Left or Wrong?

As we’ve seen in the last issues, much of the European reggae scene grew from left wing, anarchist and squat organisations, but politics remains a topic of contention in reggae culture. Speaking at Reggae Geel, reggae veteran Kiddus I recalled with sadness the divisions of left- and right-wing politics in Jamaica. It was too small a country, he said, to be divided into two factions. I wondered if his point was not true in big countries also.

“It’s the volcanic ash,” said the man at the airport check-in, explaining why I couldn’t get on the plane to Ireland. “Brimstone,” I said, nodding. I wanted to tell him that it was one of the signs of the End Times, but telling jokes in airports is dangerous these days. It’s an upside down world. We don’t worry about the End of the World here at IRIE UP – we hold to the idea that the world ends every moment, and starts every moment too. But we do talk to a lot of people who are waiting for ‘The End’ – some final ‘apocalypse’ when everything blows up. Admittedly, there are a lot of promising signs for doom mongers – earthquakes, famines, fire … and brimstone.

When artists noticed the tiny amount of royalties being paid by a new digital streaming service, the service promised that the money would eventually ‘trickle down’ to the artists. Hmm, we thought … that sounds familiar. The recent economic disasters are the end result of the policies of Reagan and Thatcher. Following worldwide recessions in the 1970s, government policies and regulations were abandoned in favour of so called “free market” economics. Reagan’s philosophy was to increase the wealth of the rich, so that wealth would eventually ‘trickle-down’ to ordinary people. It was known as ‘Reagonomics’, and was an illusion. In the reggae business, we have ‘Reggaenomics’, which is pretty much the opposite of Reaganomics...
Read more in Issue Three.

As ska slowed into rocksteady, and then to reggae, the power of Rastafari coursed through the music, and drew many singers and musicians into the movement. In the UK and Europe, plenty of selecters and producers will check a Jah Shaka dance as their inspiration, but scratch a bit deeper, and it’s clear that many people arrived into the reggae scene through social or political movements, and particularly the anarchist and punk movements of the 1970s and early 1980s. As the punk scene faded, many punks moved into the reggae scene, inspired as much by the energy of the music as the political and social messages in the music.
Read more in Issue Two.

» check the promo video

Reggae music tells stories that are not told in the newspapers, or on the television. There is a history that we read in books, and there’s the history we can hear in reggae music, in the lyrics and in the tunes. For reggae carries a message from the past and from the future, a prophetic message that can’t be drowned out by the system, that can’t be turned into a spectacle for the amusement of the people, and that can’t be wrapped up and sold to the public as a consumer good. Reggae is too heavy for that! So it is ignored by the mainstream media. It is left to the singers, musicians, producers and soundsystems to bring the message to the world, and it has always been this way.
Read more in Issue One.

» check the promo video