems to be an out of sight out of mind approach until the area is deemed
economically valuable, at which point the shantytown is viewed as a social problem and its
inhabitants are uprooted. In this sense, shantytowns function to sustain populations that the state
cannot or is unwilling to provide adequate support for while at the same time preserving the land
from development. This reframes how we discuss urban decay since its most prominent feature –
the shantytown – is actually an integral part of the structured development of the city (Hanson).
7
Ultimately, however, as much as the shantytown is a functional element of urbanization, the end
stage of its development is always demolition.
These historical examples reveal that the demolition of shantytowns is an integral aspect
of urbanization in the less developed world, regardless of whether this process is driven by the
internal logics of neocolonialism or post-independent nation-building. The link between the
capitalist and socialist urban development schemes implemented in Kingston was a vision of
progress rooted in Western notions of modernization such as the orderly growth of industry and
7
Gerald Hanson’s dissertation Shantytown Stage Development: The Case of Kingston Jamaica (1975) suggests that shantytowns
are an integral feature of urban development. He breaks the urbanization process down into the emergence of shantytowns out of
necessity in the initial stage, the transitory stage when shantytowns expand to occupy a substantial sector and population of the
city, to their assimilation and redevelopment stage at a point when the government or private sector has determined that the
shantytown must be repurposed for the progress/modernization of the city.
16
consumerism, the health, safety, and good hygiene of the body politic, and generally speaking
Platonic principles of design. Regardless of ideology, these various urban development schemes
in Kingston applied a modernist approach that unified the public and private sector and to a
certain extent the opposing political parties.
The blueprints and models developed by the Kingston Waterfront Re-Development
Company in association with Shankland, Cox & Associates say a thousand words about the
influence that Western logic had on post-independent Jamaica’s vision of progress and by
extension the design of urbanization in Kingston during the 1960s.
8
One may see a microcosm of
the failures of these ideals on the simple fact that, by the end of the 1980s, Kingston had become
a beachless city. The below model had been successfully implemented; the Kingston waterfront
8
Shankland, Cox & Associates was considered one of the premier modern urban development firms of the 20
th
-century, founded
on the principal that “city centers were to be made ‘livable’ not by preserving the familiar…but projecting a vision of modern
vitality” (Smith 393).
Figure 1.4. Model of the Kingston Waterfront Re-Development Project
designed by Shankland, Cox & Associates. (Richards 11)
17
had become a modern landscape of factories, ports, hotels, and shopping malls – its natural
landscape of beaches and shoreline had been completely buried by modernity.
No doubt, Rastafarians must have seemed the antithesis to this vision of progress.
Considered idlers and vagrants by the status quo, and often living in conditions of squalor in
overcrowded tenement yards, their mere presence in Kingston was antagonistic to the city’s
future-oriented plans for urbanization, industrialization, and modernization. In addition,
Rastafarians tended to be decidedly anti-nationalist. Rastafarian communities and settlements
comprised people of African descent who were deeply in tune with their cultural roots. Their
sensibilities ran counter to the social and political majority who were optimistic about Jamaican
independence and committed to national prosperity. In contrast, according to the ethos of
Rastafarianism, there could never be progress in Jamaica, nor would its government cease to
exploit and oppress black people. As African descendants living in exile in Babylon – the
Caribbean – liberation for Black people was only possible through repatriation to Zion – Africa.
Herein lies the dramatic and by now obvious irony of The New Zion Construction
Company – that is, its appropriation of the Rastafarian symbol of Zion. Clearly, this is a different
vision of Zion from the Rastafarian wisdom, rooted in the Garveyism and Ethiopianism, that
Zion is Africa. The New Zion Construction Company’s appropriation of Zion transforms the
symbol into a signifier of Western modernity defined by consumerism, industrialization, and
urbanization. As an allegory for the network of corporate and legislative bodies that comprise the
system of neocolonialism, The New Zion Construction wears the mask of noble principles, but in
truth it is a vehicle for the accumulation of private capital, at the expense of impoverished black
Jamaicans, in particular the Rastafarians.
18
Through this allegory, O Babylon! shows how the rights of the masses are often brushed
aside for both the noblest intentions of post-independence nationalism and the more sinister
system of neocolonialism. This is representative of a dynamic that occurs in many nations across
the African diaspora during the 1960s and 1970s as newly independent African and Caribbean
nations seek to balance future-oriented nation-building campaigns with issues of cultural
preservation and human rights. On the one hand it is a priority to modernize the economies of
post-independent nations so they can participate in the international economy on equal footing.
On the other hand there is the need to regenerate and uplift the indigenous societies that have
experienced oppression, persecution, and in general the erasure of their histories through
colonization. As Walcott and history reveal, this conflict of interests can result in championing
indigenous culture as the bearers of cultural nationalism while failing to adequately support the
human rights and economic needs of the masses.
Sylvia Wynter and the “Blossoming Imaginary” of Rastafarianism
In this section, I explore the relationship between the history of urbanization discussed
above and the emergence of Rastafarianism as a mass movement in Kingston during the 1960s.
Through an engagement with Sylvia Wynter’s notion of the “blossoming imaginary” of
Rastafarianism – rooted in Amiri Baraka’s concept of “frontier zones” – I define the Rastafarian
movement as a counter-geography to the dominant trends of urbanization in Kingston. I
demonstrate how the displacement of key Rastafarian encampments reorganized the Rastafarian
subculture into a dynamic counter-geography with the potential to change society on a structural
level. I argue this struggle between the urbanization of Kingston and the massification of the
Rastafarian movement is majorly influential on the globalization of reggae roots and culture.
19
Furthermore, I suggest this counter-geography has a sonic dimension, wherein the growing
influence of Rasta drumming on life in the city transforms Kingston’s soundscape.
During the early years of the Rastafarian movement, from about 1940-1954, the
subculture was centralized around the Pinnacle commune, which was organized and lorded over
by Leonard Howell, one of the founders of the religion.
9
This commune was self-sufficient, with
basic crops such as ganja and various fruits and vegetables, and with minimal shelters and living
quarters. While the commune itself housed certain leaders and elders, most of the community
(estimated between 500-1600 members) lived independently in Kingston or St. Thomas,
frequenting the commune for religious ceremonies and to help with the production of crops
(Barrett 87). Pinnacle was reportedly kept a secret, its entrance only available by bushwhacking
deep into the forest around the border of Kingston and St. Catherine Parish, with only members
knowing its exact whereabouts (Barrett 87). At Pinnacle, the movement developed its
foundational religious customs and beliefs, including communal living, the use of marijuana as a
spiritual rite, Garveyism, and the belief in Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as King of King and
Lord of Lords, a divine God incarnate.
9
The 1930s and early 1940s is considered the “incubation period” of the movement (Barrett 82). During this period, Leonard
Howell, Joseph Hibbert, Archibald Dunkley, and Robert Hinds each founded independent religious congregations that ministered
a form of Ethiopianism based on the teachings of Marcus Garvey.
20
It is important to note that, during this period, Pinnacle was the primary if not only site of
the Rastafarian movement. Its centrality in terms of the subculture meant that the belief system
and lifestyle of Rastafarians was developed in an integrated way, with few variations in the
overarching ethos. So that by the time the subculture began to expand into Kingston on a larger
scale, there was a very clear and identifiable set of beliefs and religious rites that one would
Figure 1.5. Cover of The Daily Gleaner, Nov 23, 1940. This article also demonstrates the
negative public disposition toward Rastafarianism. (The Jamaican Gleaner)
21
adopt as a follower of the movement. As an isolated and underground movement separate from
Jamaican society, Rastafarians of this period were generally despised and feared by broader
society. Their reputation as a primitive cult fueled this negative image, cementing their place as
an antagonistic body to the future-oriented nationalism of the Jamaican government and
mainstream society
Despite Pinnacle’s underground location, the commune was frequently raided by police
during the 1940s and 50s. The most significant of these raids came in 1954, when police arrested
163 members and destroyed the commune, ultimately bringing an end to its tenure as the nucleus
of the Rastafarian movement. According to Leonard Barrett, “The period between the destruction
of Pinnacle and 1959 was one of regrouping” (Barrett 88). Post-Pinnacle, the Rastafarian
movement reorganized into various communes, fractions, and groups. Many Rastafarian
encampments formed along the foreshore area, in Trench Town, and at multiple locations in the
foothills of the Blue Mountains. Among these were settlements at Back-O-Wall, Waricka Hills,
Boys Town, Moonlight City, Claredon, and Adastra Road.
This period also saw the radical politicization of the Rastafarian movement. Barrett
writes: “It was a time of intense hatred for the establishment and especially for the police. The
name Babylon was now given to the establishment, and Rastafarians with their dreadlocks
roamed the street like madmen calling down fire and brimstone on Babylon, using the most
profane language to shock the conservative establishment” (Barrett 88). Due to the unsustainable
class conditions of West Kingston, this message resonated with the dispossessed classes of
Jamaica – to migrant farmers, and to the poor and unemployed living in conditions of urban
decay in Kingston. Thus, a large influx of this demographic into the Rastafarian movement
caused the subculture to rapidly expand. We see evidence of this in the census demographics of
22
Figure 1.6, which show high rates of unemployment and substandard living conditions in areas
of the city overlapping with and adjacent to Rastafarian encampments.
10
This period of reorganization culminated in two major events in the movement: the
“Universal Convention” in 1958 at Back-O-Wall, and recommendations made by Arthur Lewis
to the Premier of Jamaica Norman Manley on behalf of the Rastafarians, stemming from a 1960
report commissioned by the government. Firstly, the Universal Convention was among the first
unified meetings of Rastafarians from the various encampments that had formed in the wake of
10
According to Clarke, “the magnitude of the housing problem was revealed in 1960 when it was estimated that 120,000 people,
one-third of the city’s inhabitants, were living in dilapidated accommodation, the greater proportion being concentrated in West
Kingston” (Clarke 91). Census data shows that around 18.4 percent of the population was either voluntarily or involuntarily
unemployed, again with a high concentration of this demographic living in the West Kingston area indicated on the below
graphics (Clarke 93).
Figure 1.6. Demographic maps depicting the substandard social conditions of West Kingston
according the 1960 census and their proximity to the Rastafarian movement. (Clarke)
23
the breakup of Pinnacle. Leaders and brethren numbering around 300 gathered at Back-O-Wall
and participated in ongoing religious ceremonies and political protests for a period of around two
months. There were daily groundation ceremonies followed by marching and political
performances held in the Central Business District.
Shortly thereafter, Norman Manley commissioned a report on the Rastafarian movement,
carried out by scholars at the University of West Indies, Mona, which defined these politics
further. Through the report, “The Rastafarian Movement in Kingston, Jamaica,” ten
recommendations were presented to the government on behalf of the Rastafarians. The report
called for, among other things, repatriation initiatives for black Jamaicans, increased healthcare
and educational opportunities for the poor, and, notably, the acceleration of low-rent public
housing schemes. It is worth including the full list of recommendations here in Figure 1.7:
Figure 1.7. Recommendations for the government made by the Rastafarians, 1960. (Barrett 100)
24
The certain extent that these recommendations reflect the political beliefs of the scholars
involved in the project is up for debate. But in any case, these events, the Universal Convention
and the national report, demonstrated that the movement had a degree of visibility and influence
within the political sphere and that the movement had a radical vision of social revolution and
freedom for black people. Here we see the first evidence of the Rastafarian movement beginning
to impact Kingston in a structural way, at the level of politics and economic development.
The post-Pinnacle period of expansion continued into the early 1960s, accelerated rather
than deterred by the independence movement. This period introduced significant intricacies and
reinterpretations of the Rastafarian belief system and symbology as well as the movement’s
uptake on a mass scale. Many new Rastafarian communes, organizations, and sects formed
during this period, including the Bobo Ashanti, Nyabinghi, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and the
Ethiopian African Congress, each with subtle differences in customs and doctrine.
11
There was
also a great increase in the number of Rastafarians who were not associated with any particular
branch of the subculture, but identified with the religion on a personal level, practicing certain
rites and customs independently or in small groups.
By the mid-1960s, it can be said that Rastafarianism in Kingston expands beyond the
realm of an identifiable subculture, taking shape as a mass movement. Footage of Haile
Selassie’s diplomatic visit to Kingston on April 21, 1966, later christened Groundation Day,
shows the extent that Rastafarianism was no longer quantifiable in terms of the major
communes, groups, and organizations associated with the movement (Jamaican Information
Service). At the airport, during the parade, and at the stadium where Haile Selassie greets the
11
The intricacies of these different groups is touched on in Barrett’s work, but it would be great to see a contemporary study on
the individual groups, organizations, and sects of the Rastafarian movement from its inception to the present. Today, these
subgroups are classified under the umbrella term of the Mansions of Rastafari.
25
Jamaican people, the crowd of Rastafarians gathered is so massive as to exceed the bounds of
any possible organizing body. There is a symbology and belief system shared by the thousands
of Rastafarians gathered at the event, but the group represented in the footage has reached a mass
scale beyond the capacity of any single organizing body or association. This event shows that the
Rastafarians had evolved into a mass countercultural movement, confirming estimates
circulating in media that the group had amassed around 75,000 followers.
Figure 1.8. Haile Selassie's diplomatic visit to Jamaica, 1966. (Views)
In theoretical terms, during the 1960s, the massification of the Rastafarian movement
coalesces in the emergence of what Sylvia Wynter calls the “blossoming imaginary” of
Rastafarianism. This concept is used to define the emergence of Rastafarianism as a massive
countercultural movement during the 1960s to the extent that it begins to influence the dominant
culture of Kingston. According to Wynter, the massification of the Rastafarian movement is a
crucial turning point in Jamaican history because it marks a rupture from the colonial order. As
we have already seen, despite independence, Kingston was still structurally oppressed by the
system of neocolonialism. While the classist, racist, and exploitative economic conditions of
26
neocolonialism upheld the imperial order, the emergence of Rastafarianism on a mass level
posed a counter-narrative to the dominant culture.
Wynter defines this as the “breakthrough of a new imaginary,” or as the “blossoming” of
a “counter-imaginary” (Wynter 153), in which the massification of the Rastafarian movement
offered “an alternate way of apprehending reality” compared to the “official reality” of the
Jamaican mainstream (Wynter 89). The official reality of the Jamaican mainstream can be
loosely defined as the superstructure of Jamaican society that props up the hegemonic systems of
nationalism, colonialism/neocolonialism, and US-led multinational capitalism, which structure
race and class conditions in such a way that the masses are exploited for the benefit of the few.
Wynter writes,
…the Rastafarian sect have become symbolic of the protest by the masses against
a system designed mainly for the upper classes and elite. In conditions of rapid
urbanization and industrialization, with old values swept away, and no new ones
to take its place; with widespread and increasing economic disparity, matched by
a corresponding unemployment; matched by the disillusion and alienation of
black and brown middle class children, turned off by the symbols of white power
and eager to assert a new black identity, the Rastafarian movement has offered a
life style, a demotic, which expresses a rejection of official reality. (Wynter 89)
As the Rastafarian movement shifts from a subculture to a mass countercultural phenomenon, it
calls into question the official reality of Jamaica. During the 1960s, this counter-imaginary gains
momentum to the extent that Rastafarianism become an omnipresent and undeniable force within
Jamaican society. Compared to the status quo, Rastafarianism offers an alternative reality that is
27
assembled through the movement’s re-semanticization of Africanist symbols as well as its
dynamic political and social rebellion.
Wynter’s theory is rooted in Amiri Baraka’s notion of a “frontier zone.” This term
describes the underground spaces of African American working-class culture. Baraka suggests
these spaces form a vibrant cultural sphere in opposition to the dominant culture of the US.
Geographically, the location of these spaces in the underground is the result of segregation,
social inequity, unequal treatment under the law, and in general the systematic racism of the US
which denies black people the general welfare and promises of American democracy, and
positions them on the margins of society. Culturally, in these underground spaces – this frontier
zone – the humanism that is denied African Americans on a structural level manifests in deeply
human formations of art, music, community, and identity.
12
These are expressions of the cultural
nuances and plurality of African American working-class experience that may at times transcend
and transgress the norms of hegemonic society. On an abstract level, Baraka suggests there is a
deep connection to African roots maintained in the frontier zone that has been preserved despite
conditions of relentless social erasure and displacement. This connection is defined as
continuities, that is to say, a complex of fragmented cultural relationships and connections rather
than a heritage or clan that can be traced back to particular regions or cultures in Africa.
13
12
For Baraka, this is the cultural sphere that produces black music. He writes, “that frontier zone in that No Man’s Land where
the beauty and logic of black music was born. That is for the black the only manner in which he can put forward his personal
vision of his country; taking off from that No Man’s Land, sheltered great currents of that black region, which is almost totally
invisible to the White Man, but which is such an essential part of them that it stains everything with a threatening grey…”
(Wynter 66).
13
To describe this deep connection to African roots present in the frontier zone, Wynter cites “The Process of Acculturation in
Black Africa” by Lamine Diakhite: “…among all peoples there exists a precious cultural deposit which escapes the alienating
enterprise of the colonizers. That cultural deposit is maintained permanently by the community. It consists of gestures, customs,
reflexes, a way of thought, a way of apprehending reality” (Wynter 66).
28
The Counter-geography of the Rastafarian Movement
What I want to point out are the geographic dimensions of the frontier zone implicit in
Wynter’s work, and the concrete impact that the underground has on the development of cities.
That is, I want to measure, from a geographic standpoint, Wynter’s suggestion that “in the
seventies, it is this ‘frontier zone’ that is erupting into the society, as it had begun to do from the
sixties…So a counter-imaginary is beginning to impact on larger society” (Wynter 169). To
reframe this statement within the discussion of urbanization, I suggest the blossoming imaginary
of the Rastafarian movement comprises not only a counter-narrative but also a counter-
geography. Concurrent to the trends of urbanization and industrialization discussed above, the
ethos and symbology of Rastafarianism was emerging as an element of the built environment,
economy, and soundscape of Kingston. Thinking about this in terms of geography helps provide
a more concrete illustration of how the Rastafarian movement gains momentum on a mass scale
and begins to impact the material and structural environment of Kingston.
Firstly, Rastafarianism has a material impact on the built environment of Kingston, in
particular Trench Town and the Central Business District. Amid the rise of the movement, there
is an explosion of paintings of the Lion of Judah, of Marcus Garvey, of the African continent, of
Haile Selassie, of the Ethiopian flag, and countless other symbols and collages of Rastafari.
These appear on the metal casings of tenement yards, on the walls of crumbling concrete
structures, as marquees at Rastafarian community centers, settlements, and places of worship.
During the 1960s, in the aftermath of the displacement of Rastafarian communities at Pinnacle,
Back-O-Wall, and along the foreshore, the city is literally painted red, gold, and green. This
element of the built environment offers a counter-imaginary compared to the visual elements of
the city being transmitted through advertising and mainstream media which contained an implicit
29
and explicit bias toward the heteronormative, bourgeois, and white British sensibility of
imperialism.
There was also the make-shift nature of Rastafarian dwellings, which tended to be pieced
together with scrap metal, wood, cardboard and other found materials. These make-shift
structures were often customized, added onto, painted, and moved to new locations. This is all
happening right across the causeway from where Newport West and East are being transformed
into hubs of international trade that cut taxes for foreign firms while at the same time optimizing
the production and export of Jamaican natural resources such as bauxite, oil, and various
agricultural products. It is also happening in the downtown area, where the Kingston Waterfront
Re-Development Company is hiring British firms to modernize the waterfront with shopping
malls, luxury apartments, luxury hotels, a convention center, and parking structures. Amid the
modernization of Kingston, the counter-geography of the Rastafarian movement is transforming
the visual and built environment of the city.
Figure 1.9. Street murals of Marcus Garvey represented according to the symbology of Rastafarianism (Davis).
30
Next, on an economic level, the Rastafarian movement offers a counter-geography to the
trajectory of modern industrialization that emphasizes efficient labor regimes and the nuclear
family. In terms of labor, Rastafarians of this period were both deeply spiritual, with religious
rites taking up to 3-4 hours a day, and relentless protestors. This led to them being stereotyped as
idlers and vagrants by the status quo, despite their high involvement in the market economy of
Kingston, especially in fishing, agriculture, woodworking, and weaving. Also, a key
characteristic of Rastafarian culture from its inception is communal living, and West Kingston
and Trench Town exemplify this characteristic in the massive proportion of multiple family
households. Demographic info from the early 1960s shows that in this area, despite tiny
residences and impoverished conditions, the average household contained 2.5 family units, with
over 50% housing more than 3 family units (Clarke 202). This greatly contrasts the structure of
the heteronormative nuclear family, a key component of Western capitalism and modernization.
Figure 1.10. left Marquee of the Rastafari Movement Association Head Office
in downtown Kingston; right A make-shift dwelling hand-painted with
symbols of Rastafarianism (Davis).
31
However, it is important to emphasize that these communal arrangements and alternative
housing structures are born out of economic necessity and class conditions rather than lifestyle
preference. Incredibly high rates of unemployment and underemployment meant that idle time
was plentiful and alternative/informal economic opportunities were a necessity. In any case,
Rastafarians of this period rarely participated in the official economy, putting up much resistance
to the processes of modernization that depended on an orderly, efficient, and submissive
workforce. As a result, their communal social arrangements and alternative economic networks
add an addition layer to the counter-geography of the Rastafarian movement beyond its
visual/architectural impact on the built environment of Kingston.
Lastly, the massification of the Rastafarian movement runs counter to the dominant
soundscape of Western modernization in Kingston. Construction, harboring ships, factories,
automobiles, planes, and buses represent the official sonic reality of a state sanctioned
modernization process. This sonic urban landscape correlates with the developmental trajectory
of the city in terms of its steady march toward Western modernity. Comparatively, the
Rastafarian soundscape is expressed in the religious custom/ritual of the groundation ceremony,
a meditative drum circle that plays deep drum rhythms while the congregation chants hymns and
praises to Jah Rastafari. The groundation is a consciousness raising ceremony central to the
Rastafarian way of life. It manifests the clear, critical, spiritual state of mind necessary to rise
above the oppressive conditions of Babylon. The ceremony includes three or more drummers,
the congregation who dance and interact in a call and response/participatory way, and in some
cases Western instruments such as electric guitars, electric basses, and brass instruments.
Professor Julian Henriques has described consciousness raising as an embodied way of
knowing and experiencing the world. It is not based on thinking or reasoning necessarily, though
32
this is part of it. Moreso, consciousness comes from a place of inner peace and love and being in
tune with the metaphysical vibrations of the natural world, which may generate highly critical
thinking and reasoning, but is not limited to thought. Music, rhythm, and dance are key to
consciousness raising because they stimulate the senses, leading to this place of being connected
to the vibes of one’s environment through a heightened awareness of the body, mind, and soul.
In simple terms, the groundation ceremony allows the individual to let go and just be one with
experience. This is described in Rastafarian terms as consciousness, meditation, and livity,
widely recognized as the precondition to transcending the oppressive system of Babylon and
leading effective rebellion. Music, rhythm, and dance – “musical reasonings,” as described by
Conscious Way Outernational – are the tools used to enter this state, and the groundation
ceremony may last for several hours or even days, during which critical thought and discussion
about ways to subvert Babylon become clear to the musicians and congregation, and/or the
participants reach inward to discover a feeling of inner peace and love within themselves.
As the movement shifts from subculture to countercultural mass phenomenon, the
groundation ceremony weaves its way into the fabric of daily life in Kingston. By the early
1970s, Rasta drumming becomes a feature of the Jamaican soundscape at large, described by
Louis Chude-Sokei as “everywhere,” on street corners, resounding from tenement yards, “heard
behind random bursts of foliage” (Chude-Sokei 10). As both Western modernization and
Rastafarian counterculture expand, these soundscapes begin to clash. The alternative experience
of consciousness accessed through the groundation ceremony challenge, subvert, and transform
the soundscape of Jamaica. Thus the soundscape of the Rastafarian movement is an important
element of its counter-imaginary in contrast with the official reality of the Jamaican mainstream.
That Rasta drumming becomes a feature of the broader urban soundscape of Kingston is a
33
further example of how the counter-geography of the Rastafarian movement has a material and
structural impact on society at large.
Original Reggae Roots and Culture
During the 1960s, reggae music and sound system culture were born in the underground
spaces – the “blossoming imaginary,” the “frontier zone” – of black working-class
neighborhoods and slums in Kingston amid conditions of urban decay in Kingston, Jamaica, and
then quickly spread to other regions of the country and Caribbean. This is the period when
Jamaican popular music is established, with ska and rock steady emerging in the first half of the
decade, and the crystallization of reggae and dub around 1968.
14
Kingston is of course the origin
point of this genesis, with West Kingston and Trench Town providing its cultural geography.
These neighborhoods produced the majority of musicians, the key studios and sound systems,
and the Rastafarian counterculture that produced Jamaican popular music. At the same time,
Kingston’s rapid economic development provided the means for the industry to grow and
circulate on a local, regional, and international scale. In this sense the Jamaican music industry is
both a continuation of the Rastafarian counter-geography and a product of Western
modernization in Kingston.
Before reggae music, sound system culture originated in Kingston around the late 1950s,
when local entrepreneurs hosted open air dance parties and profited from ticket, food, and drink
sales. Attracting the crowd and keeping the vibe right was the main goal of early sound system
crews, and during this period they learned that heavy bass and maximum watts kept the people
14
Many cite the release of “Do The Reggay” (1968) by Toots & The Maytals as the popular breakthrough of the genre. King
Tubby and Lee Perry’s earliest “versions” and “dubplates” are released around the same time.
34
dancing. With the rise of reggae music in the 1970s, the sound system was influenced by the
ethos of Rastafarianism and it became a space of consciousness raising in addition to party
atmosphere of the 1960s.
The sound system is the mass culture and multi-generational response of the youth
generation against the system of Babylon that both organizes around the message of roots and
culture and appropriates the technological and economic conditions of Western modernization
for mass dissemination. The ska dance becomes the universal language that the people unite
around, entranced by the sound system, and they encounter a space of peace and love that kindles
and guides the complex of social dynamics that occur when cultures unite. At the sound system,
people drop the pretenses of dominant culture and allow themselves to just vibe in the moment,
not worrying about the obstacles to personal growth and peace and love set in place by the power
structure. The ska dance is just a simple two-step that can be done as light as swaying on the spot
or as intense as daggering, with most people somewhere in between, wining or skanking to the
beat.
The recording studios of original reggae roots and culture also have this aspect of a space
where there is consciousness raising and the message, as the community comes together around
the making of reggae music. As will be discussed in “Conscious Drums” and “Signal Flows and
Dub Style,” the space of the recording studio takes on massive significance because of its impact
on the production styles of hip hop and Afrobeats, and due to the cultural significance of dub in
terms of African diaspora. The vibe that the musicians create is shared by the audio engineers
and any community that has gathered around the studio session. That vibe then gets recorded
onto tape and distributed via the channels of the international music industry, spreading the
35
message and good vibes to local, regional, and global audiences, after being filtered through the
production process and its various forms of mediation.
The world that erupts around original reggae roots and culture is vibrant and deep. This is
the birth of an entire counterculture in Jamaica that spans the Rastafarian subculture, sound
system culture, recording studios, record stores, shops and stalls selling Rasta merchandise, vinyl
pressing plants, and all of the spaces in between that are influential on growing the original
reggae roots and culture movement. These are the foundational grounds on which original reggae
roots and culture movement was built, grown out of the Rastafarian counter-geography, in the
vibrant underground spaces of West Kingston amid processes of urban renewal and decay.
Original reggae roots and culture emerges out of this historical struggle, and then became the
means for amplifying reggae music to a global audience. That Jamaican popular music has had
such a monumental global impact may be related to this historical struggle and the counter-
geography it produced.
The music industry of this era did not operate in the economic mainstream of Jamaica;
the business dealings of the industry tended to operate in the informal sector of the Jamaican
economy. Typically, its entrepreneurs and workers did not pay taxes on earned revenue nor in
any way register or document their business dealings with the government.
15
Furthermore, the
popular music industry was born in the underground spaces – the frontier zone – of Jamaican
society. Recording studios were built in the living quarters and convenient shops of prominent
producers and audio engineers, often starting off as side hustles. Sound systems played in the
tenement yards, back-alley ways, and communal areas of the ghettos of West Kingston. In this
15
Notably, the informal sector of has historically been a major part of the Jamaican economy, estimated at 40% of the total GDP
output as late as 2012 (Rhodd).
36
sense, the Jamaican popular music industry is a transformation of the counter-geography
developed by the Rastafarian movement, both through the sound system culture and through its
position on the fringes of the Jamaican mainstream economy.
A consequence of largely operating on the fringe of the mainstream Jamaican economy is
that the business practices of the music industry were intensely cutthroat. Key studios at the
inception of Jamaican popular music, such as Dynamic Sounds, Studio One, and Treasure Isle,
were criticized heavily for their business practices and many artists have spoken out about how
they were exploited and underpaid for their work. This was especially true of vocalists who were
rarely given an equitable share of songwriting credits/royalties on their records. Rather, it was
standard practice for the vocalist to sign away their right to royalties to the studio/label who
produced the record, receiving only an upfront fee and a fraction of the royalties if any. Rarely
was their work protected under copyright law or published as was typical in the American rock
and R&B markets. This led to many long-term problems for vocalists seeking equitable returns
for their songwriting, in the common occurrence that pop and rock groups broke into the
Billboard charts with covers of reggae tunes.
The sound system circuit was another sector of the industry where there was much
competitiveness and cutthroat business practices, perhaps exemplified by the rumors that
Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid would allegedly send henchmen to destroy equipment and
intimidate other sounds to prevent them from infringing on their consumer markets. There was
also the constant search for fresh sounds and records that would give sound systems a
competitive edge. Sound system crews would often protect the anonymity of certain popular
records by tearing off the label, or would have unreleased studio recordings cut directly to
acetate discs – otherwise known as exclusive dubplates. This level of competition is part of what
37
led to the industry’s incredible and unprecedented output of music during this era, which
proportionally outstripped the rate of industry production in the rock, soul, funk, and R&B
markets.
16
In relation to this economic climate, the Jamaican popular music industry grew into a
legitimate workforce that was highly productive in terms of creating valuable economic products
for both the local economy and for international export. Furthermore, the music industry had a
tremendous impact in the realm of employment, especially for residents of the West Kingston
neighborhood (Cyrus). Amid rapid population growth in Kingston during the 1960s and 1970s,
the city’s high unemployment rate was one of the most significant economic problems of post-
independence. As the urbanization and industrialization schemes of this period failed to deliver
on their promises of mass employment due to entanglements with neocolonialism, the music
industry experienced unprecedented growth that amounted to the creation of a legitimate source
of employment. In fact, this tended to be employment for residents of the West Kingston
neighborhood, which was not a priority in the mainstream economic sector, despite this area
being the main target for private and public urbanization schemes and industrial development.
***
By the early 1970s, the reggae roots and culture movement had become such a prominent
aspect of Jamaican society as to warrant its political appropriation. In 1972, Michael Manley’s
successful presidential campaign with the People’s National Party was in many ways the result
16
Among others, Mazie Watson argues that the extreme productivity of this period was due in part to the high level of
competition within the industry, as this aspect bsecomes a key factor in the innovations of sound systems, musicianship/rhythm,
and studio recording techniques from this period (Watson).
38
of his appeal to the youth and working-class
contingent with strong ties to Rastafarianism and
original reggae roots and culture. During the
campaign, Michael Manley frequently used Rasta
vernacular and famously carried a “rod of correction”
gifted to him by Haile Selassie. Peace and Love was
adopted as the political slogan, and many in the political camp wore the red, gold and green knit
hats iconic to the Rastafarian movement.
As Walcott demonstrates in O Babylon! through the allegory of the New Zion
Construction Company, the symbology of Rastafarianism is appropriated as a key element of the
modernization process in Kingston, by a government that previously sought to displace,
destabilize, and eradicate the subculture from its inception. This is representative of the way
post-independent nations often champion and appropriate indigenous cultures as the bearers of
their cultural nationalism while failing to adequately support the human rights and economic
needs of the masses. The historical struggle between the urbanization of Kingston and the
counter-geography of the Rastafarian movement is an example of this phenomenon, revealing
how the rights and culture of the masses are often brushed to the side for both the noblest
intentions of post-independent nationalism and the systematic exploitation of the less developed
world by US-led multi-national capitalism.
In the context of the dissertation, this process of political appropriation coincides with the
onset of early stages in the globalization of reggae roots and culture, which signals the
completion of a full phase in the cycles of dread. The crystallization of reggae music and the rise
of reggae roots and culture in Kingston at the end of the 1960s is the mass culture response to
Figure 1.11. Prime Minister Michael Manley with
Joshua's “rod of correction” at a political rally
for the People's National Party. (Norris)
39
around a decade of rapid historical changes in terms of Western modernization and Rastafarian
counterculture taking shape in Jamaica. Original reggae roots and culture emerges as a counter-
geography to these historical forces, offering experiences of liberation through the message, the
recording studio, and the sound system, and at the same time embracing the technologies and
routes of globalization developed by Western modernization in order to export reggae roots and
culture to the world. In the following chapter, I explore the processes of globalization that
enabled the global uptake of Jamaican popular music, sound system culture, Rastafarianism, and
in general reggae roots and culture abroad.
40
Chapter 2: Reggae Roots and Culture Worldwide
41
Reggae Roots and Culture Worldwide: A Global Anti-Racist Movement
Undermined by Neocolonialism and Cultural Appropriation
In the previous chapter, I argued that neocolonialism shaped the development of
Kingston’s waterfront during the 1960s and 1970s because of the way public and private
enterprise had a shared vision of modernization structured by Western norms of urban design,
industrial development, and philosophical principles of law and order. I suggested these
homogenous logics may have contributed to the continuation of cycles of urban poverty in
Kingston during the post-independence era, because, as Sylvia Wynter has argued, extreme
social inequality and degradation are embedded in the processes of Western modernization
(Wynter 200). This chapter shifts to the context of neocolonialism and globalization during the
second half of the 20
th
-century; I analyze the process of Jamaica being integrated into a global
industrial complex of the extraction of natural resources from the global south for the
accumulation of capital by Western corporations and to supply what Kwame Nkrumah calls the
“base materials” of Western modernization (i.e. copper, steel, oil, rubber, agriculture, lumber,
gravel) (Nkrumah 228).
Various works of African and Caribbean political theory from Nkrumah to Julius Nyerere
to Sylvia Wynter demonstrate how industries such as car tires, oil, construction, and tech are
implicated in this global industrial complex in which natural resources are systematically
exploited from the global south for cultivation in Western markets. Focusing on the bauxite
industry in Jamaica, I demonstrate the massive influence of Jamaica in supplying the bauxite and
alumina required to build the aerospace and shipping industries during the post-WWII period
when these industries were booming. In addition, I discuss how this connection supports
42
legislation or grass roots initiatives that propose reparations be paid to Jamaica for the
environmental degradation caused by the industrialization of Jamaican bauxite by Western
corporations during the mid-20
th
-century.
Next, I show how the Jamaican popular music industry develops in relation to this global
industrial complex, structured by its modern trade routes and economic inequities, but also
spreading the revolutionary message of reggae roots and culture. In this sense, I argue that
reggae roots and culture is a counternarrative to the global industrial complex of national
resource extraction because it is a global anti-racist movement on a mass scale that spreads the
message of social unity, freedom for black people, Pan-Africanism, equal rights and justice for
all, self-reliance, consciousness, peace, Word Sound Power, and positive vibrations. In nearly
every nation across the globe, concentrated in urban areas where there is a strong connection to
the people and popular culture of Jamaica and the Caribbean, there is a reggae roots and culture
subculture where there are sound systems and a Rastafarian influence on a mass scale. While
reggae music represents the voice of the masses and the sound system gives the people a space of
consciousness and peace and love, the political movements of African unity and Africa socialism
translate the message into concrete social initiatives and campaigns albeit in the more elevated
discourses of academia and public policy.
After focusing on these positive aspects, I critique the inequities and contradictions that
arise when reggae roots and culture is commodified by the economic markets of the Western
world. In the realm of popular music, commodification leads to disparities between the amount
of capital that Western corporations accumulate through the distribution of Jamaican records
compared to total revenues that the musicians, producers, record labels, and in general the
culture industries of Jamaica and the Caribbean recoup for their cultural products. Then, there is
43
the issue of the US and Western consumer markets involved in the sale of merchandise that
commodifies the message and the symbols of reggae roots and culture in particular Rastafarian
imagery, such as when Bob Marley music plays at the Safeway, or when there is a Lion of Judah
t-shirt for sale at Walmart. There is not much regulation in these markets, so many Western
corporations make significant profits off the manufacturing and distribution of Rasta
commodities.
1
Further problematics arise amid the globalization of reggae roots and culture
when cultural appropriation becomes a factor, as people abroad from Jamaica and the Caribbean
adopt and appropriate Rastafarianism and sound system culture, (re)shaping the subculture
according to their own local/national conditions, in some cases transforming the music and the
message in surprising and (r)evolutionary ways, in some cases commodifying or aestheticizing
the culture to the extent that the message is deradicalized or politically neutral.
Neocolonialism and the Formation of a Global Industrial Complex
The system of neocolonialism emerges during the 1950s and 1960s in the global south, as
a new era of Western imperialism developing amid processes of globalization. After operating on
primarily national and colonial terms during the industrialization era, the US and Western
Europe began to integrate their capitalist economies during the post-WWII period, developing a
more integrated, international, and streamlined network of corporations and industries. This shift
to a multi-national economic structure depends on import/export and industrial relationships with
the global south established during the colonial era. Post-independence, the industrial
infrastructure that was built under colonial legislation was maintained through private
1
No one has copyright over the Lion of Judah or the right to represent Emperor Hail Selassie, so these images can be used freely
by a seller or manufacturer that is not affiliated with the subculture and seeks profit by commodification of reggae roots and
culture. At the same time, reggae and Rastafarian merchandise is an essential part of the independent market and trade economy
that is common in Rastafarian communities and the subculture at large. Many independent sellers find manufacturers through
alternative sellers and economies than the Western corporate marketplace.
44
corporations of Western origin that had investments and shares in industry, manufacturing,
transportation, and politics in the global south.
Under the system of neocolonialism, these corporations continued to benefit from
colonial era legislation, building an infrastructure of industry and trade designed to efficiently
and cost-effectively streamline the production of industrial exports from the global south to the
capitalist markets of the Western world. Breaking down this phenomenon, Nkrumah writes:
Before the war the industrialised countries relied largely upon their own reserves
or other Western sources. Today the giant iron and steel corporations of Europe,
America and Japan, in addition to their investments in Canada and Australia, are
turning more and more for their base materials to Africa, where cheap labour, tax
concessions and supporting government policies have opened up avenues of
richer profits from huge, untapped resources. (Nkrumah 233)
These neocolonial import/export and industrial infrastructure ensured that Western corporations
had low-cost and efficient access to what Nkrumah calls the “base/source materials” of global
modernity (Nkrumah 231). These are the materials that comprise the elemental foundation of
Western modernization, used to physically build its telecommunication networks, Airline
industries, and international infrastructure of excessive consumerism.
To demonstrate the structure of this global industrial complex, Nkrumah critiques various
industries in which the “source nation” receives “unequal returns” for exporting its “base
materials” to the Western world (Nkrumah 231). These terms describe the disparity between how
much capital a nation in the global south accumulates through the cultivation and export of its
natural resources, compared to expenditures on importing Western technology and commodities
that utilize these natural resources as a core element. Nkrumah’s analysis of the tire industry
45
reveals how certain tire corporations like Goodyear import rubber from Latin America, Southeast
Asia, and Africa, where the company owns private rubber plantations that account for the bulk of
the source nation’s shares in the rubber industry. Utilizing a multi-national corporate framework,
Goodyear developed industry in these regions in order to capitalize on cheap labor costs and tax
incentives that benefit private enterprise established through colonial and neocolonial legislation
(Nkrumah 229). Yet, the cost of importing automobiles and tires from the Western world far
outstrip the amount of capital that the source nation receives for providing the base materials of
the tire industry, that is the natural resource of rubber harvested from hevea brasiliensis trees.
2
This is just one example of many that Nkrumah and other theorists offer to explain the
inequitable and exploitative power structures of natural resource extraction in the global south by
Western corporations.
Identifying the economic strategies of neocolonialism and multi-national capitalism
during the post-WWII period can be highly difficult due to the emergent and opaque nature of
their power structures. The network of Western corporations involved in this multi-national
framework is concealed by divested shares of corporate ownership across national lines. The
effective use of subsidiaries and foreign banking allowed Western corporations to accumulate
capital in the global south through business dealings carried out under financial misnomers that
nevertheless fed into shared corporate assets. Meanwhile, these subsidiaries forged significant
corporate and political alliances with government and other major stake holders in national
development, affording them significant influence on economic and political development. Thus
2
Moreover, the global south is constantly at a disadvantage in terms of access to automobiles and transportation, having to
overpay on import costs and tariffs to the extent that only the business class and economic elite can afford the overheads
(Nkrumah).
46
the power and influence of Western corporations in the global south operated under a mask,
difficult to identify, critique, and destabilize.
Jamaican Bauxite and the World Aluminum Industry
To bring this back to the context of Jamaica, the history of bauxite cultivation on the
island during the post-WWII period develops according to the internal logic of the global
industrial complex of natural resource extraction. The purpose of analyzing this history is to
explain the connection between the export of bauxite from Jamaica and the development of
modern Western infrastructure during the second half of the 20
th
-century, in particular the rapid
development of the multi-national airline/aerospace and freight industries, automobile industries,
telecommunication networks, and consumer electronics industries. What I want to make clear is
the direct relationship between the export of Jamaican bauxite and the development of these key
sectors of the modern Western economy due to their high industrial demand for aluminum. My
secondary focus in this analysis is to map out the bauxite industry and its multi-national supply
chains, in order to critique the abuse of Jamaica’s natural resources by Western corporations.
This secondary focus addresses the environmental issue around this topic, discussing potential
ways that corporate assets could be redistributed to Jamaica and other nations of the global south
to begin the process of reparations for these histories of environmental degradation and human
rights violations.
3
Currently, bauxite exported from Jamaica accounts for approx. 10% of the world’s
aluminum, but the island was the world’s leading supplier of bauxite from 1957-1971,
3
There is also the environmental issue of the e-waste crisis of the 21st-century, in which the debris of Western modernization and
technological development has created a waste-management infrastructure deficiency that cannot keep pace with the speed of
rampant consumerism and capitalist production.
47
accounting for between 25-50% of world bauxite production.
4
During this period, bauxite mining
in Jamaica took off as various aluminum corporations from the Western world, mainly the US,
UK, and Canada, began to buy land and industrialize Jamaican bauxite fields, building private
factories, access roads, and shipping ports to streamline production and distribution. During this
time, Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), Aluminum Company of Canada (ALCAN),
Reynolds Metals, Kaiser Aluminum, and Revere Copper & Brass Inc. emerged as the major
corporations in control of bauxite production in Jamaica, operating through national subsidiaries
(Coke 293).
5
Despite Jamaican independence in 1962, the industry remained under the control of these
Western corporations until 1974, when the majority share of the industry was expropriated and
brought under the control of the Jamaican government. The industry’s method of blast-mining
during this era resulted in extreme degradation of Jamaica’s natural environment (i.e. loss of
agriculture and residential land, water contamination, and deforestation) (Keith, Coke et al). This
period prior to nationalization was the most significant in terms of Jamaica’s role in supplying
the elemental foundation of Western modernization, the period in which the island was
integrated into the global industrial complex of the global south having its base material mined
for cultivation in the Western world.
4
In his book Jamaica in the World Aluminum Industry, 1938-1973 (1989), Carlton Davis provides a definitive scholarly account
of this industrial history, outlining Jamaica’s location and influence in the supply chains of the aluminum industry, in particular
the volume of its exports to the US, UK, and Canada. Notably. More recently, the anthology Aluminum Ore: The Political
Economy of the Global Bauxite Industry (2013), is an essential resource for more information and data on the development and
influence of Jamaican bauxite in the global bauxite industry.
5
Via subsidiaries such as ALCOA Minerals of Jamaica, ALCAN Jamaica Limited, Alumina Partners of Jamaica Ltd., Kaiser
Bauxite Company, Reynolds Jamaica Mines Limited, Revere Alumina Jamaica Ltd. (Coke 293).
48
Figure 2.1 reveals the industrial network, supply chains, and capital assets of Western
corporations involved in the industrialization of bauxite in Jamaica. The power-structure of the
industry is apparent, showing the volume of land, factories, railways, ports, and other
infrastructure owned by Western corporations and functioning to streamline the cultivation of
bauxite (Young, Coke, Davis et al). In revealing the power-structure of the bauxite industry and
its latent economic and environmental inequities, there is grounds to critique of the bauxite
industry for the exploitation of Jamaican natural resources. This map reveals the industrial
architecture of the multi-national corporations in control of the Jamaican bauxite industry,
showing the complex inner-workings of this business model in terms of high capital investments
in land and industrial infrastructure.
Figure 2.1. Map of the Jamaican bauxite industry circa 1970, showing the land and capital owned by the major
Western corporations in control of bauxite mining and alumina production. (Coke 292)
49
In “Multinationals in Third World Development: The Case of Jamaica’s Bauxite
Industry” (1977), Madeleine Tramm gives essential insight into this multi-national capitalist
business model, outlining the way these corporations repurposed their land shares to maximize
capital. After buying a surplus of bauxite rich land, much more than could be simultaneously
industrialized, these corporations set up operations for other industries on the surplus land, in
particular agriculture and cattle. Infrastructure for the mass production of yams, tangerines, beef,
and milk was developed to capitalize on the land that was not currently zoned for bauxite mining
but would be mined in the future once the initial sites had been exhausted. This crowded out
small venture farmers who were unable to compete with the industrial standards and price-points,
contributing to the unprecedented level of rural-urban migration during this period. Though
industrialization through foreign investment was often viewed by governments of the global
south as an essential tool for national modernization, it tended to benefit only the economic elite,
increasing the capital of the upper classes while causing inflation of food, gas, rent, and housing
prices so that the underprivileged class faced further stress and hardship.6
Contemporary discourse around this topic reveals the connection between the Jamaican
bauxite industry and the construction of various industries and infrastructure essential to Western
modernization. Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity (2014) argues that the
aerospace and shipping industries, telecommunication networks, and consumer electronics
industries of the Western world are built using bauxite excavated from Africa, India, and the
Caribbean. Focusing on the aluminum industry, this book illuminates the global industrial
6
Tramm’s analysis of the modernization of Mandeville, Jamaica during the 1950s and 1960s demonstrates this inequity.
Mandeville saw rapid population growth and economic development during this time due to its location near key ports, mining
sites, and business headquarters of the bauxite industry, but increased wealth inequality due to the high cost of living in the area
that only the business elite and generationally wealthy could afford. Furthermore, being that the bauxite industry was capital
intensive, it did not provide adequate jobs for the Jamaican working class, instead employing foreign workers who had
experience operating the modern equipment used in bauxite production.
50
complex of resource extraction, showing how multi-national Western corporations have
industrialized natural resources from the global south to supply the base materials of Western
modernization.
Similarly, Esther Figueroa’s recent documentary film Fly Me To The Moon (2019) draws
a connection between the history of the Jamaican bauxite industry and the Cold War geopolitical
race for space primacy. Her work provides socio-economic history of the Jamaican bauxite
industry to demonstrate the fact that the Jamaican environment was exploited to supply the vast
majority of bauxite and aluminum used in the Western aerospace industry during the Cold War
era. Subsequently, she proposes large-scale investment in Jamaican environmental conservancy
and preservation funded by Western corporations but directed by Jamaican representatives and
benefiting Jamaican socio-economic interests. In this sense, her documentary is useful from a
historical perspective but also as a model for legislation or grass roots initiatives that propose
reparations be paid to Jamaica for the history of exploitation and degradation of the island’s
natural environment and resources by these Western corporations.
To build on this conversation, I just want to emphasize that the intrinsic connection
between the Jamaican bauxite industry and the making of Western modernity is just one example
of the global industrial complex of natural resource excavation from the global south. Countless
other examples exist and are well documented, from Nkrumah’s example of Goodyear’s rubber
plantations in Indonesia, Central America, and Africa, to the relationship between the gasoline
industry and oil production in the Nigerian Delta, to the use of lumber from Ghana for high-end
furniture and hardwood floors in the Western world, to the mining of the metallic-ore coltan in
eastern DR Congo that is one of the most important elements of today’s smart phone technology,
51
to fruit and vegetable plantations in Central and South America being managed by Western food
corporations like Kroger – the list goes on endlessly.
Reggae and the International Popular Music Industry
Due to the power-structure of US-led multi-national capitalism, serious inequities have
emerged amid the globalization or reggae roots and culture. Firstly, there is the problem of the
massive disparity between the revenues that Jamaican popular music generates for Western
corporations compared to the amount of revenue that the creative industry sector of Jamaica
receives in compensation. This disparity is maintained by a network of cultural imperialism in
which Western corporations direct the economic flows of black cultural production through a
monopoly over the means of producing and distributing popular music. The commodification of
reggae roots and culture creates many inequities between the British and US music industry and
the Jamaican culture industries. For manufacturing and distribution, the Jamaican studios and
labels had to establish ties with record distributors abroad who had more capital and resources
for international promotion. Universal, Sony, and Warner are the primary outlet for most major
reggae and dancehall record sales, and in the present day markets of vinyl, streaming, and
audio/visual media, the comparative capital of the major labels is massive compared to the
returns that artists and the culture industries receive.
In fact, there are similar economic structures operating across the export of Jamaican
music and Jamaican bauxite, a similar global industrial complex with inequities between the
surplus capital that Western corporations accumulate compared to the returns that the originators
and producers of the music recoup. Like in the examination of natural resource excavation, the
notion of supply chains can be applied here to examine the export/exploitation of Jamaican
52
popular music by Western corporation of the US and UK popular music industry during 1960-
1970. Comparing and contrasting these supply chains with those established through the
export/exploitation of bauxite from Jamaica will no doubt reveal disparate yet intertwined
economic histories of globalization.
Works such as “Becoming a Globally Competitive Player: The Case of the Music
Industry in Jamaica” (1998), by Lloyd Stanbury, “The Caribbean Music Industry” (2001), by
Keith Nurse, and “Globalization and commercialization of Caribbean Music” (2009) by Mike
Alleyne reveal the relationship between neocolonialism and the production, distribution, and
consumption of Jamaican popular music on an international scale during the 1960s and 1970s.
Due to the time constraints of this project, unfortunately I cannot discuss this aspect in more
detail.
African Unity, African Socialism: Putting Up Resistance
The 1960s-1970s was a time when the economies of various post-independent nations
such as Ghana and Jamaica were extremely vulnerable, after a period of colonization that left
these economies destitute and with decaying infrastructure, industries, and cities. There was a
dual need to repair these countries but also for the national economies to become competitive in
the rapidly developing international economy. In response, African and Caribbean nations
utilized the political theory of “African unity” to put up resistance to the exploitation of their
natural resources by the system of neocolonialism. In the context of African and Caribbean
political history, African unity is the political theory that national ties across the African diaspora
are essential to the decolonization struggle, and that a unified Africa will help individual African
nations develop economic self-sufficiency and dismantle the system of neocolonialism. At the
53
core of the African unity movement were Norman Manley, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere,
Léopold Senghor, Modibo Keito, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and many other influential African
and Caribbean political figures and intellectuals. Their academic writing and political work
established a basis for the principles of African unity.
African unity is a political, cultural, and economic ideology + praxis. On a political level,
African unity is the practice of utilizing diplomatic and national alliances across the African
diaspora to secure political power and conditions of equality for black people. During the
decolonization era, African unity became a dynamic politics for aiding the freedom struggle in
certain African and Caribbean nations where the colonial/imperial power was clinging to its
regime of power and oppression. On a cultural level, African unity is about recognizing the
shared histories of oppression stemming from slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism that have
destabilized/fragmented African cultural heritage by scattering people of African descent across
the globe, as well as imposing Western culture (i.e. religion, standards of beauty, consumerism)
on indigenous African cultures, leading to erasure of African history and cultural customs. As a
response to this shared history, African unity is a cultural phenomenon in which nations, political
organizations, cultural centers, museums, and individuals celebrate and persevere pan-African
culture and shared African roots. Lastly, on an economic level, African unity is the principle that
no single African or Caribbean nation has sufficient capital to be truly competitive in the
landscape of US-led multi-national capitalism so Africa must unite and stand together against the
economic exploitation of the continent. In theory, a united Africa in the economic sector, through
the unionization of industry, trade, and economic resources in general, will enable African
nations to compete on level terms in the international economy and subsequently secure long-
term economic self-reliance at the national level. Whereas African nations seeking to develop
54
outside of this network would inevitably be exploited, manipulated, and oppressed by Western
government bodies and corporations.
In practice, African unity was applied by a number of international political
organizations, and as the impedance for the development of mutually beneficial international
relations across African and Caribbean nations. In 1963, at an international conference in Addis
Ababa hosted by Emperor Haile Selassie, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) started
operations in an official capacity. The OAU applied the political model of African unity by
creating an intergovernmental organization comprised of 32 signatory governments of post-
independent African and Caribbean nations. At the conference, representatives from the
participating nations developed a list of primary aims and operating procedures, later published
as the “OAU Charter.” This document outlines the mission of the OAU to achieve the following
objectives:
Figure 2.2. Purposes section of the OAU Charter, signed by 32 African and Caribbean
nations in Addis Ababa on May 25, 1963. (Wikipedia)
55
The principles laid out in Figure 2.2 announce the political objectives and cooperative
international alliances of the OAU organized according to the political theory of African unity.
These objectives and alliances apply a multi-national framework in which African nations work
together to achieve prosperity for the nations and people of Africa, to develop its international
standards of education, healthcare, and economy, and to conserve its diverse natural
environments and resources. First and foremost, this cooperation aims to eradicate all forms of
colonialism and neocolonialism from the continent. Then its mission is to turn toward the project
of post-independent political, cultural, and economic development across the continent through
strong international cooperation in areas of industry, trade, politics, and infrastructural
development.
Many have critiqued the OAU for its low impact on international African politics and
relations due to limited power and resources to intervene in crisis situations in. The OAU were
unable to significantly aid the resolution of national humanitarian crises such as civil wars in
Nigeria and Angola and the oppression of minority ethnic groups in Uganda. Its activities were
also largely dependent on financial support from the international community including the
United Nations and the World Health Organization. This limited the resources, budget, and
operations of the OAU, and for this reason the OAU is often viewed as a kind of “think tank,”
more theoretical in its operations than concrete, noteworthy for its discursive ideas about
democratic socialism and economic unity in Africa as opposed to a legacy of socio-political
action.
It is true that the OAU and its members contributed some of the most important political
philosophy of the 20
th
-certury and their discourse is highly instructive and influential in the
56
development of democratic socialism as a political model.
7
However, the organization was also
essential to concrete political movements during the decolonization era. The OAU was heavily
involved in the freedom struggle across Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, “play[ing] a pivitol
role in eradicating colonialism and white majority rule in Africa” (Wikipedia). The OAU also
achieved significant development in the sector of infrastructure, working to build a unified
African international economy and infrastructure of trade, transportation, telecommunication,
industry, and politics.
8
On the national level, African unity was often supplanted by the political theory of
African socialism. African socialism is a politics of democratic socialism that is rooted in a deep
understanding of African history and culture. This political model was developed and practiced
in many African nations during the decolonization era, in particular Tanzania, Ghana, and Mali,
among others. Common principles of African socialism are: social development guided by a
large public sector, incorporating the African identity and what it means to be African, and
avoidance of the development of social classes in society. One of the major beliefs of African
socialism is community-based, co-operative economics where each individual works together for
the benefit of the group, and where all citizens are treated equally and equitably. In some cases,
as in the writings of Julius Nyerere and Leopold Senghor, socialism is considered a natural ethos
of African society. This ethos is considered to predate Marx by many centuries and there is much
discourse about the distinction of African socialism from prominent Western political theories
7
In particular, works like Neocolonialism, Freedom and Unity, Genocide in Nigeria, Arusha Declaration comprise a rich
discourse on African political history.
8
Autonomous specialised agencies, working under the auspices of the OAU, included the Pan-African Telecommunications
Union, Pan-African Postal Union, Pan-African News Agency, Union of African National Television and Radio Organisations,
Union of African Railways, Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, Supreme Council for Sports in Africa, African Civil
Aviation Commission (Wikipedia).
57
and examples of democratic socialism.
9
This belief system has taken many forms across the
African diaspora, from ujaama in Tanzania, harambee in Kenya, ubuntu in South Africa, and
many other examples.
Concrete application of African socialism took the form of many government bodies
integrating African socialism into its national policy. In Tanzania, the Tanganyika African
National Union (TANU) was an African socialist political party formed by Julius Nyerere that
led the campaign for national sovereignty and then was elected as the ruling government body of
independent Tanzania. The policy of TANU was to build and maintain a socialist nation-state
that would uphold economic self-sufficiency for the nation and work cooperatively toward a
society free of exploitation where there is equitable national prosperity for all citizens. It was
during the decolonization period that TANU emerged as one of the most progressive and
burgeoning sites of social, economic, political, and cultural development in the world, due in part
to its successful application of African socialism, which comprised the nationalization of
industry, flexible immigration laws, participation in the freedom struggle to decolonize other
African nations, and commitments to pan-Africanism that encouraged and welcomed the
repatriation of black people from across the African diaspora.
In Figure 2.3, a cursory glance at the TANU constitution published in the Arusha
Declaration (1967) states the beliefs and aims of the party, showing the high degree of socio-
political integrity of the ideology of African socialism. This shows the ideology of African
socialism developed in relation to the national conditions of Tanzania during the decolonization
era, as well as the movement of African unity. Like Ghana, Tanzania was looked at as one of the
9
Sénghor suggests that “Africa’s social background of tribal community life not only makes socialism natural to Africa but
excludes the validity of the theory of class struggle,” thus making African socialism “very different from Marxism and European
socialist theory” (Wikipedia).
58
most progressive nations in Africa at the time, and this list of principles of democratic socialism
to abide by laid out a long-term vision of unionized industry, cooperative economy, and
representational government balanced with individual liberty. However, like many of the best
projects of visionary generations, modernity and imperialism have continued to erode the
economic and environmental stability of Tanzania.
These principles on a national level, operating in relation to OAU and the principles of
African unity, were designed to create equal rights and justice for all African people and
economic self-reliance for independent African nations. I suggest this political history of African
unity and African socialism can be viewed as a global counter-narrative – a site of resistance – to
Figure 2.3. Beliefs and aims of the "TANU Creed" from the Arusha Declaration:
TANU's policy on socialism and self-reliance, 1967. (TANU)
59
the global industrial complex of natural resource excavation in the global south by Western
corporations. I am also interested in the international political and economic ties across the
African diaspora that were established during this period, and if any still exists today, and/or if
any could be rebuilt.
After the creed of beliefs and aims, the Arusha Declaration turns to the issue of Western
corporate investment in national enterprise. To this point, Tramm identifies a key site of conflict
in the history of decolonization and neo-colonialism, that is the controversy of Western corporate
and industrial investment in post-independent nations of the global south. She writes: “Critics
condemn [multi-nationals] monopolistic wealth and power, or raise the warning cry of
imperialism…Yet Third World governments often eagerly seek to attract large-scale foreign
investment, and around the world the presence of multi-national companies has contributed to
the economic growth of countries heretofore poor, isolated, and rural, and to a growing
sophistication among their people” (Tramm 1). This quote pinpoints the ongoing debates among
African and Caribbean intellectuals and political figures during the decolonization era about the
extent that foreign aid is a necessary part of economic and social development.
According to Nyerere, there is a razor-thin balance between maintaining economic self-
sufficiency and allowing foreign industries to privatize certain sectors of the economy. Defining
this balance, Nyerere writes,
We shall not depend upon overseas aid to the extent of bending our political, economic,
or social policies in the hope of getting it. But we shall try to get it in order that we may
hasten our economic development, and that it may act as a catalyst to our own efforts.
Similarly with private industry; we have rejected the domination of private industry; but
we shall welcome private industry… (Nyerere 23).
60
Here, Nyerere writes about the attempt to find a balance between public and private enterprise so
that national economic self-reliance is maintained but there is increased modern capital coming
into the country.
The problem is when investment in national enterprise leads to certain sectors of the
economy and industry being under the control of Western corporations, specifically the sectors
of natural resource cultivation and export (the privatization of base materials {agriculture,
lumber, gold, oil, bauxite}). Summing up this issue alongside several underlying factors relating
to African unity as a tactic of decolonization, Nkrumah writes:
The African countries are faced with the need to turn subsistence economies into
organisms that will generate viable and improved working conditions and
standards of living for their populations. However, many African governments,
instead of getting together in united action which would stimulate maximum
capital accumulation and the construction of a solid overall African economy, are
granting concessions for the working of mineral, agricultural, and forestry
resources whose purpose is the drawing off of output to sustain and enlarge the
industries and economies of the imperialist countries. Not one of the investing
syndicates has any intention of founding in one of these countries an integrated
industrial complex that would give impetus to genuine economic growth. Nor are
the returns on the export of primary products from mining, agriculture and
forestry likely to provide to any important extent the looked for capital for
investing in industrial foundation. (Nkrumah 234).
61
Like Nyerere, Nkrumah advocates for the use of African unity alongside African socialism as a
strategy for putting up resistance to the system of neocolonialism and its global industrial
complex of excavating natural resources for the accumulation of Western capital.
Tanzania sought to maintain control over this balance through the national expropriation
of industry so that TANU was the majority share holder in key sectors of the economy, allowing
for private investment in industry but under conditions of rules and regulations that benefited the
nation-state. In general, socialist nationalization of industry was employed by many nations
across the African diaspora to varying levels of success. In the case of the Kingston waterfront as
discussed in the previous chapter, and in the case of the Jamaican bauxite industry, it is
unfortunate that the balance between national development and Western corporate influence was
tipped in favor of the latter.
The Message: A Universal Anti-Racist Language
There are many commonalities across African unity, African socialism, and
Rastafarianism. These histories are interwoven and overlapping in their belief systems and
principles. A source that establishes this connection is Monique Bedasse’s book Jah Kingdom:
Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization (2017). In particular,
the chapter "Tanzania: Site of Diaspora Aspiration," details the formation of Tanzania as a
progressive and burgeoning site of social, economic, political and cultural development,
representing high aspirations for the promise and possibilities of postcolonial Africa, and how
this vision is linked to the globalization of Rastafarianism.
62
In Tanzania, an essential tool for this work was the political concept of Ujamaa,
originated in a political pamphlet published by Nyerere.
10
The document explains the political
philosophy that Tanzania built around principles of African socialism, in which socialism is
adjusted, appropriated, and translated into the African context, designed in conjunction with the
particulars of the given region or state where it is to be applied and integrated. Nyerere believed
in "Africa first and Socialist second," and during his presidency he incorporated socialism
according to the specific eyes of the citizens and inhabitants of Tanzania. Among the major
political policies and practices of the model of Ujamaa and African socialism were a strong
system of public infrastructure and social services universally funded by the state, a commitment
to Pan-Africanism that yielded strong material support in the freedom struggle, and a stance on
immigration that encouraged black people across the diaspora to repatriate to Tanzania
(Bedasse).
In addition to defining how Ujamaa and other factors resulted in Tanzania becoming a
site of enormous potential and hope for black people across the world, Bedasse shows how many
of Nyerere's major ideological commitments can be linked to the Rastafarian movement,
specifically the way Nyerere's vision of African socialism reflects the Rastafarian approach to
collective experience and agricultural communities. With all of these nuances and connections
Rastafarianism both ideologically and materially helps to create strong bonds between Jamaica
and Tanzania during Tanzania's time as a hugely significant hub of pan-African thought and
social, economic, political and cultural life in the African diaspora.
The uniting factor across these histories of progressive politics and rich cultural exchange
across the African diaspora is the message, the ethos of reggae roots and culture and its vision of
10
Later published in Freedom and Unity (1962), by Julius Nyerere.
63
diversity, consciousness, livity, and freedom for black people. The message is the invention of
reggae music that has spread across the world, a universal language of music and culture and
revolutionary politics. The message takes many forms and is customized to meet the social and
cultural needs of the continents and people it touches. It shares a common ethos of equal rights
and justice for all, freedom for black people, and social integrity with the movements of African
unity, African socialism, Civil Rights, and all of the people and movements working together
and against one another in complex ways to push through the systems walls and create a better
tomorrow. Figure 2.4 is a beautiful rendering of the message published by the Winston Grennan
foundation, representative of the legendary drummer and foundational artist of Jamaican music,
Winston Grennan. The message is the uniting ideology and way of life of reggae roots and
culture, its universal language. The tenants are simple and inclusive, promoting consciousness,
peace, and love.
Figure 2.4. The message according to Winston Grennan, published by his estate foundation. (Grennan)
64
The Emergence of Reggae Roots and Culture on a Global Scale
The 1960s-1970s is an era when the world was changed by the development of
international trade, transportation, telecommunication, industry, and modern warfare, aided by
technology and a rapidly expanding free market economy dominated by Western capital. The
system of neocolonialism takes root in these Western capitalist technologies of modernization
that impose an international infrastructure on the global south designed to exploit its natural
resources. Western corporations operate according to an internal logic of Western modernization
that views economic development in industry and technology as synonymous with progress, yet
has also been responsible for the human rights violations and environmental degradation caused
by the histories of slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism (Wynter).
Amid processes of globalization in which US-led multi-national capitalism is driving the
Western modernization on a global scale, reggae music offers an alternative cultural space to the
dominant culture. The globalization of reggae roots and culture intersects with this economic
history of global modernity, but the development of the subculture on a massive international
scale creates a counter-narrative to the system of neocolonialism and Western modernization.
Reggae music’s relationship to Rastafarianism, African unity, and African socialism offers a
vision of modernity in which pan-Africanism and black liberation are central to a prosperous
global society. This is a vision that condemns the Eurocentric profiteering of an interconnected
free market economy in which a fraction of the population holds 99% of the world’s wealth,
while the masses, especially those of the global south, suffer extreme poverty.
Reggae roots and culture is, perhaps, the world’s best traveler. Since its inception in the
1960s, reggae music has crossed national, racial, class and other borders freely, spreading
positive vibes wherever it lands. At its best, the global sprawl of reggae roots and culture can
65
produce dynamic forms of cross-racial intimacy and collective social activism that uphold the
politics of unity, equal rights and justice for black people, and anti-establishmentarianism that
reggae music professes. Upon landing in foreign places, it unleashes revolutionary energy, an
ideological framework of unity, and a powerful recognition of the immediate urgency for black
liberation across the globe. In this section I follow its routes across diaspora, developing into a
global subculture, present in nearly every nation across the globe, including Senegal, Ghana,
Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Japan, Italy, Guadeloupe, France, Mali, the list goes on and on (Alleyne).
Leonard Barrett’s defines reggae as “liminal music that sings of oppression in exile, a
longing for home, or for a place to feel at home…reggae music is a cultic expression that is both
entertaining, revolutionary, and filled with Rastafarian symbolism…reggae music is now a
multi-million dollar industry, but its cultural significance derives from that unique sect whose
music is an inseparable ingredient” (Barrett ix). Through reggae music’s aesthetic rendering of
the Rastafarian and African-centric symbolism of oppression, a search for belonging (home), and
social revolution, it creates an alternative vision of modernity compared to the violent
mechanisms of racism, colonialism, classism and economic exploitation imposed on the global
south by imperialism.
A number of scholars have suggested that reggae roots and culture opens up alternative
cultural experiences to the dominant culture of Western modernization.
11
Louis Chude-Sokei
informs us that soundsystems “have laid the foundations for the various sound cultures in the
West that exist as what Paul Gilroy calls an ‘alternative public sphere’ for generations who seek
communities in an age where national affiliations are relentlessly undermined and creatively
redefined…This is a space that provides different symbols, a critique of the social structure and a
11
Some scholars have defined this phenomenon as a “counter-public” (Berlant et al).
66
more relevant spiritual sensibility for those hungry for meaning and identification” (Chude-
Sokei). Chude-Sokei et al define the certain extent that the reggae sound system produces a space
that is alternative to the dominant social order of globalization according to the logic of Western
modernization, in which categories of race, ethnicity, nation, and class are in insufficient to
providing people with a strong sense of belonging and identity that syncs with the social and
cultural conditions of global modernity.
This is an expansion of Wynter’s notion of the blossoming imaginary of Rastafarianism
in Kingston during the 1960s-1970s, encompassing the global uptake of reggae roots and culture
beyond its origins in Jamaica. The inclusive and flexible spaces of reggae roots and culture have
enabled the endless expansion, reinvention, and revitalization of the subculture across the globe,
igniting progressive social, cultural and political movements, centered around the reggae genre,
reggae studio, sound system, and ethos and cultural practices of Rastafarianism. The global
sprawl of reggae roots and culture encompasses a rich history of transnational and transcultural
communication, that is, cultural exchange across boundaries and borders of all kinds. These
channels of communication include:
There are physical and virtual channels that reggae roots and culture take across the
world, such as historic international tours by Bob Marley & The Wailers that introduced reggae
music to millions of people worldwide. Then there is the worldwide circulation of reggae music
via mainstream and underground media channels, from mass releases on Island Records to sound
system cassettes, zines, YouTube, rare vinyl, and pirate radio that comprise the global sprawl of
reggae roots and culture at the level of global media (Olausson). And then, there is sound system
culture, which has emerged in urban areas of nearly every country across the globe, bringing
with it the message and the vibes. And lastly, Buju Banton has talked about the “mystical
67
communication within that keeps us coming together” (Banton). This is the more spiritual idea
that the global uptake of reggae music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism occurs through
energies that attract, from people coming into contact who have a share vision of cultures uniting
around the ethos of one love, one heart, one destiny.
Taking these aspects into account, I suggest reggae roots and culture has led to the
African diaspora becoming a more integrated, dynamic, and visible global phenomenon during
the 1960s and 1970s. Not only has reggae brought the global black freedom struggle and pan-
Africanist symbology to the realm of mainstream global media, it has also established major sites
of transatlantic dialogue and cultural exchange between the Caribbean and various African
nations such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ivory Coast, just to name a few (Alleyne).
Reggae roots and culture is now a worldwide phenomenon that emerges in the frontier zones of
urban areas where the message and the vibes resonate with the people and a subculture forms
around reggae music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism. It is a phenomenon at the level
of mass culture, compared to the political and economic histories of African unity and African
socialism that occur at the elevated platform of government, public and private enterprise, and
academia.
Cultural Appropriation
As reggae gains international popularity, this introduces cultural appropriation. As Louis
Chude-Sokei explains, reggae is marked “by the tension between black intentions (always
mediated by innovative technological and stylistic gestures in the name of authenticity) and
white interpretation” (Chude-Sokei). This tension often leads to a fetishization of authenticity,
wherein the musicians who are received as most authentic, who come from and represent the
68
slums, the urban poor, the harsh realities of black urban experience are the ones who break into
the mainstream. Yet this “authenticity” is always mediated by the (re)production of black music
through the mediums of technology and the stylistic trends of genre, and even moreso by the
infrastructure of Western music industry that still largely determines the trends and finances of
the music industry globally. That is, the history of reggae music is plagued by an obsession with
base authenticity by white listeners and fans that is often exploited as a marketing tool. There is
room to critique the way mass popular appeal of reggae music is based on a socially constructed
stereotype of the urban poor, defined by white interpretations of what it means for black people
to be authentic musicians.
12
Furthermore, the revolutionary impact of the globalization of reggae music is sometimes
undermined by white people occupying/infiltrating the spaces of reggae roots and culture to the
extent that black people are marginalized. In many parts of Europe, sound system culture is
deradicalized by either avant-garde elitism and/or the prevalence of
overaggressive/territorialist/nationalist white masculinity. While in America, reggae music
festivals, concerts, and bars tend to attract a predominately white and upper-middle class
assemblage of college students, hippies, and young professionals who do not have a very critical
or active relationship to reggae roots and culture. In these spaces, black people are
marginalized/alienated through explicit and indirect forms of racism such as tokenism,
respectability politics, erasure, cultural appropriation, white fragility, and other racist and
racialist behaviors.
12
In the words of Amiri Baraka, “The major flaw in this approach…is that it strips the music too ingenuously of its social and
cultural intent. It seeks to define [black music] as an art (or a folk art) that has come out of no intelligent body of sociocultural
philosophy” (Jazz and the White Critic). Due to this pervasive framework of viewing black music separate from its root
sociocultural philosophies
69
In the 21
st
-century, these aspects have carried over into a massive social media presence
of white male and female models who push a certain generic tribalism that is rooted in
Rastafarianism but does not directly identify with the religion, instead the ethos is a kind of
universalist back to nature ethos that is ripe with contradictions and in culturally insensitive in
many ways. This social network exhibits the typical pitfalls of social media that stem from mass
circulation, that is certain superficial and heteronormative standards of beauty that dictate the
terms of the popularity contest of influence, as well as revealing the harsh subconscious and will
to power of the masses.
***
In this chapter, I analyzed the process of Jamaican bauxite being integrated into a global
industrial complex of the extraction of natural resources from the global south for the
accumulation of capital by Western corporations and to supply what Nkrumah defines as the
base materials of post-WWII Western modernization. By outlining some of the primary
economic strategies utilized for the integration of Jamaican bauxite as a foundational element of
modern Western infrastructure such as the international aerospace/airline industries and others, I
built a critique of the industrialization of Jamaican bauxite by Western corporations that is
grounds for reparations to be paid to the Jamaican government for the exploitation of its industry
and environmental degradation.
Part of the objective of this chapter is to contribute to the growing discourse coming from
Caribbean studies of imagining ways to reroute money exploited from Jamaican industry back
into the Jamaican economy (CSA 2022). Reggae music has been calling for reparations since the
70
late 1960s, and it is important that the political and academic elite connects to and works
together with the reggae roots and culture movement and in general the voice of the people when
achieving its aims. Through cooperative collaboration and representation across social classes
that work to progress the socio-economic aspects of society in ways that benefit the best interests
of the people, reparation campaigns can help rebuild the foundation of nations, cultures, and
environments that have been erased, exploited, and degraded by the various humanitarian crises
occurring amid the processes of globalization shaped by Western modernization.
71
Chapter 3: Conscious Drums
72
Conscious Drums: A Stylistic and Cultural History of the One Drop
In the context of popular music history, the one drop rhythm is a crucial innovation. This
trademark drum technique of Jamaican popular music provides the rhythmic foundation of ska,
rocksteady, reggae, dub, and dancehall. Due to the major influence of these genres on hip hop,
electronic dance music, and Afrobeats, the one drop is a key drum technique of popular music
history. Yet, there is little academic or popular discourse focused on the one drop in terms of
investigating its history and impact (Bilby 1). Through research and analysis of the stylistic,
cultural, and technical history of the one drop, my dissertation attends to this gap in the
literature.
The historical focus of this chapter is roughly 1960-1985, spanning the one drop’s proto-
development and crystallization as a drum technique during the 1960s, its stylistic evolution in
the 1970s amid the “golden age” of reggae, and the one drop’s global uptake in the late 1970s
and 1980s, specifically in the UK and in African reggae music. Lastly, I discuss the technical and
industrial changes to the one drop that occurred in the wake of the rise of dancehall music in the
early 80s. This is the shift in the Jamaican popular music industry standards from the one drop as
an acoustic drum performance by a studio session musician to an electronically produced drum
mix performed/sequenced on drum machines and electronic synthesizers.
My research spans formal scholarship, analysis of historical footage, analysis of musical
scores, and engagements with a variety of media not typically included in academic research. As
an overarching research question to guide this investigation, I ask: is there something inherent in
the form/structure/sound of the one drop that lends itself to rich stylistic development as well as
73
globalization, some sonic element that primes the one drop for endless stylistic remaking and
global uptake?
Basics of the One Drop
A great way to get a feel for the one drop is to watch this rare footage of Sly Dunbar
playing a studio session Sly Dunbar playing a studio session (taxirecords). Sly Dunbar, who
started his career in the early 1970s, is perhaps the most prolific Jamaican drummer of all time.
Watching this footage, it is amazing to think of the impact of the one drop style, which spans 60
years in the industry, carries with it numerous substyles each with a unique history of
development, and exists in some form on practically every record of ska, rocksteady, roots
reggae, dub, and dancehall ever made. While today the one drop can be recorded at a studio
session, performed on an electronic synthesizer or drum machine, or programmed digitally,
during the 1960s and 1970s it was almost exclusively acoustic, played by a studio session
drummer on a full drum kit. The hi-hat, snare, and kick drum are the centerpiece of the one drop,
while toms, the timbale, cymbals, and rides provide the ornamental elements.
Musically, the one drop is played in 4/4 time scale, with 16th or 8th notes played on the
hi-hat, and the 3
rd
(or 2
nd
and 4
th
) beat of the bar accented by the kick drum coupled with s
sidestick/rim shot on the snare drum.
1
The drummer drops the snare or kick drum accent on the
first beat of the bar that was the expected beat of essentially all popular music at the time. When
the one drop first emerged during the 1960s as the trademark drum technique of ska, rocksteady,
roots reggae and dub reggae, its rhythm pattern differed significantly from those heard in the
1
This gives reggae the feel of a 2/4 signature, because each bar has just one accent. A condensed version of the one drop - or, a
different way of transcribing it - plays accents on beats 2 and 4. This is half time because it is the equivalent of two measures
with the accent on beat 3 of each bar.
74
popular music genres of soul, rhythm & blues and rock & roll, wherein time and rhythm are
established through an accent on the 1st beat of the bar. Though a subtle shift, the one drop broke
free from the formulaic rhythm patterns of midcentury popular music, pushing popular music in
new directions.
There are a number of substyles of the one drop that will be discussed in this chapter, but
they all derive from this basic musical structure. Figures 3.1-3.3 transcribe the one drop into
standard music notation, offering a visual breakdown of the one drop’s rhythm pattern. Also note
the use of the heel of the drumstick to play the side-stick snare drum accents.
Figure 3.1. The side-stick drum technique originated in
Kingston, Jamaica. This technique is when drummers
strike the rim of the snare drum with the butt of the drum
stick in the particular style of Jamaican drummers such as
Lloyd Knibb, Winston Grennan, and Filberto Calendar
Figure 3.2. Standard musical notation of the one
drop. Accents land on the 2nd and 4th beat or just
the 3rd note of each bar.
Figure 3.3. One bar of the one drop programmed on a drum machine, broken down into 16th notes. Hi-hats land on every
8th note, and the side-stick is coupled with a bass drum note on the 3rd beat of the bar.
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While Figures 3.1-3.3 help to define the one drop according to a standard template, the
one drop is rarely played by sight reading or with a straight pattern.
2
The one drop has a more
organic rhythm, especially its hi-hat pattern, which almost always have some degree of swing.
This element of swing, as well as the one drop’s interlocked rhythm with the ska guitar and piano
played on the downbeat, give reggae its bounce and uptempo feel. This is what makes reggae
first and foremost a genre of dance music compatible with Jamaican sound system culture.
The predominate style of the one drop is called “roots style.” Carlton Barrett’s drum
performance on "Stir It Up" (1973) by Bob Marley & The Wailers is a definitive example of the
one drop played in roots style. Barrett’s performance on this track is minimal, precise, and
heavy, with 8th notes played on the hi-hat, with the 2nd and 4th beat of the bar accented by the
kick drum and a side-stick strike on the snare drum. Every third measure, Barrett adds a 16th
note to the 8th note hi-hat pattern, giving the straight pattern a degree of swing. Such a subtle
change, but it's this kind of minimal variation from the one drop beat that gives each reggae track
its unique character. This track offers the rare opportunity to listen to a reggae drum part from
the early 1970s with an accompanying musical score.
3
Musical scores are an imperfect system
for denoting the one drop exactly as it is played, but they can be instructional from a musical
theory perspective. Even without much background in reading musical scores, it is fairly easy to
follow along, due to the drum part’s minimalism.
2
While many of the Jamaican musicians of this period were trained in Western musical theory, especially those associated with
the Alpha Boys School of Kingston, scores and sight reading were not utilized much in a studio settings (Hitchins).
3
This track is one of the few instances that a Bob Marley & The Wailers studio session was filmed (Marre), giving us a historical
view of the playing style of Carlton Barrett. Footage also exists of Bob Marley & The Wailers performing “Stir It Up” live at The
Old Grey Whistle in 1973 in London (Marley). The combination of the LP, the below score, the footage of the studio session, and
the footage of the live concert provide a multi-media view of the one drop.
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Figure 3.4. Musical score of Carlton Barrett's drum part on "Stir It Up" by Bob Marley & The Wailers, 1972. (Barrett)
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As seen in Barrett’s performance, variation is a crucial element of the one drop. Variation
builds the complexity of the drum pattern as the reggae ensemble performs the rhythm. These
variations consist of march patterns, skipping patterns, and changes in the hi-hat pattern. This
also includes fills, which are essentially cymbal, tom, snare and kick drum crescendos played at
transitions/turnarounds in the rhythm.
4
This is what leads Michael Veal to define the one drop as
“minimalist but highly ornamental” (Veal 31). Thus, while the one drop template is relatively
simple, actual performances of it exact organic rhythm patterns with lots of rhythmic variation.
In sum, despite its structural simplicity, the one drop provides the drummer a template for
nearly infinite patterns and combinations. Sly Dunbar says, “there may be a couple thousand
rhythm patterns you can play by any sound, so we have to choose which one is right for the
sound.” (BBC). In this sense, the one drop provides a basic rhythmic structure for the reggae beat
that the drummer then customizes. As the structural foundation of reggae music, the one drop is a
platform for expansive possibilities in rhythm and sound. I suggest this certain degree of stylistic
malleability is part of what structures the one drop’s profound global impact, allowing for a
dynamic history of innovations and revolutions of the drum technique, both in Jamaica and
abroad.
The Reggae Rhythm Section
In addition to a technical definition, it is important to note the one drop as the foundation
of the reggae rhythm section. Reggae ensembles can be broken down into three parts: the rhythm
section, the melody section, and the vocals. The typical instruments of a reggae rhythm section
are the drums, electric bass guitar, rhythm guitar (ska), piano strum (bang), organ (bubble), and
4
When playing reggae fills, the cymbal typically lands on beat 4 of the fill. This is a significant difference compared to most
other popular musics, in which the cymbal crash lands on beat 1 of the bar following the fill.
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percussion. The melodic section typically consists of lead guitar, lead piano, clavinet, melodica,
and horns (though the horns can provide a rhythmic function as well). And the vocal section
includes a lead vocalist and background harmonies. For each of these sections, the one drop
provides the foundational beat around which all the other musicians build on the rhythm.
While the melodic section and vocals deliver the tune / message of the reggae ensemble,
the rhythm section provides the beat and structure. As Henry Thomas states, “The unusual thing
about reggae is the rhythm, and the way the instruments lock together to create that rhythm”
(BBC). In this sense, reggae is a very structurally integrated music. Each instrument has a
specific function within the rhythm, and a way of interlocking with the other instruments. Below
I describe the role of each instrument in the reggae rhythm section, with specific remarks on its
interlocking relationship to the one drop:
- The electric bass guitar provides the depth and substructure of the rhythm section. The
reggae genre is most recognizable for its iconic bass-heavy sound. The bass sets the
pace/energy of the rhythm section, sometimes driving the rhythm forward with
aggressive and repetitive patterns, and sometimes slowing it down with improvisations
and riffs on the beat. In roots reggae, the bass guitar is played in half-time. This means
that the first half of the rhythm pattern is played in the first bar, while the second half is
played in the second. Within this two bar structure, the electric bass guitar is often
syncopated with the one drop pattern, emphasizing beat 3 of the second bar. This means
that in straight 4/4 time, the electric bass guitar will count 1-2-3-4-1-2-3, playing the last
note of the rhythm on the 3rd beat of the second bar (or beat 4 of the second bar if the one
drop accents are on beats 2 and 4). The bass may also “search for space” within the
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rhythm section, playing a more free form style. For example, the bass may rest an 1/8
note or 1/4 note of the first beat of the bar, which gives the rhythm a more laid back feel.
- The rhythm guitar (ska) is a chord progression played on the two downbeats or “offbeats”
of the bar. With the one drop accent landing on beat 3, the ska is played on the 2nd and
4th beat. Or, if the one drop lands on the 2nd and 4th beat, the ska will land on notes 1-
and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and. These chord progressions are typically played on an electric
guitar, with detailed reverb and clean amplification.
5
The guitarist plays each note with a
sharp, clean downstroke on the chord, perhaps coupled with a 16th note upstroke that
compliments the chord. The guitarist will then improvise a riffs at moments of
transitioning between verse, bridge and chorus, or during fills or turnarounds. This
percussive guitar rhythm pattern interlocks with the one drop, giving reggae its bounce
and upbeat overall rhythm. It is common for the lead or background vocalists to play the
ska.
- The rhythm piano (bang) follows the same chord progression as the ska guitar. It enriches
the tone of the ska guitar, giving the chord progression a more full and emotive sound.
The piano typically has a lot of freedom to add fills and riffs for melodies/harmonies
integrated into the rhythm, and may simultaneously be responsible for rhythm and lead.
- The rhythm organ (bubble) is another percussive rhythm part played on the organ that
enriches the guitar and piano chord progression. Played with two hands at alternating
octaves with an 8
th
or 16
th
note pattern, this chord progression technique causes the organ
to function as yet another percussive element to the overall rhythm established by the
5
Popular reggae chord progressions include: E minor – D major, G major – A minor, A major – B minor, C major – D minor,
and F major to G minor, and many others. A major – D major – E major is played on “Stir It Up,” and A minor – G major is
played on “96 Degrees In The Shade,” by Third World. British-Jamaican guitarist Rohan Newman breaks down reggae chord
progression expertly on his excellent website http://www.how-to-play-reggae.com/
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drums and the bass. The bubble is said to add dynamic movement to the bounciness of
the rhythm. It provides reggae its full rhythmic sound.
- Subtle percussion is another massively important aspect of the reggae rhythm. The
timbale, conga, bongo, octabon, woodblock, shaker, tambourine, vibraslap and various
African folk instruments are used to add texture to the rhythm. Reggae’s style of
percussion is derived from the folk musical traditions of Jamaica such as Rastafarian
drumming, Burru, and Kumina, as will be discussed in a later section. Lead and
background vocalists may play percussion, like Bunny Wailer and Burning Spear.
6
Based on this break-down of the different instruments, we see how the reggae rhythm section
interlocks to build the complexity and fullness of the overall rhythm. Each instrument contributes
to the ensemble by playing a set rhythm pattern and then building on that rhythm through riffs,
fills, and breaks. The percussive elements of each instrument in the rhythm section interlock, and
then complicate the beat through improvisations. The one drop serves as the foundation of this
ensemble style: its centerpiece, organizer, and conductor.
As Veal notes, this is an ensemble style rooted in jazz. He writes, “the loose ensemble
feeling of many ska songs recalls the early, small combo jazz of musicians like Louis Armstrong
in New Orleans. The musicians typically conform to set song forms but sometimes take a fair
amount of improvisational liberty in playing their individual parts, resulting in a buoyant mood
and heterophonic ensemble texture” (Veal 30). These remarks go in depth on more popular
accounts of reggae’s generic origins, in which Jamaican producers like Duke Reid, Coxsone
6
A rigorous stylistic and cultural history of Jamaican percussionists exists in the essay “Distant Drums: The Unsung Contribution
of African-Jamaican Percussion to Popular Music at Home and Abroad,” by Kenneth Bilby. This essay features interviews with
famous percussionists of Jamaican popular music and also Rastafarian folk culture. Respected and revered names musicians such
as Mortimer Planno, known as Brother Kumi of Bob Marley & The Wailers, Herman Constantine Davis, also known as Bongo
Herman, Alvin Patterson, also called Seeco, as well as many others
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Dodd and others who were highly influential in the aesthetic and cultural development of reggae
music, are remembered as “jazzmen first and foremost” (Veal 30).
Like the jazz ensemble that sets an overarching rhythm and tempo, then improvises on
the rhythm through instrumental and group solos, the reggae rhythm section establishes a rhythm
and tempo, and then builds up the complexity of the beat as each instrument subtly improvises
riffs and runs within the structure of the song. Similar to jazz, in reggae music, under the surface
layer of rhythm, there is great complexity, as each musician builds on the overall rhythm through
improvisational riffs and breaks, adding ornaments and direction and deviations to the beat. Yet,
the effect of these improvisational techniques in reggae and jazz are quite distinctive – perhaps
opposite. For in jazz music, the intended effect of improvisation is dissonance, defined broadly
as a tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonious or unsuitable
elements. Comparatively, in reggae music, the outcome of musical improvisation is a highly
integral groove and rhythm, harmonic and ornamental in character. Put simply, whereas jazz
improvisation creates dissonance, reggae improvisation affords integration.
Cultural Origins
According to a number of sources, Winston Grennan is the true originator of the one drop
style (Pareles et al). Grennan’s biography, posted to his namesake website, reports that he laid
down the drum performances “on nearly all the songs recorded by Toots & The Maytals and
Jimmy Cliff between 1962 and 1973, and (uncredited until the boxed-set ‘Songs of Freedom’
was released in 1993) for Bob Marley’s first several albums” (Grennan). Notably, this catalogue
includes “Do The Reggay” (1968) by Toots & the Maytals, the first popular music recording to
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announce reggae as a style of music, and “Rivers of Babylon” (1970) by the Melodians, which
Grennan cites as "the first definitive one drop track" (Grennan).
Lloyd Knibb, drummer for the Skatalites, also claims rights to the style. Like Grennan,
Knibb is said to have played on over 2000 recordings during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Of note,
Knibb is featured on the original versions of Bob Marley’s “One Love” and “Simmer Down.”
Alternately, Knibb locates the origins of the one drop around 1960, amid the emergence of ska,
when producers and sound system proprietors Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid were igniting the
shift to “the first serious formulations of an indigenous Jamaican popular music” (Veal 28). He
reflects: “I was in the studio, playing the same old boom-cha-boom-cha thing [sings an R&B
shuffle rhythm], when Coxsone Dodd said to me, ‘I want to change the beat.’ I remembered
playing lots of Latin and different kinds of tunes, so I came up with the second and fourth beat,
and that was it” (Carbone 122). This account dates the one drop earlier than is usually thought. It
also shows the rootedness of the one drop in an eclectic array of musical influences.
And to those who attribute Carlton Barrett as the originator of the one drop – as many do
– Knibb responds, “No, Man! Carly Barrett and Sly [Dunbar] used to sit on our bandstand when
they were boys. All of them know it from me…Carly used to set up my drums...Toots and
everybody – you name them, all the vocalists that you hear about now – passed through my
hands” (Carbone 122). As such, Knibb is no doubt one of the key drummers in the early history
of Jamaican popular music. According to Herbie Miller’s essay “The Rhythmic Innovation of
Lloyd Knibb,” Knibb is “the most important and influential modern drummer [Jamaica] has
produced...he established rhythmic syntax through bold innovative advances; a synthesis of
styles that set the rules for rhythmic structure that later informed every drummer (interested in
Jamaican beats) in terms of the logic and structure of popular dance-floor rhythms” (Miller).
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The dispute over who originated the one drop is perhaps impossible to resolve. It may be
more accurate to consider the one drop as a collective innovation – part of a continuum of
emergent drumming styles and rhythms taking shape in Jamaican popular music during the
1960s. The perspective of Filberto Callender, drummer of the Heptones, and member of the
house band at Studio One during the 1960s, puts words to this phenomenon. On his role in the
development of the one drop, he says, “A lot of musicians who contributed to the development of
reggae music have been overlooked. I was just part of the system that contributed” (Campbell).
What is revealed through an examination of the cultural origins of the one drop is that the
studio session drummer was in high demand during the 1960s, during the genesis of Jamaican
popular music otherwise known as the ska and rocksteady years. Regardless of who invented the
one drop, it is true that Knibb, Grennan and Callendar all performed on hundreds if not
thousands of records during this period. Such a catalog stems from the rapid rise in local and
international interest in Jamaican popular music, the countless vocalists trying to break into the
industry, and the entrepreneurial and laborious minded sound system and recording studio heads
who were demanding a massive rate of musical output.
Federal Records, opened in 1961, Dynamic Sounds in 1963, Studio One in 1963 and
Treasure Isle Studios in 1965, were the major industry players during this period. This studio
circuit had a work culture that was labor intensive and productive, both in terms of the studio
session musicians and the audio engineers and producers. Studios tended to operate long hours,
employing musicians for full day recording sessions including rehearsals and the actual
recording onto tape. Post-production was also a laborious process, that required a high degree of
technical knowledge of how to operate the recording equipment, audio mixing console, and tape
machine, as well as other peripheral sound processing units such as echo machines, compressors,
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eqs, amplifiers, and microphones. This work culture of session musicians and Jamaican studios is
described in great depth in the essential essay “Lessons from the Past: The Work Culture of
Session Musicians in Jamaica’s Recording Industry from 1957-1979,” by Karen Cyrus. “This
paper outlines how studio musicians organized themselves as a workforce in response to the
constraints of society at that time, and to the needs of the emergent recording industry in
Jamaica” (Cyrus 30).
In these work conditions, certain drummers established themselves as choice studio
session musicians, Knibb, Grennan and Callender among them. It is inevitable that a number of
key drummers of the 1960s are unnamed. The lack of information on this topic leaves much to
the imagination. At the same time, the significant output of this early 1960s Jamaican studio
scene required regularly employed studio session drummers day in and day out, paid weekly by
the studio. These were not glamorous musicians, playing more of a utilitarian function as part of
the “house band”: they were there to churn out records and to play the particular generic sound
deemed profitable by the producers – ska in the early 60s, rocksteady in the late 60s, reggae in
the 70s. More research is needed to fill in this lack of information about Jamaican studio session
musicians in general and drummers in particular.
These musicians would go from studio to studio, performing for almost full time hours in
terms of the 9-5 workforce, building a database of recordings that the audio engineers and
producers used to fuel the outpouring of releases during this period, and later the emergence of
dub music as commercially successful subgenre of reggae (Cyrus 30). In these countless studio
sessions, the one drop was crystalized, establishing the trademark drum beat of Jamaican popular
music that exists to this day.
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Generic Origins
In the 1960s, the one drop existed in its proto-form, not yet fully realized as the reggae
roots style. In the first years of the decade, it provided the foundational beat of the fast-pace and
energetic ska, evolving into the more solid and rhythmic rocksteady around the mid 1960s, and
then into reggae toward the end of the decade. While the generic origins of these genres have
been well documented by a number of critics, less has been said about the way these influences
shaped the styles of specific studio session musicians as well as certain elements of the reggae
rhythm section. To focus on the generic origins of the one drop is to zoom in on the way a
particular drum technique can be the result of a broad musical synthesis spanning multiple genres
and cultures.
It is well documented that the emergence of ska and rocksteady music during the late
1960s is rooted in the aesthetic and cultural influences of rhythm & blues. Veal defines this
point, suggesting that ska and rocksteady are “directly indebted to the shuffle/swing tempos and
plaintive ballads of American R&B, elaborated with various rural Jamaican and Caribbean
influences…marked by a bouncy uptempo beat played in either straight or swing time, with the
guitar and piano emphasizing the [offbeats]” (Veal 30). The one drop’s basic technical structure
is largely built on these influences from rhythm & blues. The r&b shuffle pattern gives reggae
drumming its element of swing and the particular way the drum interlocks to the percussive ska
guitar / piano bang chord progression played on the downbeat. This is what gives ska, rocksteady
and later reggae its uptempo bounce and its danceability.
The technique of riding the cymbal in jazz is also very present in the one drop's early
development. The cymbal ride pattern of jazz secures the tempo of the ensemble, while
simultaneously giving the rhythm a feeling of buoyancy and forward motion. In ska, rocksteady
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and reggae, the hi-hat pattern provides essentially the same function, but with a more sharp sonic
resonance due to it being played on the closed hi-hat rather than the ride cymbal. In both genres,
the pattern tends toward the organic, and is complicated / enriched by riffs and breaks on the
overall rhythm. However, as stated, the effect of the reggae hi-hat pattern is to create rhythmic
integration whereas jazz of this period tends toward sonic dissonance.
As Miller points out, there is also an element of Latin musical influences at work here, in
terms of ska and rocksteady’s emphasis on the offbeat. These influences are more difficult to pin
down, as they are derived from the Afro-Latinx diaspora, which is under researched in scholarly
discourse on Jamaican popular music history. Generally speaking, ska and rocksteady may be
influenced by the downbeat styles of bossa nova, samba, cumbia, and other South American and
Latin American popular musics that were popular in the 1960s. These influences are clearer in
the realm of percussion.
7
According to Miller, Knibb’s greatest asset was his “eclectic tastes,” through which he
“refined dance-floor celebration through a complete creolisation process” (Miller). He was part
of the movement of Jamaican drummers from the 1960s and early 1970s that synthesized a
complex of drum styles and cultural influences. The work of Grennan, Knibb, Calendar, and
others who are unknown by the archive yet equally influential engaged in a process of cross-
cultural exchange in which a myriad of musical and cultural influences were molded into the one
drop rhythm. Namely the R&B shuffle, but also the cymbal patterns of jazz drummers, the
downbeat styles of bossa nova, samba and cumbia, and the regional drum styles of calypso and
mento.
7
In particular, many of the percussion instruments of early South American popular music are used in popular music across the
world today, not just in reggae. Such as the conga, bongo, vibraslap, zabumba, tamborim, cuíca, and various kinds of traditional
shakers. These instruments and associated percussion styles are culturally appropriated and innovated in Jamaican popular music
during the 1960s and 1970s (Bilby).
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Sonic Roots
From a local perspective, the one drop is heavily influenced by Rasta drumming, which
itself is rooted in the local styles of Burru, Mento, and Kumina (Alleyne 92). The intersection of
Rasta music and early Jamaican popular music is largely associated with Count Ossie. “Oh
Carolina” (1960), by The Folk Bros & Count Ossie’s Afro-Combo, may be the earliest example
of Rasta drumming’s influence on ska, rocksteady, and reggae.
8
This influences both the playing
styles of Jamaican popular music studio session drummers, and the rhythmic interplay between
the one drop and percussion within the rhythm section (Bilby).
Mike Alleyne reports:
Dating to the late 1940s, Count Ossie's Rasta camps in Kingston - particularly the
Wareika Hills location - were creative centers for musicians. They facilitated
several major developments in Jamaican popular music and culture at a time
Rastafarianism was the outlawed antithesis of colonial society. The 'groundation,'
a type of frequent cultural and philosophical gathering at which Rastas would
drum and engage in biblical analysis, was fertile ground for infusing the
expression of local musicians with cultural consciousness. (Alleyne 60)
This influence is taken up by a number of Jamaican drummers and percussionists during the
1960s and 1970s, including Lloyd Knibb, and later Bunny Wailer and Leroy Wallace, who
famously spent time at Count Ossie’s Rastafarian settlement (Alleyne).
9
8
Alleyne also notes that Rasta drumming can be heard on the track "Ghana Independence" (1957), by Laurel Atkin, though "Oh
Carolina" is typically credited as the first popular music to feature Rasta drumming (Alleyne 60).
9
Several historical records of groundation are available. The films Deep Roots Music (1982) and Rockers (1978) both feature the
group Ras Michael & The Sons of Negus at a groundation circa the late 1960s and early 1970s. These accounts also show how
popular music begins to influence Rasta drumming through the inclusion of electric guitars and basses, as well as other Western
instruments at groundation.
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It is the interplay between Rasta drumming and the one drop where the influences of the
groundation are most evident.
10
The use of percussion as an additional rhythmic element of the
one drop creates deeply complex yet organic rhythmic textures that are rooted in the influence of
Rasta drumming (Bilby). These are one of the few rhythmic textures in popular music history
that are nearly impossible to recreate beyond the local scene where they originated, particularly
in the current electronic/digital landscape of global popular music. Verena Reckord’s essay
“From Burru Drums to Reggae Ridims: The Evolution of Rasta Music” (1998), defines this point
further, documenting the specific ways in which ska, rocksteady, and reggae are rooted in Rasta
drumming. Reckord reports that Jamaican popular music is influenced by Rasta drum patterns
that accent the second and fourth beat in songs that are more uptempo, especially those that
comprise lyrics of secular social commentary (Reckord). These characteristics take root in ska
and rocksteady, and later become one of the defining elements of the reggae genre.
On a more technical level, Reckord suggest that Jamaican popular music incorporates
Rasta drumming’s rhythmic ensemble of the bass drum, the fundeh, and the repeater. The bass
drum of Rasta music can be likened to the electric bass guitar of reggae, for the similar function
each instrument serves in providing depth of tone to the rhythm. The chord progression and one
drop of reggae is rooted in the fundeh, which Reckord describes as the lifeline rhythm, each
setting the overall tempo and beat of the rhythm. And the repeater accounts for melody in a
similar manner as the horns, lead guitar, lead piano, melodica and vocalist in ska, rocksteady and
reggae.
To add an additional element to Reckord’s point, I suggest the hi-hat-kick-snare
combination of the one drop condenses the three part rhythmic structure of Rasta drumming.
10
Meanwhile, Count Ossie goes in a more spiritual and experimental direction with his recorded music, which distinguishes it
from the broader popular music trends of Jamaica. Count Ossie is also known for his connections to jazz music, through his
relationship with Duke Ellington. Some have compared him to Sun Ra.
89
There are clear similarities between the bass drum of Rasta music and the kick drum of reggae:
both drums provide the deep, tonal quality of the drum beat. There are also resemblances
between the fundeh (the lifeline rhythm) and the snare drum, as both provide the constant, steady
beat of the ensemble. Then, a relationship can also be drawn between the hi-hat and the repeater,
for adding the “melody” of the rhythm. This might be better described as the organic feel of the
hi-hat pattern. The one drop essentially streamlines the three-part rhythmic structure of Rasta
drumming into the affordances of the acoustic drum kit.
Lastly, Reckord demonstrates a connection between Jamaican popular music and Rasta
drumming at the level of craftsmanship. Early Jamaican popular music drummers such as Knibb
reflect on building their first drum kits with pelican and calf skin, since manufactured drums
were not readily available on the island until the late 1960s (Carbone). There is also much lore
around Jamaican drummers sourcing hi-hats and cymbals at junk yards and metal shops. This is
similar to the ethos of Rastafarian drummers that instruments should be made from organic
materials, and to the history of Rastafarian craftsmanship and woodwork. Reckord’s essay details
the way Rasta drums were built using organic materials such as tree trunks and animal skin, with
much attention to the tonal and sonic qualities of these materials afforded by techniques of craft.
There was also the tendency to share these handcrafted drums between and across the
Rastafarian community at large.
From a cultural standpoint, Mikey Dread suggests that “the heavy downbeat” of Rasta
drumming “symbolizes the death of oppressive society, and the light upbeat symbolizes the
resurrection of society through Jah Rastafari" (Deep Roots Music). This frames Rasta drumming
as a sonic signifier with heavy cultural symbolism. The Rasta drum beat is a sonic form of
resistance to political and social oppression. Part of this ethos is asserting cultural autonomy by
90
passing down cultural traditions from one generation to the next. This is a practice embedded in
Rasta drumming’s relationship to the local styles of Burru, Mento and Kumina, each of which
contain the echos of traditional African drum styles.
Alleyne writes, "much of the Rasta culture of resistance can be linked to the Maroons, the
rebellious slaves who, beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, fled Jamaican plantations for
secluded mountain hideouts and consistently wrought revenge on their former masters" (Alleyne
89). The Maroons practiced drum rituals similar to the groundation ceremony of Rastafarianism.
They also use the drum for political purposes, such as the kete drum used in the autonomous
Maroon courts. The kete is symbolic of black cultural autonomy, of a black autonomous state,
government and heritage separate from the colonial power and subsequent neocolonial system
(Deep Roots Music).
In the colonial and neocolonial system of Jamaica, there is a long history of policing /
censoring black music. First the music of African slaves, then the music of working class and
impoverished colonial subjects, and through on to today’s policing of sound systems, pirate
radio, and other forms of public music and noise. The drum was banned in Jamaica during
colonial rule, and even in modern times through the more indirect neocolonial system. Mikey
Dread says, “In slavery days, the drum was banned. Not only in Jamaica, but throughout the
Caribbean and America. For a while it went underground, and was kept alive as a ritual among
the free Maroons and the Burru men in the mountains. Even after emancipation, it was denied
popular access at times and dubbed a heathen non-Christian practice. Today’s Rasta music is a
continuation of the African heritage of drumming. The Rastafarian influence has weaved its way
up through the development and history of Jamaican music” (Deep Roots Music).
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This connects Reggae music in Jamaica to a long history of sounds of black revolution
and resistance. From the kete drum as a symbol of political and cultural autonomy within
Jamaican Maroon communities, to groundation as a space of philosophical consciousness for
Rastafarians, to the one drop as the rhythm of reggae's revolutionary political and cultural
message, the history of Jamaican drumming is symbolic of the struggle for black cultural and
political liberation in Jamaica. Furthermore, the drum is one of the primary mediums used to
pass down roots and culture from generation to generation and to assert political and cultural
autonomy. Put simply, black liberation signified at the level of sound, is a foundational element
of Jamaican popular music.
Sonjah Stanley Niaah’s presentation at the Sound System Outernational 5 conference
explained this history in depth. Her keynote address, “Noise and the Politics of Citizenship,”
detailed the history of colonial and neocolonial legislation in Jamaica, and the “sonic rebel
communities” that form in resistance to the colonial policing of black music and ritual
(SS05). This historical understanding leads Niaah to suggest that sound is a space of activism,
particularly in a Jamaican context. From a practical stand point, she argues that each community
should have a sound system that serves as a community center. I concur with Niaah’s arguments,
and would also add that local recording studios and radio stations may also be effective as
community centers.
Studio Session Drummers in the Reggae Golden Age
When reggae emerged as the predominant Jamaican popular music during the late 1960s
and throughout the 1970s, a new generation of drummers would inherit the styles, techniques and
cultural ethos of the ska and rocksteady years, importing the one drop as the foundational drum
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technique of reggae and its anti-establishment and Africanist lyrics and message. Foremost
among them were Carlton Barrett, Sly Dunbar, Paul Douglas, Carlton Davis, Nelson Miller,
Style Scott and Leroy Wallace, whose drum performances would appear on the majority of
reggae releases of the period.
The prolific careers of these drummers coincide with the rapid development and high
energy of the music industry in Kingston. To meet the local and international demand for
Jamaican popular music, a wave of new studios opened, whose labor intensive, productive and
aesthetically sophisticated approach to the genre would shape the stylistic development of the
one drop amid the reggae golden age. The opening of Randy's Studio 17 in 1968, King Tubby’s
Studio in 1971, Channel One Studios in 1972, Black Ark Studio in 1973, Aquarius Records in
1975, and several others, ultimately established the network of studios responsible for defining
the generic structure and popular form of reggae.
In this context, often referred to as the golden age of Jamaican popular music, the one
drop becomes recognizable as the foundational drum technique of reggae.
11
This era, spanning
roughly 1974-1982, is marked by the two most prolific substyles of the one drop: roots style and
the steppers beat. The roots style has already been explained. It was the original reggae drum
style of the 1970s, marked by a minimalist, organic and heavy beat, with an emphasis on
variations (riffs, fills and breaks) on the overall rhythm.
The steppers beat is the next substyle of the one drop to emerge, around the mid 1970s.
Steppers style features the standard 8
th
or 16
th
note hi-hat pattern, with the kick drum now
landing on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4, with the snare drum weaving its way through the bar,
complicating the accents. This 4/4 beat played on the kick drum is influenced by the US and UK
11
“Golden age” is the term used to organize Mike Alleyne's remarkable multi-media book, The Encyclopedia of Reggae: The
Golden Age of Roots Reggae (2012). This is a hotly contested though useful moniker for the period during the late 60s through
the early 80s when reggae music was originated and spread across the world.
93
disco beat of the 1970s and was especially relevant on the Kingston sound system scene. The
side-stick on the snare weaves its way through the hi-hat and kick drum pattern, unfolding over
multiple bars, giving the beat more complicated accents than those afforded in the minimalism of
roots style. This gives the beat a kind of cyclical feel, well suited for the sound system, for the
crowd that wants to dance to reggae.
“Plastic Smile” (1978) by Black Uhuru is
a definitive example of steppers style. The reason
for using this track in particular is because of
its appearance in "Reggae 101: The Steppers
Beat: Exploring One of the Genre's Essential Grooves," by Tommy Bendetti, which gives us
access to this style of the one drop transcribed in standard musical notation. Describing the
cyclical feel of steppers style, Bendetti writes, “[Sly Dunbar’s] sound and precision represent the
hallmarks of this style of drumming. This rim click pattern plays a 3:2 clave with a slight
variation on the last note. In a traditional 3:2 son clave pattern, the last note would fall on beat 3
of the second measure. This pattern moves the last note to the ‘&’ of beat 3, giving it kind of a
cyclical feel. You can hear Sly play this beat on the Black Uhuru tune “Plastic Smile,” starting
around the 0:20 mark” (Bendetti). Again, please take a listen and see if you can identify the
rhythm pattern based on this two bar visualization. In any case, hear how the snare drum goes to
work within the pulsating kick drum beat.
12
Musicians from this period played both roots and steppers style at countless studio
sessions in their prolific careers. In the spirit of the 1960s, the work culture of Jamaican studios
12
Some other definitive examples of this style include "Nimiba," by The Liberation Group, "Stepping Out of Babylon," by
Marcia Griffiths, and countless others. I encourage those interested in Jamaican drumming to identify and analyze other examples
of steppers beats, based on their own journey through the archives. It would be great to see more interest paid to specific drum
performances, in particular analysis from a musician’s perspective.
Figure 3.5. Two bars/measures of the steppers style one drop
rhythm on "Plastic Smile," by Black Uhuru. (Bendetti)
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carried on at a fast and laborious pace, and the studio session musician continued to be in high
demand. Personal style enters the equation here. Each drummer brought their own personal style
and strengths as musicians to the studio session. Precise and minimal, as in the case of Carlton
Barrett. Aggressive and energetic/lively as in the case of Leroy Wallace. Precision, tone and
complicated accents, from Sly Dunbar. Smooth and ornamental, as in the case of Style Scott.
One of the most famous of these individual styles was the "flying cymbal" sound,
developed by producer Bunny Lee and drummer Carlton Davis. The flying cymbal is "created by
alternatively opening and closing the hi-hat" (Alleyne 3). When integrated into the hi-hat rhythm
pattern, this technique adds dynamic movement and atmosphere to the one drop.
13
The flying
cymbal was actually a composite of Davis' playing style and the particular way the drum was
recorded and dubbed at King Tubby’s Studio. The style “was introduced in 1974, inspired by the
protodisco releases from the US-based Philadelphia International record label, and Bunny Lee is
credited with inventing the descriptive name" (Alleyne 3). It is also said that Lee became
borderline obsessed with the style, calling for it on nearly all of the records he produced during
the late 70s, turning Davis himself off of the technique (Katz).
During the golden age, several other factors that led to such stylistic depth and
malleability within the structure of the one drop were the use of a full reggae ensemble at studio
sessions, a studio culture that encouraged improvisation, spontaneity and variation, and the use
of multi-track recording onto tape. The fact that studios employed a full reggae ensemble meant
that nearly every record released during this period features full length, live performances by an
ensemble of professional musicians playing collectively. So, on records from this period, each
13
For a definitive account of the Flying Cymbal style of Carlton Davis, see Michael Veal’s "Faders, Filters and Flying Cymbals:
Enter Bunny Lee,” from Dub (Veal 112).
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drum part is a live acoustic performance by a professional musician that spans the length of the
entire track and is played in time with the rest of the ensemble.
14
According to Ray Hitchins, one of the defining features of Jamaican popular music is an
emphasis on spontaneity and improvisation in the studio session. Hitchins notes that Jamaican
popular music from this period was rarely written down or premeditated prior to the recording
session. Studio session musicians tended to work out a tune in the rehearsal stage, building the
rhythm on the spot with input from the vocalist, producer and audio engineer. Therefore, studio
session musicians had to be both technically skilled and adaptable. They had to be able to
collectively compose and perform a commercially viable track on the spot without musical
scores or a lead composer, at the same time primed to relax and roll with improvisations,
irregularities and even mistakes by themselves and the other members of the ensemble, suturing
them into the recording as if they were intentional. Here we see another parallel to jazz, in this
practical application of Miles Davis’ famous quote: “It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong
note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.”
Then, the rhythm would be recorded in relatively few takes, with the studio session
musicians taking real-time body language cues from one another about when to play the bridge
or transition from verse to chorus and back again. Ken Khouri, a producer at Federal Records
during the 1960s, famously employed the “three-take recording model,” in which the musicians
were only given three takes to perform the tune. Hitchins suggests this model is exemplary of the
ethos of efficiency and productivity at most of the recording studios of Kingston during the
1960s and 1970s (Hitchins). Singles were almost always recorded in just a few hours, and
albums in just a few days, due to the economic constraints of studio time and recording costs.
14
That is, there is no looping or drum sample replacement in this era of reggae. You actually get the raw drum track, recorded
exactly as it was played by the session musician. Comparatively, looping and sample replacement are relied on heavily in popular
music from the Beatles onward.
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Multitrack tape recording was the standard technology of studios at the time, which was costly to
record with tape and to maintain tape machines.
These studio conditions provided Jamaican musicians of this period, who are widely
recognized as some of the most technically skilled of the 20th-century, a platform for freedom of
expression and experimentation conditioned by a certain degree of rhythmic and generic
structure. As studio session musicians were encouraged to riff and improvise on the established
rhythm, doing so over the course of the entire recording meant that the performances were often
highly detailed, stylized and ornamental. This freedom with generative constraints is what gives
Jamaican popular music from this period such rhythmic complexity and depth, while at the same
time having the potential for massive popular appeal.
Lastly, on a more discrete level, reggae drummers often had a particular style of setting
up their drums. Carlton Barrett, as a teenager, prior to developing a reputation as an elite studio
session drummer, would hang around the studios and do apprentice tasks such as tune and set up
the acoustic drums (Carbone). When shifting to the role of studio session drummer, he continued
to apply these techniques, giving his drum performances a further element of sonic depth.
These factors of the a highly productive work culture at the studio and the unique
character/style of certain drummers and audio engineers are what give Jamaican popular music
from this period such a beautiful blend of technical and organic genius. These factors led to truly
masterful and dexterous drum performances on nearly every reggae record of the golden age, due
to the live and spontaneous nature of the studio session, due to the stylistic and improvisational
skill of the studio session drummers, the high skill of audio engineers to facilitate and record
studio sessions, and lastly due to economic and creative constraints of recording onto tape. As
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reggae is taken up abroad during the 1970s, these elements can be seen as crucial in the
emergence of reggae roots and culture as a global phenomenon.
Global Uptake
Throughout the 1970s, reggae rapidly emerged as a worldwide phenomenon, in heavy
circulation across the globe. Record sales, international tours, the migration of Jamaican
producers and musicians abroad, and more generally the crosscultural movement of reggae roots
and culture in Europe, Africa and Asia, represent this trend. This process of globalization is
discussed widely in scholarly and popular discourse on reggae and Jamaican popular music.
15
The genre’s globalization introduced yet another generation of reggae drummers, mostly active
in Jamaica and the UK. Style Scott, whose career with the Roots Radics band as a session
drummer, would be instrumental in shaping the sound of the major Jamaican popular music
labels based in the UK, such as Greensleeves, Mad Professor’s Ariwa Sounds, and On-U Sound,
pioneered by Adrien Sherwood and carrying the influential Dub Syndicate. Drummie Zeb of
Aswad is also crucial during this period, as the most prominent UK-born reggae drummer,
influential on the UK reggae, lovers rock, dub and punk scene. Meanwhile, Sly Dunbar would
continue to be the prolific drummer of Jamaican popular music. His work with Black Uhuru was
essential to the popularization of reggae in the UK.
16
This process of globalization coincides with the popularization of the one drop rockers
style. Rockers style integrates roots and steppers style, exacting a new substyle of the one drop.
15
In works such as Becoming a Globally Competitive Player: The Case of the Music Industry in Jamaica, by Zeljka Kozul-
Wright and Lloyd Stanbury; “The Importance of Reggae Music in the Worldwide Cultural Universe,” by Dagnini, Jérémie
Kroubo; and “The Caribbean Music Industry,” by Keith Nurse.
16
This period is also marked by Grennan, Barrett, Dunbar and other of the already reputable Jamaican drummers gaining
recognition and employment beyond the reggae circuit. Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Dylan, and Yoko Ono were among those who
frequently employed Jamaican drummers for their studio sessions.
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This style is a more aggressive and kick drum heavy version of the steppers beat, marked by
increased syncopation between the kick drum and the electric bass guitar, compared to roots and
steppers style. That being said, it is difficult and perhaps not very useful to define an overarching
structure of rockers style in the same way as was done for roots and steppers style, as many of its
elements are up for debate. Generally speaking, if roots style can be considered as minimal and
heavy, and steppers style as pulsating and dance-oriented, then rockers style synthesizes these
aesthetics into a more aggressive, heavy and complex style.
Some suggest that a basic feature of the rockers beat is steady 8
th
notes played on the kick
drum along with the one drop’s hi-hat and snare pattern. Others suggest that the “money beat” is
a defining feature of rockers style, which is the name in rock music for alternating the kick drum
and snare drum on each beat of the bar. Both of these suggestions are oversimplifications in my
mind, because the rockers beat tends to have a
more complex kick drum pattern. Similar to the
way the steppers beat introduced complexity to
the one drop snare drum accent, in the rockers
beat, the kick drum tends to weave its way
through the rhythm pattern in an intricate and
complex way. The rockers beat inherits this
aspect of steppers style, of complicating the
snare drum accents, and integrates complicated
and deep kick drum work.
"Sponji Reggae" (1981), by Black Uhuru is often cited as a seminal example of rockers
style. The element of swing, along with complicated snare drum accents, and intricate kick drum
Figure 3.6. Musical score of the rockers style one drop on
“Sponji Reggae” by Black Uhuru. (Micallef)
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work, are all here in this drum performance by Sly Dunbar. This score is the first four measures
of the track in standard musical notation. Sly Dunbar plays a half-bar fill to begin the track. Then
he plays the money beat in the first measure. Then he steadily complicates the kick drum and
snare accents as the overall rhythm progresses. If you find it difficult to follow the score, just
listen to how the kick drum goes to work, weaving its way through the beat, at times syncopating
with the electric bass, at times pushing the beat forward, and at times holding it steady.
As the social, political and musically anti-establishment message of reggae roots and
culture takes off internationally during the late 1970s, the rockers beat becomes associated with
this more edgy and aggressive side of Jamaican popular music. Thus the term militant style
emerged as a moniker for the rockers beat, due to its heavy and dynamic sound. Reggae music in
general and militant style in particular appealed greatly to the skinhead and punk subcultures of
the UK, who massively embraced reggae, accelerating its commercial success and impact on the
UK popular music market, as described by Dick Hebdige and others. Drummie Zeb is massively
influential in this realm and plays a punk / reggae hybrid that represents the height of the militant
style in the UK.
The commercial success of reggae in Japan and various African nations was also
influential in establishing reggae music as a worldwide phenomenon. Though Japan is one of the
first nations to embrace reggae music on a massive scale in terms of record sales, the first
commercially or stylistically relevant Japanese reggae artists do not appear until the mid to late
1980s, and therefore do not contribute to this early history of the one drop. Comparatively, the
album Jah Glory (1982) by Ivory Coast reggae vocalist Alpha Blondy and the reggae ensemble
The Natty Rebels, marks the beginning of a wave of African reggae music that would import,
appropriate, and innovate reggae music from the early 1980s onward (Dagnini). There is a
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definite gap in the literature concerning African reggae music in general and the famous
drummers of African reggae music in particular. Mainly, this information is accessible through
music industry database archives like Discogs.com that list the credits and liner notes for popular
music releases. African reggae drummers and producers of these albums, such as M’Hmad Suley
of The Natty Rebels, Nigerian drummer and producer Mambo Lyn, Nigerian drummer Black
Rice, and South African producer Paul Smykle, are nearly forgotten by history.
African reggae music innovates the one drop in several technical ways that will be
discussed in the next chapter. Its emergence and stylistic direction juxtaposes the eminent
generic and industrial changes of Jamaican popular music during the early 1980s. This
juxtaposition challenges the commonly held negative associations about dancehall music that the
roots generation formed as a reaction to the youth generation’s break from the original reggae
roots and culture movement.
The Computer One Drop
Rockers style has significant implications for the future of Jamaican popular music, as it
provides the foundation for the dancehall beat. According to Jamaican Guitarist Rohan Newman,
"the rockers reggae drum technique is the precursor to the dancehall beat. It is almost like a hip
hop beat, but not quite" (Newman). In a rockers beat, you'll hear lots of variation, aggression and
depth from the kick drum, which becomes a key element of dancehall. In this sense, as Newman
recognizes, the rockers beat can be seen as a precursor to the stylistic changes that reshape the
one drop amid the dancehall revolution of the early 1980s.
This one drop structure with enhanced kick drum work becomes one of the defining
elements of the dancehall genre, but dancehall simplifies the technical intricacies of rockers
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Figure 3.7. One measure of the computer one drop on 'Sleng
Teng Riddim', 1982. (Hitchins)
style. The kick drum played on the last offbeat of the bar is a staple of the one drop of dancehall,
used over and over again, perhaps thousands of times, from the genre’s inception through the
present. To zoom in on the dancehall-style one drop, Ray Hitchins’ musical analysis of Under Mi
Sleng Teng, by Wayne Smith is an essential scholarly contribution.
This drum part is composed of
electronically synthesized drum sounds,
played/sequenced on a Casio MT 40.
17
Its
basic structure is 8
th
notes on the hi hat, the
snare on beats 2 and 4, and a skipping kick
drum pattern on the first 3 beats of the bar.
This electronically sequenced drum pattern
plays on a loop for almost the entire track, with minimal variations and fills. This style of
production is representative of the one drop in the early dancehall era: electronically sequenced
drums, with a simplified and minimal pattern.
By the early 1980s, “computah music” was in vogue, and the one drop was a technique
performed just as much on studio drum machines and electronic synthesizers as acoustically
(Sheridan 33). This results in what might be understood as the electronification of the one drop:
the one drop shifts from an acoustic performance played by a studio session drummer to a
programmed sequence or performance on an electronic synthesizer or drum machine.
This was a major modification to the one drop at the level of production: the increased use of
electronic synthesizers and the studio drum machines in Jamaican popular music. Producers such
as King Jammy, Sly & Robbie, Steely & Clevie, Prince Jazzbo, and Bobby Digital pioneered this
17
Other popular electronic instruments of this era include the Oberheim DMX, Yamaha DX7, Roland TR-808 and Roland TR-
909, as well as numerous others. Part of being a producer was to be knowledgeable about how to operate electronic instruments,
in particular how to synthesize and program high quality and original drum sounds.
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(r)evolution, identifying potential for increased speed and efficiency in production and decreased
studio costs.
The key thing these producers did was eliminate the need for a full ensemble of studio
session musicians to record. Live drums are among the most time-consuming and costly aspect
of popular music recording: acoustic drums require a professional session musician, a high
quality drum kit, multiple mics, an iso booth, dedicated compressors and eqs, and an audio
engineer with lots of technical knowledge of how to operate the equipment and record the drum
part in high fidelity. So producers moved toward the use of drum machines and electronic
synthesizers for creating drum parts at a fraction of the cost.
As the result of these changes, producers and audio engineers began to employ what Ray
Hitchins defines as the serial-recording model: the recording of one instrument at a time into the
multi-track mix, rather than an ensemble of musicians performing live. The serial-recording
method tended to use electronic instruments and synthesizers that emulated the traditional reggae
instrument parts with a modern sound, recorded into the mix one at a time.
18
First and foremost,
the studio session drummer was less in demand. This shift had a number of effects:
- On a technical level, it enabled the one drop to be recorded in “perfect musical time,”
wherein each note is played exactly on beat.
- There was an increase in the output of Jamaican popular music due to the efficiency and
affordability of the serial-recording method, in which the electronification of the one drop
makes it a more affordable and speedy element of the recording process, whereas before
drums were the most expensive and time consuming aspect of production.
18
Studio session musicians were still hired, but for the more high budget releases, with established artists and record labels. Also
on dancehall tracks, one track of the serial recording method was often a live acoustic drum performance, though not as part of an
ensemble.
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- Producers and audio engineers began to serve a more prominent role in the arrangement
and composition of a rhythm - they had to be both musicians and skilled with recording
technologies and studio mixing.
- Less studio session musicians were employed in the making of Jamaican popular music.
After 20 years of a highly productive, laborious and collaborative work culture of studio
session musicians, the studio session drummer ceased to be in high demand.
- Certain brands and models of electronic instruments and synthesizers became popular in
the industry. In general, there was a consistent push by producers and audio engineers for
new and fresh electronic sounds and acoustic samples
Part of the reason why the one drop shifts easily to electronification is due to its minimal
yet malleable structure. The one drop’s basic structure of hi-hats, kick, and snare accents are
fairly translatable to the drum machine electronic synthesizer, and drum parts with variation and
fills can be programmed quickly and in great detail. Producers program a drum track with close
attention to a single bar and drum sequence, and then expand and complicate the beat through
subtle variations in the overarching rhythm. Similar to that of the one drop, the 16th note grid
that was the standard build for studio drum machines of the early 1980s provides a template that
is structurally minimal at the same time that it is deeply malleable. Moreover, the discrete
elements of tuning acoustic drums for subtle tonal and sonic qualities used by studio session
musicians resemble the affordances of the studio drum machine, which was designed to give the
producer the ability to adjust these elements with simple controls.
Many were resistant to this shift to the computer one drop, and to this day there is the
tendency to devalue Jamaican popular music post-1980, due to its ideological and technical
rupture from the predominant stylistic and generic forms of the reggae golden age. There is often
104
the critique posed that this new style works in favor of individuals with tech literacy as opposed
to musical ability, since programming/sequencing complex synthesizers and drum machines
become standards in the Jamaican music industry. There is also the critique that the sound of
electronic drums lacks the richness and tonal quality of acoustic drums enhanced by the analog
recording techniques.
But what complicates these value judgments from a musicianship perspective is that Sly
& Robbie and Steely & Clevie, who were influential in pioneering the danchall revolution, are
professionally trained musicians - Sly & Robbie in particular are probably the most technically
skilled drum and bass duo of the 20
th
-century. Still, they decided to put their acoustic instruments
down toward the end of the 1970s and experiment with the new electronic instruments available
to them. Moreover, they used these new technologies to "simplify" the music. Steely & Clevie
are quoted saying they like to "strip music down to its simplest form" (Sheridan 33). This
indicates a shift in Jamaican popular music toward an even further degree of minimalism, in
which the previous emphasis on ornamentation and spontaneity by individual musicians was
superseded by an emphasis on repetition and simplicity.
What I personally lament in this shift is the movement away from employing a full
reggae ensemble at studio sessions and in general the level of collaboration that was common in
the Jamaican music industry during this era. The variation and ornamentation in the drum parts
of the golden age that came from the improvisational ensemble style of studio sessions is
something to be missed, as well as the lack of collaboration between musicians, audio engineers,
producers, and other studio workers in today’s highly individualized music production
workflows.
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Electronic Instruments and African Reggae Music
The first wave of African reggae music includes the influential albums Jah Glory by
Alpha Blondy & The Natty Rebels, Jerusalem by Alpha Blondy & The Wailers, Soweto Man by
Aidoa, On The Move by Evi-Edna Ogholi, and Prisoner of Conscience, by Majek Fashek, as
well as the work of Lucky Dube. Most of the releases of this period ended up on the Mango
imprint, a subsidiary label of Island Records. In addition to adding rock and pop overdubs, they
also overdubbed generic “world” percussion loops and fx that were recorded by white musicians
and audio engineers.
Stylistically, the one drop in early African reggae music is an innovation of roots style
that coincides with the growing popularity of drum machines and electronic synthesizers in the
popular music industry. The majority of tracks use synthesizers and drum machines, and are
mixed using the muti-track sequential recording method (Hitchins). Whereas the introduction of
these technologies in Jamaican studios ignited the dancehall revolution, in the seminal African
reggae albums, these technologies are employed for the production of roots style in its traditional
form.
That African reggae music of this period is made with electronic synthesizers and drum
machines challenges the commonly held assumption that acoustic instruments comprise a core
element of roots style. Many of those who lament the electronification of the one drop in
dancehall may be surprised to hear that drum machines and electronic synthesizers were used
frequently in early African reggae music which is mostly of the roots style. Even looking back to
reggae music of the golden age, there was lots of electronic manipulation of the acoustic drum
track, including compression, eq, reverb and delay.
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The analog vs. digital debate in terms of sound quality is not a very good argument, as
these kinds of preferences change with the times, as certain technologies age and accumulate
nostalgia. It is important to note that acoustic instruments are a relatively advanced musical
technology in themselves, developed in the Western world. Snare drums were first manufactured
in Europe for use in Western warfare, as a tool for organizing and setting the tempo of marching
soldiers. And it was through warfare and colonization that the first snare drums arrived on the
island.
***
The globalization of reggae roots and culture has continued into the 21
st
-century at an
unprecedented rate, resulting in stylistic innovations and appropriations of the one drop in more
ways than can be accounted for here. On a technical level, digital samples, midi sequencing, and
virtual instruments are the major advancements of the 21st-century in terms of the technological
evolution of the one drop. Audio production companies such as EZ Drummer and Addictive
Drums have released “authentic” reggae drum software, designing and marketing virtual drum
software, midi files and digital samples programmed according to roots style. These industrial
developments in the one drop can be broadly defined as the virtualization and commodification
of the one drop, which occur simultaneously.
No doubt, the one drop's impact on popular music worldwide is immense. While this
chapter focused on the history of the one drop from a musician’s perspective, the following
chapter will shift the focus to recording and studio mixing techniques and the one drop. In
particular, I am interested in the way the development of the one drop during the 1960s and
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1970s shapes a dynamic relationship between drummer, producer and studio recording
technology that has a significant global impact in terms of the development of the major global
popular music of today, especially in the realm of hip hop, electronic dance music, and
Afrobeats. Not only was the one drop itself innovative, but so was the way it was dubbed by
Jamaican producers and audio engineers, who, for the first time in popular music history, turned
the process of recording the drum into a creative act. It is in this dynamic relationship that we see
the full scale of the one drop's impact on global popular music.
108
Chapter 4: Signal Flows and Dub Style
109
Signal Flows and Dub Style: Recording the Drums of the Reggae Golden Age
The global impact of the one drop on popular music history also takes shape in the
techniques used to record the drum during the 1960s and 1970s at various recording studios in
Kingston. As audio engineers experimented with the recording techniques of microphone
placement, balancing, equalization, reverb, and delay, the recording of the one drop became a
creative act. As reggae and dub gained popularity on an international scale, audio engineers
pushed the one drop to its sonic limits.
There is much discourse around the topic of reggae producers, in both academic and
popular discourse. From an academic standpoint, “Dr Satan’s Echo Chamber: Reggae,
Technology and the Diaspora Process” (1997), by Louis Chude-Sokei, is one of the original
conversation starters that connects dub to diaspora, while Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered
Songs in Jamaican Reggae (2007), by Michael Veal, later becomes the definitive work on the
subject. These works argue that dub expresses an aesthetics of diaspora, that its technical and
sonic elements signify the deeply complex (transhistorical, transcultural, translinguistic,
transatlantic) conditions of the African diaspora. More recently, "Tubby’s Dub Style: The Live
Art of Record Production" (2012), by Sean Williams, and Vibe Merchants: The Sound Creators
of Jamaican Popular Music (2014), by Ray Hitchins, have taken the discourse in the direction of
musicology and more generally the cultural history of dub, Jamaican recording studios, and the
Jamaican popular music industry. These works demonstrate the technical elements of reggae and
dub production that have been influential on 21
st
-century popular music genres such as hip hop,
electronic dance music, and Afrobeats.
110
In addition, since around 2013, there has been a surge in enthusiasm about classic reggae
and dub in popular discourse, especially in terms of the technical innovations of Jamaican dub
producers during the 1960s and 1970s. Claims that early reggae and dub producers are in a sense
the first deejays, the first to transform the recording studio into a musical instrument of sorts, and
the first to emphasize sound for sounds sake, have been rearticulated widely across popular
music platforms such as Pitchfork, FACT Magazine, Dummy Mag, Red Bull Music Academy
and countless others. In “A Brief History of The Studio As An Instrument” (2016), a blog post
published by Ableton Live, the author writes that Jamaican producers and audio engineers “made
a profound impact on the wave of production-based genres that would emerge in the '70s and
'80s and continue to the present day…It's hard to overstate: dub’s emergence was truly a
visionary moment, a foundational shift in the relationship between music and production whose
traces remain discernable in just about every vein of modern music creation” (Ableton). The
sum of this popular discourse about the influence of Jamaican producers provides a general
cultural history about this topic, and points toward the deeper cultural symbolism of the music.
While it is exciting to see the contributions of these early reggae producers being
recognized on larger platforms than academia, there are several inaccuracies that have arisen in
the widespread reporting on this topic. Among these is a lack of specificity when detailing the
recording techniques used by reggae and dub producers, particularly in regard of signal flows
and dub style. This creates misinformation about the circuitry, signal routing, and audio
equipment used during the recording, mixing, and mastering of famous reggae and dub releases
from this period. As a response, this chapter offers historical insight into the techniques of reggae
and dub producers that is not currently available based on my research. I attend to a certain
degree of mythmaking that has arisen around the audio and recording technology used at
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Jamaican studios during the 1960s and 1970s, and then supplement the discourse with my own
research and findings.
Focusing specifically on the recording of the one drop grounds this investigation in a
specific aspect of the recording process, that is recording and mixing the drums. It is widely
acknowledged that the recording of quality drum performances is among the most technically
difficult tasks of the audio engineer. As such, the major and independent studios of Jamaica each
established a signature sound largely based around their style of recording, mixing, and
mastering drums. Thus, audio engineers were tasked with developing a characteristic way of
recording the drums in order to give the sound of their records an edge over the competition.
This chapter focuses on recording the one drop at three studios in particular: Studio One, Black
Ark Studio, and King Tubby’s.
Jamaican Producers and Socio-economic Factors
It is interesting to look at these developments in the context of socio-economic factors
around the development of the Jamaican music industry, in particular the trade and apprentice
system of Kingston during this time. Many of the producers and audio engineers are coming
from trade-backgrounds as electricians, being educated in the mechanical trade schools of mid-
century Kingston.
1
Prior to getting into the music industry, they owned repair shops or worked
for union trade companies as electricians or for the state as infrastructure technicians. This
influence from the Jamaican trade economy led to the Jamaican music industry importing an
informal apprenticeship system into the recording studio. According to Hitchins, musicians,
1
E.g. Kingston Technical, Alpha Boys School, and through the union apprentice system.
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producers, and audio engineers "typically acquired their training through a studio apprentice
system.” He writes,
Most of the bigger recording studios employed at least one full-time audio
engineer who became associated with that particular facility and the sound it
produced. For example, Graeme Goodall had an association with Federal
Records; he trained Byron Smith, who was later recruited by Duke Reid and
became the principal audio engineer for Treasure Isle. Smith trained Errol Brown,
as an apprentice, who was later recruited by Bob Marley and became the principal
audio engineer associated with the Tuff Gong recording studio. (Hitchins)
This informal studio apprentice system, as Hitchins calls it, may have emerged due to many
audio engineers from this period having occupational backgrounds as electricians and in
electronics repairs.
2
Since many producers were businessmen coming from a background in entrepreneurship,
and running retail, market, and trade businesses. This background was ideal for some of the more
administrative aspects of production, such as scheduling studio time, handling contracts,
communicating with the musicians, directing the mastering process, and in general taking care of
the business side of things so that records would return significant profits. As tradesmen, the first
Jamaican reggae producers and audio engineers were approaching music from a more technical
and economic perspective. They were not musicians in the traditional sense, measured by the
ability to play / perform acoustic and electronic instruments. Nor was it their role to compose the
2
For example, Donald Hendry, one of the firs audio engineers of Jamaican popular music, worked as a live sound engineer,
managing and maintaining PA equipment for rentals at public events (Hitchins 21). Sylvan Morris, another legendary audio
engineer from Kingston, “was known as a prodigy of sorts, working demanding electronics jobs when most of his age mates were
still in school" (Veal 96). Then of course there was King Tubby who carried on his electronic repairs business alongside his
studio work and Hometown HiFi sound system. And this trend continued throughout the 70s, when Prince Jammy apprenticed at
King Tubby’s Studio after leaving a job as a technician for Chin’s Radio Service (Veal 123).
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music being performed. Rather, their role was to focus on the sound of the recording, and try to
run the studio session and produce a track that could be a hit record, making decisions about
what rhythms are working and how the song should be structured.
Some producers of this time also filled the role of audio engineers, like King Tubby and
Lee Perry, who managed the technology side of things at their studios. The tasks of the audio
engineers are to maintain and optimize the workflow and sound of the recording studio, spanning
microphone placement, signal routing, tape machine maintenance, operating the console, and
many other tasks related to the operation of studio equipment. Sourcing, maintaining and
learning to operate the studio recording equipment of this period required a very high IQ in terms
of technology and mechanics. In addition to the actual recording, the maintenance and
expenditure of tape, acetate discs, studio time, and payment of artists was all an extremely
calculated to be as economically profitable as possible.
Moreover, it is important to note that the Jamaican music industry was lucrative during
this period of original reggae roots and culture, that all of these individuals found their way to the
industry because of its potential for profits. Producers such as Coxsone Dodd saw potential in the
market, and they created a strong economic sector with profitable returns and a highly active
workplace (Cyrus). Many of the producers owned convenience stores or local grocery stores, or
were dealing in imports / exports. When the music industry began to bring in high economic
returns, they expanded their businesses to include the recording and distribution of Jamaican
popular music, often converting a section of their store or house into the recording facility. In
these settings, profits and efficiency were the major focus of the workflow. The production,
mastering, and release process were streamlined to maximize release time and subsequent
revenue.
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Recording Rasta Drums
In 1958, Prince Buster produced the track “Oh Carolina” featuring Count Ossie and his
band of Rastafarian drummers, who would later perform and record under the moniker Count
Ossie & The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari. This record, released in 1960, became one of the
early hits of the ska era. The Rasta drum rhythms of Count Ossie and his band combined with the
R&B shuffle pattern of the Folk Brothers song to create a heavy rhythm track that was proto- one
drop. As discussed in the previous chapters, this collaboration of Rastafarian subculture with the
Jamaican music industry is massively influential on the birth of reggae roots and culture. While
in the previous chapter I discussed how this influences the development of the one drop style,
here I want to draw attention to the legacy this track has on producers and audio engineers
turning the recording studio into a space where Jamaican popular music and Rastafarian
subculture could develop and grow alongside one another. Specifically, that producers and audio
engineers are the mediators of this collaboration. They are responsible for the networking and
community outreach necessary to build this collaboration as well as the technical expertise to
produce the sound.
As the Jamaican music industry thrived, it became both a productive workplace and a
center for Rastafarian and working class community building. The recording studio thus became
an incubator of the message, a place where diverse and strong minded individuals came together
to work on business, and where a sense of community formed around the belief system of
Rastafarianism and the message of reggae roots and culture. From the release of “Oh Carolina”,
the rhythms of Jamaican popular music were integrating with the rhythms of Rasta drumming.
3
Producers and audio engineers would develop highly sophisticated and innovative recording
3
For more on this topic, including various configurations for recording reggae percussion, see Bilby’s essay “Distant Drums: The
Unsung Contribution of African-Jamaican Percussion to Popular Music at Home and Abroad” (2010).
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techniques for tracking and processing the drums of this golden age of Jamaican popular music.
Later, their experiments with studio technology and sound processing would become symbolic of
heavy cultural symbolism in the same way that the drum of reggae music represents the soul of
the people, the rhythm of life.
Development of Drum Recording Techniques at Kingston Studios
Around 1960, the technology used to record Jamaican popular music was humble. There
was not multi-track recording at this time – no dubbing or editing the mix. Everything was
performed live, often recorded with just one mic, with everyone in the ensemble, sometime
including the vocalist, recording onto the same master recording. Lloyd Knibb remembers these
early days of recording the drum mix with a single mic. He also remembers the days before
Western instruments were widely available on the island, when he hand-built a snare drum with
the head made of pelican skin, and when he sourced a cymbal found in a junk yard (Carbone).
In the early 1960s, Jamaican audio engineers started using audio mixing consoles that
allowed them to use the multi-mic method to record the one drop (Hitchins). This enabled the
engineer to utilize multiple microphones placed on each individual piece of the drum kit, mixed
down to stereo and balanced with the other micked instruments. At this time, the most important
aspect of the recording process for producers was selecting the right musicians. Musicians had to
be very skilled, capable of cutting a hit record in a single take, without post-production editing.
They also had to be skilled at monitoring and playing in an ensemble, balanced from a musicians
perspective. Further, the musicians had to have a flexible, laid back, and improvisational playing
style, as songs were rehearsed and recorded on the spot, without much formal composing or
songwriting.
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Figure 4.1. Generic example of a drum set-up using the multi-mic recording method. (Toontrack)
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, multi-track recording was being used in most
Kingston studios. At Studio One, Coxsone Dodd used the most advanced technology available in
Kingston during the 1970s: a 24-track mixing console and tape machine, with two additional 4-
track tape recorders for mastering purposes. This allowed Coxsone Dodd to use up to 24
microphones during a recording session, and edit each microphone's recording separately post-
production. In order to record a quality drum mix in this method, audio engineers placed a
microphone on each individual piece of the drum kit and balanced the drum mix alongside the
other micked instruments. The audio engineer had to get the positioning and balance of the drum
mics right in order to record the most
high fidelity drum sound and tone.
This led to audio engineers at Kingston
studios becoming masters of
microphone placement, and of the
balance of the mixing board. Some
venues like Dynamic Sounds used a
Figure 4.2. Coxsone Dodd at the controls, Studio One circa 1974.
(Pan African Music)
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more minimal style, with only 3-4 mics on the drums, whereas Studio One was tracking the
drums with around 8 mics – a mic each (sometimes multiple mics) for the snare, kick drum, hi-
hats, toms and cymbals, plus an overhead and room mic.
Figure 4.3. Speculative sketch of the studio configuration at Studio One in Kingston.
Note the two 4-track tape machines for mastering.
Hitchins calls this shift in music recording technologies in Jamaican popular music the
period of the multi-microphone / multi-track recording model, from roughly 1963-1982, “where
instrument and multiple microphone positioning, in addition to electrical balances, are employed,
but also where additional recording tracks allow voices or instruments to be added (over-
dubbed…The resulting collection of tracks can then be sonically treated and balanced through an
independent post-recording process of mixing” (Hitchens 9). This shift led to a degree of audio
production with many powerful parameters for recording and editing sound.
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Some engineers used analog compressors and eq at this stage to increase fidelity. While
other effects units like reverb, delay, and phaser were used to different degrees depending on the
production style of the studio. Lee Perry for example uses the phaser a lot on the guitar and piano
and the echo/delay machine on the drums during the actual recording of the master tapes.
4
Comparatively, studios like Studio One and Dynamic Sound used effects as a tool for recording
the drum mix in high fidelity.
In Conversation with Brian Eno
As producer Brian Eno notes in a 1979 lecture entitled “The Studio As Compositional
Tool,” multi-track enabled a “range of different usage[s]” for a single recording: “there are so
many variations you can make that you don’t really need to spend all that money hiring
musicians; you can do a great deal with a single work” (Eno). Eno is commenting on how, with
the advent of multi-track recording, a single musician’s performance could be used in myriad
ways – it could be slowed down, looped, resampled, layered, and effected to the extent of giving
the impression of entirely original performance.
Eno states that “when you buy a reggae record, there’s a 90 percent chance the drummer
is Sly Dunbar…you get the impression that Sly Dunbar is chained to a studio seat somewhere in
Jamaica, but in fact what happens is that his drum tracks are so interesting, they get used again
and again” (Eno). Eno is implying that drum tracks were used during the reggae golden age were
often reused and remixed for different releases, with changes in the playback speed and FX of
the session tapes. This is inaccurate according to my research about the active workforce that the
Jamaican music industry formed, with a high demand for session musicians that kept a high
4
As featured in rare footage at Black Ark studio from the documentary Roots Reggae Rock (1977). The documentary shows the
process of Lee Perry recording the hit record “Play On Mr. Music” by the Heptones.
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number of artists and audio engineers with steady employment (Cyrus). Drummers were still in
high demand during this time, and it is for this reason that Jamaican popular music of this era is
remembered for the complexity and endless variety of its rhythms.
In fact, the thing that is so unique about reggae production from this period – what
distinguishes it from post-1980s popular music – is that audio engineers were mixing master
tapes of ensemble performances by professional musicians. The band’s performance as an
ensemble, recording the rhythm in the studio session, was one of the defining aspects of this
period of reggae music, because any given bar could contain an improvised riff on the rhythm
that enhances its overall depth and character. On these tapes, the musicians are locked into the
rhythm in the ensemble vibe, taking cues, improvising on the beat, and cutting the rhythm track
in 2-3 takes. To remove a drum performance from its context in the live performance in which it
was recorded would create an effect that is inconsistent with the reggae composition style of this
period, that is the heavy integration of rhythm patterns within overall structure of the reggae one
drop rhythm. Out of this context, the drum track would not have the natural sounding rhythm of
the vibe from the other session, it would sound out of place.
Audio engineers may have recycled a drum track or two, but the real advantage of their
production style was having the drum mix recorded as part of an ensemble. Typically, the
instrumental was recorded first, that is the rhythm track. The session musicians would work out
the rhythm and melody in rehearsal, then record the instrumental to tape in multitrack. Recording
in this way, the audio engineer recorded a full length, highly detailed, expertly played
performance by a professional drummer, that they could then arrange and effect to enhance the
recording’s tonal and sonic qualities in post-production. I think it was probably rare for a drum
performance to be hijacked from one track and placed into another, because the drum
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performances were played specifically for the accompanying rhythm. In Jamaican popular music
of this period, it was essential for the drum performance to be played in ensemble with the other
instruments. In isolation, or out of context, its nuances are misplaced – the beat will not work for
the overall rhythm.
In general, it was not really popular in Kingston at this time to “edit” tape, with exacto
knife and reel to reel tape recorder, as was popularized by early hip hop and electronic dance
music artists like Africa Bambatta and Frankie Knuckles.
5
The preferred method was to employ
a professional reggae ensemble and record the performance straight to tape, with the
performance of adequate quality to be mixed and mastered for release. What Eno might be
picking up on is the way the same “riddims” are often used for unique releases by different
vocalists, which is common in the Jamaican music industry. When studios produce a rhythm
with real hit potential, 4-5 vocalists might record over the same rhythm; there are legacies of
riddims that traverse time, geography, and language, and evolve over time.
The Vibe of the Studio: A Culture of High Fidelity Analog Sound
During this period, Jamaican audio engineers and producers became masters of the
fundamentals of recording, that is mic placement, balancing, equalization, compression, and
phasing. They also had to be plugged into a network of professional musicians, pay them well,
and handle contracts and executive duties with regard to production. And perhaps most important
5
Jazzy Jay, an associate of Bambaataa's, described editing "Planet Rock" as "the most tedious thing.” He recalled Baker being
there during the whole editing process: "splicing, cutting tape with a razor blade. What we do now with just a few strokes of the
keyboard” (Buskin). This same phenomenon takes place with producers like Frankie Knuckles, who develop the technique of the
“edit,” isolating the “relevant” parts of a track and then remixing them in a more dance-floor ready composition. Frankie
Knuckles reflects on editing with a Pioneer Reel to Reel machine, meticulously cutting the tape, sometimes into half inch-pieces
that correlated to about a second of music, editing together remixed versions of disco records (Computer Music Specials).
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of all, they had to create a studio environment that was relaxed, flexible, inspiring, and
professional at the same time.
Hitchins says the vibe is something profoundly important but also hard to define because
it is such an abstract element of the production process (Hitchins). The sound of a studio was
wrapped up in the vibe which was an abstract combination of elements, from the acoustics of the
recording space, to the technology used to record, to the house instruments, to the personality
type of the engineer, to art hanging on the wall. Audio engineers and producers were meticulous
about every aspect of the recording environment, creating a vibe that would inspire musicians to
perform at their best and cut a hit record.
There was a culture of high fidelity analog sound pervasive in the Jamaican recording
industry during this time, and each studio had a different vibe. Dunbar remembers the vibe at
Studio 17, Vincent Chin’s recording studio above Randy’s Records at 17 North Parade. Dunbar
says that "Randy’s had that warm drum and bass sound…if you go back and play some of those
sounds at Studio 17 they will sound ten times better than what we’re recording on right now”
(Randy's Anniversary). This sound is related to Vincent Chin’s high-tech set up and expert ear
for acoustics and nuances of sound. Studio 17 had some of the best quality in the industry, in
particular their house instruments, microphones, mixer, and in general the set-up of the studio.
6
At Black Ark Studio, run by Lee Perry, the vibe was Rastafarian, with a more laid back
and communal atmosphere. The studio was usually full of an audience hanging out during the
recording session as the musicians kick back and vibe to the one drop rhythm while Scratch runs
the session according to his vision for the track. Rastafarian art, prints, and crafts paper the wall
of the studio, and the rhythms are in the raw reggae roots style. As an engineer, Scratch is a
6
The documentary included in the Randy’s 50th Anniversary Box Set is an amazing resource that tells the cultural history of
Randy’s and has historical footage inside Studio 17.
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master of signal routing, wiring, and workflow. He has the mix dialed in, balanced perfectly, so
that the musicians monitoring through headphones can really ride on the rhythm. Scratch also
has some experimental effects as aux tracks in the mix, that route the rhythm section through an
echo machine and a phaser, that he improvises on during the recording to give the tracks an
experimental and unique quality to their sound.
King Tubby’s also had a community vibe, but the studio was small, almost like a
workshop. King Tubby, perhaps the most advanced in the industry in terms of his knowledge of
electronics, treated the studio like a laboratory. His set-up was extremely high tech and DIY,
with many of the components built from scratch, and auxiliary FX configurations with highly
experimental signal chains. This combined the Rastafarian communal atmosphere with an
electricians workshop. With this rare combination, the vibe was both rootsy and futuristic, a
dynamic that has since been interpreted to have heavy cultural symbolism, as will be discussed
later in this chapter.
Channel One Studios, run by the Hoo Kim brothers, really encouraged the community
atmosphere that formed around their studio. In the early years, the Hoo Kim brothers allowed
other producers such as Bunny Lee to record at the studio free of charge, and many of the major
roots reggae acts of the time went to Channel One as their top option, bringing large entourages
and crowds.
7
In terms of sound, the Hoo Kim brothers were minimalists. Their set-up and
recording space was bare bones and spacious, and their sound is crisp, clean, and minimally
processed – pure analog sound.
7
The crowds were so large that people sold street food outside of the studio.
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Dynamic Sound and Studio One had a more robust and industry standard sound, as well
as a more business-like environment. Dynamic sounds was the go-to studio for the major
releases, including the majority of Bob Marley & The Wailers albums.
8
There wasn’t as much
community permitted in these studios, and the production style was to record high fidelity master
tapes with the target of landing a hit record. One characteristic feature of these studios was their
attention to acoustics. Both had recording spaces with significant acoustic treatment, including
high ceilings, paneling, stage curtains, and strategic mic placement. Moreover, these studios had
the latest recording technology and the best qualified engineers in terms of experience and
reputation, thus they delivered a consistent and polished sound that was ready for mass release.
That’s why many of the biggest names in the international music industry at the time were
coming to Jamaica to record.
9
This culture of HiFi sound has been a key aspect of Jamaican popular music since its
inception, carried on throughout the complex transformations in genre and style happening in
8
See: Catch A Fire: documentary for footage of recordings sessions at Dynamic Sounds.
9
such as the Rolling Stones and others at Dynamic Sound
Figure 4.4. The minimalist vibe at Channel One Studio.
(Urban Image Music)
Figure 4.5. The artsy vibe at Studio One.
(Urban Image Music)
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the industry. The Jamaican studio scene demonstrates a cultural fascination with sound that is
emerging alongside original reggae roots and culture and its urban soundscape.
Dub Style
Around 1970, dub was born on the B-side – the instrumental rhythm track or “version” –
of 7” and 12” of reggae singles. Dub style was originated when producers and audio engineers
started to experiment with what Hitchins calls “performance mixing”. During playback, the
engineer mixes the track in real time, muting the vocals, upping the drum and bass tracks, and
experimenting with delay and reverb. Operating the mixer in this improvisational style – being
“at the controls” – becomes the artform behind dub style, and the famous engineers of this era
each developed their own creative workflow and studio configuration to push the parameters of
music technology to its limits.
10
Some of the key elements of this style are heavy drum and bass,
atmospheric FX, smooth fader control, and improvisational mixing choices.
In a documentary celebrating Randy’s 50th anniversy, Clive Chin, who worked as an
engineer at the studio that was owned by his father, claims that he and Errol Thompson
originated dub style in 1971:
Myself and Errol started to experiment with dub. Long before even Tubby's
thought of doing dub...So there was a big thing about who did the first dub album.
It was a big saying in the 70s: who did the first dub album? Who came out with
the first dub. Well I know. And Errol know, that we did the first dub, and that it
was called “Java Java Java dub." (Randy's 50th Anniversary).
10
For an authoritative account of the key producers and audio engineers on the scene, see “Table 1: An Overview of Jamaican
Dub Artists,” from the article “Versions, Dubs and Riddims: Dun and the Transient Dynamics of Jamaican Music” (Vendryes
10).
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Like many origin stories, there are several alternative theories to who originated dub style. The
most popular theory is that the genre was born on accident, when Coxsone Dodd cut a dubplate
onto accetate disc to select at the dancehall but accidentally muted the vocals (Veal et al). The
crowd response to the instrumental track was apparently very positive so he decided to keep
producing the style, and the trend quickly caught on at other dancehalls and Jamaican studios.
Another perspective suggests that versions were being released on the B-side of popular
singles as early as the mid-1960, even if they did not have the characteristic experimental echo
effects that would define the dub subgenre in the 1970s. Moreover, The Upsetters released “Big
Noise” (1969) on their debut album that was a dub style instrumental version cut by producer
Lee Scratch Perry. Also, toasting and deejay style were becoming popular during this time,
which is a closely related subgenre of dub, because both styles emphasize the heavy bass and
remix the instrumental rhythm with experimental audio effects. U-Roy had already released
“Dynamic Fashion” (1969), which one could argue is proto-dub because the toasting and dub
style on this track paved the way for the dub subgenre.
Aside from these proto-dub styles, and early reggae versions, Java Java (1973), Black
Board Jungle (1973), and Dub From The Roots (1974) became some of the first releases in this
style. On the liner notes of the 2010 vinyl repressing of Dub From The Roots, it says that on this
album King Tubby “created a new musical form where the bass and drum parts were brought up
while the faders allowed Tubby to ease the vocal and rhythm in and out of the mix” (Jamaican
Recordings). This quote is representative of the broader artistic movement of producers and
audio engineers who originated dub style, such as Lee Perry, Clive Chin, and the other key
names of this golden generation. Original dub style remained popular into the 1980s through the
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next generation of dub artists like Mad Professor and Scientist into the early 1980s, and
performance mixing is still practiced widely by reggae artists widely across the world.
The creative way this technology was used in Kingston during the 1970s, and the
microscopic level of detail that audio engineers used when mixing the drums, has been highly
influential. As musicologist Dr. Michael Veal writes, these innovations sensitized the popular
music industry to the "microaesthetics" of production, paving the way for the complex electronic
textures of hip hop, techno, drum & bass and other late-20th century popular music genres.
The development of these innovative recording techniques and the heavy cultural
symbolism involved meant that the one drop was now a combination of the drum performance
and the audio engineer’s creative and stylistic decisions while recording the track. No doubt, the
influence of dub style is massive. Its influence on 21
st
-century popular music spans the technique
of performance mixing, the use of echo and reverb on the drum mix, creative arrangement, and
most significantly the popular appeal of bass.
This dynamic relationship across drummer, producer, and studio recording equipment
developed in Kingston during the 1960s and 1970s, is massively influential. Its global impact is
felt in nearly every genre of late-20th-century popular music, from hip hop, to techno, to drum &
bass, to house music, and the list goes on. During this period, audio engineers from Kingston
originated the emphasis in popular music of stylizing the drum performance, of editing a
recorded acoustic drum performances post-production for the purpose of aestheticizing its tonal
and sonic qualities in extreme detail. As hip hop and electronic dance music emerged during the
late 1970s and early 1980s, they would borrow many of the styles of editing and effecting the
drums established by reggae and dub producers during this period of Jamaican popular music.
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Signal Flows at King Tubby’s Studio
There is much lore that has emerged around the technology used in the studio
configuration at King Tubby’s. There is definitely a certain degree of mythmaking around the
topic of King Tubby’s legendary MCI (Music Center Incorporated) mixing console. Since not
enough archival material exists to show the exact studio configuration, there is misinformation
on this topic floating around on blog posts and music technology discussion boards. Therefore I
want to explain exactly what we know and don’t know about King Tubby’s studio configuration
based on the archival materials currently available.
The article “Tubby’s Dub Style: The Live Art of Record Production” (2012) by Sean
Williams is the best source currently available in terms of breaking down the studio
configuration at King Tubby’s. He goes into great detail about the dub style developed at the
studio during the 1970s, including analysis of the different micro-details of what he calls the
“performance ecosystem” of the studio (Williams 1). In conversation with Williams, I have
analyzed historical images, footage, and oral accounts from the archive to piece together “a
material analysis of the technology used by King
Tubby to produce records” (Williams 1). What
my research adds are visualizations of the studio
configuration and signal flow. Figure 4.6 is a
photo of King Tubby’s studio circa 1974 that can
help us identify certain equipment and speculate
about the studio configuration. Here we see the
basic configuration of the studio, featuring a 2-
Figure 4.6. Major units in the signal flow at King
Tubby's, circa 1970.
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track (stereo) tape machine, 4-track tape machines, a 12-channel mixing console and a rack of
sound processing units including a compressor, eq, and FX unit.
We can also make some inferences about the studio configuration based on rare historical
footage from inside King Tubby’s. In the documentary Deep Roots Music (1983), there is
footage of Prince Jammy cutting a dub with producer Bunny Lee at King Tubby’s studio.
Observing the changes in the song that occur when Prince Jammy adjust the faders and aux
sends, inferences can be made about the signal flow and routing of the studio configuration.
Based on these sources, it appears the signal flow runs as follows, and as depicted in Figure 4.7.
The 4-track tape machine plays back the master tapes on four discrete channels of the mixer.
During playback, the audio engineer operates the faders and aux controls, remixing the track in
the dub performance mixing dub style. There is an onboard reverb effect that is used heavily on
the drum track during snare hits and during ska guitar notes. The operator uses the onboard
reverb and low-pass filter effects to bring out unconventional yet vibey sonic resonances. In
addition, there are two dedicated channels on the mixer functioning as echo/delay aux returns for
the vocals, drums, and rhythm section. Of course, we cannot know the exact studio
configuration. In particular, I am unable to infer the exact signal flow of the faders that are
functioning as echo/delay aux returns. Also, it is not clear how the famous onboard hi-pass filter
is integrated into the workflow.
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Figure 4.7. Sketch of signal flow at King Tubby's during the 1970s.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the studio configuration at King Tubby’s studio
during the 1970s that produced this sound.
11
As Prince Jammy demonstrates in Deep Roots
Music, the dub style developed on this mixer was all about emphasizing the drum and bass, and
adding atmospheric filtering, reverb, and echo to the vocal track, the ska guitar riffs, the hi-hat
pattern, and the snare hits of the one drop. The shattering echo of the snare drum that this creates,
is like a nebular explosion, a spaced out vibe. This is the sound that becomes the most
recognizable characteristic of dub echoes, and this is what is meant by the idea that dub
producers transformed the studio into a musical instrument, by pushing analog sound to its
limits.
11
According to Williams, this is the configuration at King Tubby’s studio from 1973 when he buys the MCI mixing console, to
1979 when the studio upgrades to an 8-track tape machine.
130
Dub and African Diaspora
This figures the studio as a space of experimentation, in which technology is exploited
for its latent technological potential. Because the technology was often second hand, obsolete, or
of low market value, audio engineers were not under pressure to follow standardized use
protocol as stated in the manual. Jamaican audio engineers therefor experimented on, invented
new uses, electronically modified and built from scratch studio technology.
Figure 4.8 features a pre-amp that
King Tubby constructed himself for use in his
studio and at his sound system. The level of
skill and technical knowledge needed to build
this device is indicative of a degree of
genius/understanding of the fundamental
principles of electronics that is far beyond
the norm of producers and audio engineers.
That King Tubby was first and foremost a tradesman in electronic repairs prepared him to
experiment with sound from an amplification/signal processing standpoint that really was far
beyond the technical abilities of other producers and audio engineers in Kingston, if not the
world.
Kodwo Eshun describes this phenomenon as black artists accessing the “entelechy” of
musical instruments and studio equipment, that is the latent potential of technology. This idea
identifies how, amid the major developments of 20
th
-century popular music, black musicians
across the African diaspora have innovated sound technologies to create new waves of musical
genres and form. From the “blue note” on the electric guitar, to dub style, to the innovative uses
Figure 4.8. King Tubby pictured in front of a truly genius
prototype for an amplifier, a machine that was one of the key
components of the raw and warm analog sound
produced at his studio. (Katz)
131
of drum machines, synthesizers, turntables, and dj mixers, the most impactful technical
innovations of popular music history have tended to originate in musical genres of the African
diaspora.
12
In John Akomfrah’s,experimental documentary film The Last Angel of History
(1996), Eshun’s theory of entelechy is central to the film’s symbolic narrative of searching for a
“black secret technology” that pushes 20
th
-century popular music forward and carries with it
resonances of African diaspora. Akomfrah’s film has become a touchstone for the discourse
around Afrofuturism, and a massively important historical text in terms of representing the
complex relationships across black cultural production, technology, and diaspora.
On a sonic level, the cultural significance of dub has been theorized by Chude-Sokei,
Akomfrah, Veal, Howard, et. al. The aesthetics of dub are linked to conditions of diaspora, such
as global migration and social erasure. The deeply rhythmic pulse of drum and bass in dub style
is symbolic of the one drop rhythm steadily driving the steady and dynamic globalization of
reggae roots and culture. The shattered soundscape of dub echoes signifies the experiences of
fragmentation and social erasure that occur through histories of slavery and colonialism. These
sonic elements signify the deeply complex (transhistorical, transcultural, translinguistic,
transatlantic) conditions of the African diaspora. This heavy cultural symbolism is expressed
through the dub style that King Tubby helped originate and the legacy of producers and audio
engineers that he and his generation inspired.
12
Eshun also theorizes entelechy in relation to the experimental production styles of the originators of techno in Detroit and
house music in Chicago respectively. He points to the creative way they used reel-to-reel tape machines, synthesizers, and drum
machines in ways that revolutionized the dance music industry.
132
Overdubbing: The Sonic and Corporate Influence of Island Records
From what I can tell, King Tubby’s was strictly a mastering and dub studio, as opposed to
having the set-up to record a musical ensemble. Footage from inside the studio shows two studio
applications: overdubbing vocals and dub mixing. The 4-track and 2-track tape machines were
sufficient for these applications, and the 12-channel MCI console enabled overdubbing vocals
and other instruments and FX according to the vision of the producer. During the 1960s and
1970s, master tapes were typically mixed down to 4-tracks: drum & bass, melody, rhythm
section, vocals. The studio session would take place at a studio equipped for tracking ensembles,
where the session might be recorded on 8/16/24-track. Post-production, the audio engineer would
mix the session down to 4-track and then send the tapes off to King Tubby’s for mastering.
During the mastering process, overdubbing is the technique used to record any additional
tracks to the mix, such as vocals, instrumental solos, percussion, and FX. This takes place in
post-production, after the house band or studio session musicians cut the rhythm track. At this
point, the additional tracks are overdubbed and balanced in the mix. Then the mix is stylized to
bring out the best sound of the mix for mass release. Overdubbing is a key site where the
mainstream influences of the US and UK popular music markets come into play. Island Records
has been criticized for their overdubs during the mixing and mastering phase of crucial records in
reggae history. They consistently overdubbed rock organs, electric guitar solos, percussion, and
vocal harmonies to make the music more marketable from a pop music and rock stand point. In
particular, the lead guitar solo that is often viewed as a staple of the reggae genre comes from the
history of overdubbing at Island Records, from the production team mastering Bob Marley
records so that they would appeal to the US and UK rock markets
133
Figure 4.9. Island Records expense report for the production of the studio album
Exodus by Bob Marley & The Wailers, 1977. (McDavitt)
The producers at Island Records also got to make the final decisions on the way the mix
is arranged and stylized for the masters and the release. In general the production style was much
more standardized according to the industry standards of the UK. Figure 4.9 gives insight into
the logic applied to the production of an album: the by the books method. This is a representative
example of the general approach to mastering reggae records on major labels for release to the
US and UK markets. In this way, the message is mediated by corporate influences.
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Comparatively, Hitchins identifies “flexibility” as one of the most consistent elements of the
Jamaican production style across many generations, genres, and production environments
(Hitchins). Hitchins points out that there is no single signal flow or production style consistent
across the Jamaican popular music industry, but rather it is this element of flexibility that gives
reggae its raw yet high fidelity sound that can never be truly copied abroad. A last point to make
here is that a significant numbers of singles and albums from this period had multiple releases for
the different international markets. For the different releases there are typically different
arrangements and production styles that change the overall vibe.
Babylon Things: Technology and Reggae Music
This point of mediation regarding Island Records and the general mediation of reggae
music by the US and UK popular music markets is compounded by the mediation of reggae
music through its production via Western technology. The Jamaican popular music industry is a
product of the rapid increase in access to Western technology available on the island during the
1960s. The renovations of Newport West by the Foreshore Development Corporation and the
construction of Newport East by the Kingston Waterfront Re-development Company figure
significantly in this relationship. Modern trade routes between Jamaica and the UK, US, Japan,
China, and many other countries across the globe were established and streamlined at these sites,
providing the infrastructure for a booming import/export industry of Western commodities. This
enabled the rapid rise of available consumer technologies and professional audio equipment
imported from abroad. Indeed, an abundance of sound technology enabled the development of
135
the Jamaican popular music industry during the 1960s, and the creative use of sound systems and
recording studio equipment has been one of its defining elements.
13
This analysis indicates the status of technology as “not a threat, but a source of pleasure”
within the Jamaican reggae roots and culture movement, as described by Julian Henriques in his
work on technology, creolization and the Jamaican music industry (Henriques). The suggestion
is that reggae roots and culture has always harbored a certain fascination with technology as well
as a drive to experiment with its limits and discover latent potentials. This marks a key difference
between Jamaican popular music and orthodox Rastafarianism, which scorns “Babylon tings” –
Western commodities and technology – considered them as the tools of the oppressor. This was a
perspective held by the strictest followers of the movement, prevalent at Rastafarian communes
where electricity and electronics were prohibited. In the realm of the music industry, however,
this position is relaxed, as artists and producers get comfortable with the use of technology to
amplify the message of Rastafarianism to a national and international audience.
To this point, I conclude this chapter by asking if it is useful to critique the link between
Jamaican popular music’s simultaneous amplification of the message of Rastafari and its
dependence on the import of Western technology that was made possible by the urbanization of
the Kingston waterfront that displaced the foundational communes of the Rastafarian movement.
The industry’s dependence on the import of Western technology means that it benefits from the
Kingston Waterfront Re-development Project, which is marred by the mass displacement of
Rastafarians and more generally the urban poor. This is problematic considering the extent that
the industry is shaped by, amplifies, and to a certain extent commodifies the symbols and ethos
13
There is a gap in the literature concerning the supply-chains of these sound technologies, in particular the professional audio
retailers, electronic supply stores, audio equipment manufacturers, instruments makers, electronic repair stores, etc. that supplied
the island with the equipment used to produce this era of Jamaican popular music.
136
of Rastafarianism. Was this merely an inevitable process of globalization that the music industry
responded to by appropriating the tools of the oppressor to project the message of social
revolution, Pan-Africanism, cultures united, and in general the vision of Rasta to a massive
audience?
All of these factors indicate a relationship of mediation between the Jamaican popular
music industry and the radical message that it ultimately amplifies to a global audience. I suggest
this relationship forms through the industry’s simultaneous roots in the Rastafarian movement
and entanglements with the processes of modern urbanization in Kingston, in particular its
relationship to technology. Amid these processes of globalization, the message at the core of
reggae roots and culture is in certain cases neutralized through cultural exhaustion, economic
commodification, political and cultural appropriation, and technological mediation.
***
The recording techniques developed during this period led to the outstanding tonal
quality of the drum performances during the golden age of reggae music. While the multi-
microphone and multi-track recording of the drum mix was being used across many popular
music genres at this time, reggae producers were the first to use FX and signal processing to
stylize the acoustic drums beyond the realm of realism and high fidelity. This dynamic
relationship between drummer and producer perhaps originated the emphasis in popular music of
stylizing the drum performance for aesthetic effect, of processing recorded acoustic
performances post-production for the purpose of stylizing their tonal and sonic qualities in
extreme detail. While this is true for all of the instruments of a reggae rhythm, the drum is the
137
foremost example of this trend, due to its prominence as a trademark of any Kingston studio’s
sound. As hip hop and electronic dance music emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s,
they would borrow many of the styles of editing and effecting the drums established by reggae
and dub producers.
On a cultural level, what really seems of significance is the way this history connects to
the global phenomenon across the African diaspora of black artists innovating and appropriating
Western technology for the purpose of spreading the message and subculture of reggae,
especially its call for freedom for black people. This phenomenon of technology and music being
used as a space to assert political and cultural autonomy brings us back to Niaah’s notion of
“sonic rebel communities,” and, more abstractly, to the many others others who have described
these engagements with technology by reggae producers, audio engineers, and sound system
crews in terms of Peter Tosh's metaphor of the Small Axe, in which the small axe of reggae
music is used to cut down the big tree of colonialism, neocolonialism and US-led multi-national
capitalism. According to the Rastafarian ethos, this is the act of "Chanting Down Babylon"
through the trinity of word, sound, power. In this sense, the phenomenon of experimental
recording techniques at studios in Kingston takes on heavy cultural symbolism, and its global
impact is felt in nearly every genre of popular music, including punk music, hip hop, techno,
drum & bass, house music, and the list goes on.
138
EPILOGUE OF THE DISSERTATION
In “The Ceremony Must Be Found: After Humanism” (1984), Sylvia Wynter breaks
down the process of new historical epochs emerging when the orthodox absolutisms of the
established order are challenged and reorganized through popular revolt. When the dominant
social systems and cognitive mechanisms of the age become untenable for the people to make
sense of and navigate reality, a countercultural movement will emerge that offers new ways of
knowing and being that are more suitable to life amid periods of rapid modernization and
globalization. Eventually, with enough momentum and collectivization from the masses, the
counterculture may supersede the established order and form a new world order with redefined
orthodox absolutisms, and in this way the rebel of the old world becomes the priest of the new
(Wynter). The Cycles of Dread applies this theory of historical progress to analyze the process of
reggae roots and culture emerging as a global counternarrative to the epoch of Western
modernity; the dissertation has attempted to show the complex of socio-economic, cultural, and
geographic factors that influence the emergence and (r)evolutions of reggae music, sound system
culture, and Rastafarianism on a global scale.
As a conclusion, it is a basic but super important point to make that reggae roots and
culture is still on the rise globally. Inaccurately, the movement is often viewed as a thing of the
past, reaching its peak during the golden age of the 1970s, and on the decline since then.
However, the steady global rise of reggae music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism has
carried on to the present day in urban areas worldwide, and the genre continues through cycles of
aesthetics, politics, and technical production as new generations and geographies inherit and
appropriate the movement. While future projects by myself and others will focus on the
139
globalization of reggae music during the 21
st
-century, I conclude here with a brief indication of
the global uptake of reggae roots and culture during the last decades of the 20
th
-century, and
reflect on some of the more abstract ethical concerns that occur to me as I close out this project.
After the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s which was exemplified by the politics of
reggae music and other popular music genres such as jazz, punk, and funk that spoke of
revolution in society, the end of the 20
th
-century brought an era of electronic dance music and
new wave values that celebrated social liberation, sexuality, and material wealth. In Jamaica
during the 1980s, a youth generation was coming of age who rejected the orthodoxy of reggae
roots and culture and had a more complicated relationship to Rastafarianism. Their experience
was shaped by rapid urbanization and technological change amid the processes of globalization,
which instilled an infatuation with the possibilities of immigration to the Western world and its
symbolic promise of material wealth and status (Chude-Sokei). After the vision of Western
modernization had been implemented and then abandoned during the 1960s and 70s, harsh
conditions of poverty persisted in West Kingston and the youth generation responded by
importing the materialism and urbanism of hip hop culture into dancehall music (Hutton). With
this change in genre came an increase in the aggressiveness of sound system culture, in which
slackness, bling, gang affiliation, and drug trafficking were in vogue (Niaah).
Dancehall music from the early 1980s onward takes on these cadences of hip hop culture,
at which point the two genres “became almost completely complementary” (Veal 29). Up until
this point, Jamaican and African American popular music splice, but retain a certain degree of
separateness; there were overlapping developments in the technical, political, and aesthetic
phases of the Jamaican popular music genres of ska, rocksteady, and reggae, and the African
American popular music genres of rhythm & blues, jazz, soul, and funk, but overall these genres
140
were shaped by regionally specific socio-cultural factors. Comparatively, during the 1980s,
Jamaican and African American popular music become interconnected to the extent that their
musical influences should be understood as almost completely complementary, symbiotic, in a
sense post-regional (Veal 30). The one drop provides the throughline across these immensely
complex realms of genre and geography, with its inherently malleable rhythm pattern and its
innovative production styles providing the connective tissue. At the level of diaspora, the
Jamaican, Black British, African American, and African popular music genres of hip hop, rap,
dancehall, house, techno, drum & bass, and Afrobeats indicate a further degree of symbiosis
across the dance music genres of the African diaspora that evolve out of the history of the one
drop.
By the late 1980s, the 4/4 kick drum beat of house music and techno and the breakbeat of
hip hop and drum & bass emerged as the predominant rhythms of popular music worldwide, with
deep stylistic and sonic resonances inherited from conditions of diaspora and from the global
uptake of reggae roots and culture (Akomfrah). These genres originated in dance music
subcultures on the fringe of urban environments in decay, in urban and industrial zones that had
been abandoned by Western corporations and the state, no longer sustainable for significant
economic investment given the changes in technology and labor that had occurred during the
previous decades. In these underground spaces of Chicago, New York, Kingston, London,
Bristol, and countless other urban hubs of the African diaspora, diversity thrived and people
crossed boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, nation, gender, and sexuality, building a sense of
community and belonging around dance music (Lawrence). In this sense, dance music emerges
as a crucial tool in freeing the mind of social constructs and power dynamics that code society
according to the internal logics of racism, classism, heterosexism, etc.
141
As urban centers across the world were moving in this direction of dance music, the
steady global rise of reggae roots and culture continued in Africa, Asia, South America, and
Latin America, absorbing many of the same experiences of social liberation that were happening
in the world of dance music. Reggae roots and culture becomes a universal ethos for
disenfranchised youth and vagrants to find a sense of belonging in the unfamiliar and trying
conditions of rapid Western modernization. At the sound system, long dance sessions to the one
drop beat are liberating when the vibe is right, and the particular style of Jamaican sound systems
of heavy bass and high-power sound systems can truly bring out the best in people, softening
their outer layer of egotism and internal dialogue enough to connect with their neighbor. Once
they break through, the message of reggae music – anti-racism, equal rights and justice, African
unity, cultures united – becomes a call-to-action for the people to stand up and fight for equal
rights and justice for all. No doubt, the integrity of the message is rock solid, and humans are
flawed so we cannot always live up to the vision. But the sound system is a space of
consciousness raising that helps us try to get there, liberating the psyche from the societal forces
that erode our self-worth and induce depression and stress, allowing us to turn inward and find
inner peace and love.
***
Before making the final revisions to this dissertation, I went to Mexico City to check out
the sound system culture there. On the advise of the committee, I needed to loosen up a bit,
search for some deep connections to bring everything together, reflect, and go dancing. There
was no shortage of dancing on my trip. I spent three hours Friday, four hours Saturday, and five
142
hours Sunday doing the ska with a really great crowd of chill reggae locals, a pretty rough
looking bunch of Mexicans who were all on the same positive vibe of releasing stress and
connecting to others through the heavy bass of the sound system. When I was not dancing, I
passed the time in my small but breezy bedroom freewriting, and also walking to and from a
sports complex called Deportivo Francisco I. Madero to play soccer with the locals. I passed by
the vibrant urban street culture of Ciudad Neza, which was buzzing with energy and work ethic,
with pesos changing hands at top speed. The people congregated around food and entertainment,
very comfortable in the presence of strangers, enjoying modest pleasures like the vibe of the
marketplace and sitting down for 5 minutes for a hot lunch in the open air.
Samuel R. Delany defines this kind of positive urban experience as “interclass contact
and communication conducted in a mode of goodwill,” an essential force in the struggle to
survive and restructure the current mode of capitalism in which we live (Delany 111).
1
Delany
argues that, in a world where the masses are conditioned by social constructs to fear, segregate,
and persecute one another, and where the underground urban subcultures that once provided an
alternative experience to the monoculture of Western modernization are being disintegrated, the
people must reinvest in the drama of the social and urban society should be designed to facilitate
a broad range of safe, positive, and rewarding instances of interclass contact conducted in a
mode of goodwill (Delany 193). Delany writes,
It is not too much to say, then, that contact – interclass contact – is the lymphatic
system of a democratic metropolis, whether it comes through the web of gay
sexual services, whether it comes through the lanes of heterosexual services...or in
any number of other forms (standing in line at a movie, waiting for the public
1
In Times Square Red Times Square Blue (1998), Delany redefines Jane Jacobs’ notion of “contact” from The Death and Life of
Great American Cities (1961).
143
library to open, sitting at a bar, waiting in line at the counter of the grocery store
or the welfare office, waiting to be called for a voir dire while on jury duty,
coming down to sit on the stoop on a warm day, perhaps to wait for the mail – or
cruising for sex), while in general they tend to involve some form of “loitering”
(or, at least, lingering), are unspecifiable in any systematic way...A discourse that
promotes, values, and facilitates such contact is vital to the material politics as
well as the vision of a democratic city. (Delany 199)
On a political level, Delany is advocating for the maintenance and constant renovation of social
institutions of the city that encourage, facilitate, and protect interclass contact and
communication. He believes that, in urban society, it is important to have a broad range of
outlets for interclass contact and communication, at varying degrees of intensity and social
visibility, always with an overarching atmosphere of safety and public goodwill. These may
include social interactions at street markets or sporting events or adult entertainment venues, as
well as casual interactions on the street and while commuting. These are the simple, quotidian,
practices of everyday life that “maintains the social field of ‘the pleasant’ and provides as well
the high-interest returns that make cosmopolitan life wonder-filled and rich” (Delany 199).
2
There is grounds for a realist critique of Delany’s urban idealism, and naysayers may
dismiss his views as “socialist” or “communist,” but at the core of his vision is social unity
achieved through urban institutions and spaces that promote public welfare and individual
2
Of note, Delany is careful to distinguish interclass contact and communication from the corporate policy of “networking” and
its cousin the notion of “social capital.” He writes: “Contact fights the networking notion that the only ‘safe’ friends we can ever
have must be met through school, work, or preselected special interest groups: from gyms and health clubs to reading groups and
volunteer work...To repeat: Contact relationships cannot be replaced by network-style relationships because, in any given
network group, the social competition is so great that the price of social materials and energies exchanged is too high to effect
emotional, if not material, profit. If we can talk of social capital (to use that outrageous metaphor): While networking may
produce the small, steady, income, contact both maintains the social field of ‘the pleasant’ and provides as well the high-interest
returns that make cosmopolitan life wonder-filled and rich” (Delany 199).
144
liberty. He is simply proposing that it is up to each individual in an urban metropolis to work
together on the daily to promote the greater good of society, that the people must remain open
minded about others and open to conversation while respecting personal differences and
boundaries, and that the city is an ideal place to seek out diverse relationships and positive social
interactions beyond social networks and class demographics. Further, that by making it a
personal responsibility to seek out interclass contact and communication conducted in a mode of
good will, and through revolutionizing society so that social institutions and urban spaces
promote cooperative economics and the overall wellbeing of the masses, urban life will be at its
most rewarding, productive, and pleasant.
This vision is grand: it is Zion, a concept that has been defended by some, condemned by
others, warred over generation after generation, and in the modern period endlessly appropriated
for capital gain. Thus the cycles of dread continue as reggae roots and culture’s vision of Zion –
one love, one heart, one destiny – clashes with other historical progress narratives such as
Western modernization structured by the internal logic of neocolonialism. With the revolutionary
energy and consciousness of the original reggae roots and culture movement, the socially
liberating experiences of dance music subcultures that promote interclass contact and
communication, and rapid developments around technology that comprise the age of
information, we move forward into the 21
st
-century with energetic new horizons for reggae roots
and culture amid processes of globalization.
145
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Since original reggae roots and culture is a product of both the massification of the Rastafarian movement and Western modernization in Kingston during the 1960s, the subculture simultaneously represents the ethos of Rastafarianism and the historical conditions of globalization. At the same time that reggae music and sound system culture amplify the message on a global scale through the universal language of reggae roots and culture, the global uptake of the movement is shaped by Western modernization, in particular economic development in the sectors of urbanization, industrialization, technology, global telecommunication, and international transportation and trade. In the dissertation, I explore this dualism of the message in order to think deeply about why reggae roots and culture has sustained such massive global impact in the realm of urban counter- and subcultures worldwide. I ask what elements of reggae roots and culture enabled its globalization across such a massive universe of race, class, nation, and geography. What historical, socio-economic, and cultural conditions paved the way for the global uptake of reggae music, sound system culture, and Rastafarianism? Is there something inherent in the form/structure/sound of reggae music that lends itself to globalization, some sonic element that is engineered to resonate worldwide? In response to these questions, I argue that a key element in the globalization of reggae roots and culture is the “one drop,” reggae music’s signature drum beat that has featured on basically every Jamaican popular music release since the early 1960s. The one drop has thousands of variations in rhythm through subtle changes in style, rhythm pattern, chord progression, and other aspects of musicianship and production. I suggest this is part of the reason why reggae roots and culture is prone to revitalization and reinvention amid the processes of globalization, because the one drop offers an infinitely flexible rhythm pattern. As a template, a universal language, and a musical form, the one drop travels the world and resonates in powerful ways given certain complex conditions of African diaspora, globalization, and cultural appropriation. When reggae roots and culture emerges in new race, class, national, and geographic contexts, it has the potential to open up alternative ways of knowing that can create a sense of release from the oppressive power structures of US-led multinational capitalism. The heavy beat of the one drop drives this global trajectory forward, spreading the Rastafarian vision of one love, one heart, one destiny, not without deep complexities and contradictions.
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Creator
Torp, Zachary Paul
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Core Title
The cycles of dread: reggae roots and culture amid processes of globalization
School
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
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English
Degree Conferral Date
2022-08
Publication Date
07/24/2022
Defense Date
05/20/2022
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globalization,neocolonialism,OAI-PMH Harvest,Rastafarianism,reggae roots and culture,Western modernization
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Tags
globalization
neocolonialism
Rastafarianism
reggae roots and culture
Western modernization