This essay was written for a course on Cultural Studies at RMIT University, and should be taken as such!
RULING THE NATION WITH VERSION
Reggae As A Postmodern MusicBy Jesse I (June 1998)
In late 1982, the song "Pass The Dutchie" was released by the band Musical Youth, a group composed of young black Jamaicans raised in England. Their song was kicked off by the strong declaration that "this generation rules the nation - with version!".In his book Dangerous Crossroads, George Lipsitz, explains the importance of this Musical Youth song in terms of cultural meaning, and the semiotics of the text. Lipsitz takes Musical Youth's opening statement and its music video juxtaposition with the images of parliament, as showing "the streets as a site of cultural contestation" and challenging "national iconography with an oppositional prestige from below" (Lipsitz p107).
This may be true, and if so, it is a testament to the work of the music video producer Don Letts. However, I would suggest that Lipsitz misses a great aspect of the importance of Musical Youth's opening statement. I would suggest that in terms of postmodernism, this statement is less important in what it might be saying, than in the fact that it has been said before.
In keeping with the concept of "version" itself, this line is not original, but itself is an appropriation from one of the great masters of version, the Jamaican toaster, U-Roy.
In 1969, U-Roy reached the top of the Jamaican charts with his song "Wake The Town" in which he began with a spoken intro "Wake the town and tell the people - about this musical disc coming your way!". This song, was a modified version of the song "Girl I've Got A Date" by Alton Ellis - the original vocals were removed, and U-Roy simply chatted his new lyrics over the remaining music.
U-Roy's second release was also his second Jamaican Number One. "Rule Of The Nation" also began with a spoken intro, this time providing a manifesto for the movement he was pioneering - "This station rules the nation - with version!".
This statement became a catchcry for numerous "Deejays" (or "Toasters"), who similarly toasted, chatted and shouting their lyrics and exclamations over existing musical rhythms (which came to be known as "riddims"). Not only does the statement promote the talkover deejay version, it can easily be adapted to also promote a particular sound system (eg. "Genesis disco rules the nation with version!").
Thus, I would suggest that in their appropriation of the phrase, Musical Youth are not so much making a statement of their challenge to British culture as Lipsitz suggests, but are simply using a statement which has traditionally been used in reggae, as a boastful statement of ability in the musical arena.
While the "Pass The Dutchie" example may remain a good one for the other aspects of Lipsitz's discussion, most of the points regarding its structure are not unique to this song, for at this level the song is a very typical example of reggae construction - a construction process which I would argue produces an inherently postmodern product.
As well as being a slightly changed version of the Mighty Diamond's lyrics "Pass The Koutchie", "Pass The Dutchie" uses the Studio One riddim "Full Up". This was originally produced in 1968, as an instrumental by the band "Sound Dimension" (a house band whose membership fluctuated based on whoever was available on the day).
The Mighty Diamonds came to fame in the mid seventies, with albums available internationally on Virgin's Frontline label. They were a prime example of the "rockers" sound, which was mostly "brighter, brasher and more militant updates of rocksteady rhythms from the late 1960s" (Barrow p144). Songs from the period shortly before Jamaican music made the transition from "Rocksteady" to "Reggae" have since been "versioned" countless time in each new development of Jamaican music.
For instance, another Studio One instrumental recorded in the same period as "Full Up" is "Swing Easy" by the Soul Vendors. The original riddim can be easily traced through the major developments in reggae music, reworked in various styles by various producers and artists. For instance, it can be found in "dub" version by Dub Specialist. Johnny Osbourne released a late roots reggae track over the riddim entitled "Can't Buy Love". At the beginning of the eighties, the reggae sound became more stripped back and hard, as the dancehall replaced Rastafari as the focus - but the Swing Easy riddim was reworked by the Roots Radics for tracks such as Eek-A-Mouse's "Long Time Ago". In the ragga era, it has resurfaced in digital form on cuts such as Tony Rebel's "Know Jah" and Luciano's "He Is My Friend".
In every one of these phases, the riddim has been used for countless versions. The version concept might have started with deejays such as U-Roy, but by the rockers period, producers were handing old riddims to singers as well as deejays for fresh lyrics.
This "riddim recycling" is a unique feature of reggae music, one which leads it to fulfil many of the characteristics of postmodernism.
Like the way bricolage operates in postmodern architecture, reggae music is based on a structure of "high frequency of quotations of elements from previous styles or periods" (Lyotard p7). Although new riddims continue to emerge in the current digital reggae world, the bulk of songs continue to revisit past riddims, not only from the rocksteady era but from all periods in reggae's history.
Thus, it is involved in the process of pastiche, which Jameson sees as one of the key points of postmodernism. Riddim recycling is "an imitation of a particular unique style... but it is a neutral practise of such mimicry" (Jameson p113); it does not mock the original as a parodic approach might.
Jameson speaks of pastiche coming from a world "in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible" (Jameson p113). However, in the digital reggae world, the surface styles themselves are fresh, but the bedrock is not. This works in a strange way in order to ensure that the style and the new cuts remain fresh. This is in line with Baudrillard's argument that "an antagonistic position necessarily confirms that which it opposes by granting it signifying legitimacy" (Corbett on Baudrillard p102) where "anti-x proves x". In terms of reggae this means that the use of old riddims proves that fresh cuts are being produced. There is no such thing as the new, only old riddims being worked in new ways. As Umberto Eco explained, "iteration and repetition seem to dominate the whole world of artistic creativity" (Eco p166).
The reuse of old riddims leads to another key feature of postmodernism, with intertextuality at the fore. For instance, in kicking off his song "Greedy Girl" Jah Stich says "this one laid on the track by Horace Andy, the brother cool as candy". He is paying homage to the singer who recorded the original lyrics to the riddim he uses for his song, a common occurrence in Jamaican music.
As well as referring to the original authors of a song, artists will often use snatches of earlier lyrics. But as well as simply reusing the words and phrases of others in their songs (another form of pastiche), many producers will actually leave snatches of the original recordings in a mix, so that a deejay may work around them. For instance, the 1970 John Holt song "Ali Baba" became the basis for a series of mid seventies recuts by Dr Alimantado, where he recontextualises the word Baba, using it as "Barber" (for pro-dreadlocks songs such as "I Shot The Barber" and "The Barber Feel It").
In doing this, the artists are forcing the listener to consider the earlier versions of the music "they a deal wit'". They are incorporating direct references to previous performances, and as such, their references as well.
In the present digital age of reggae music, sampling has become even more of a force. Producers have gone beyond simply leaving snatches of vocals on a riddim, and now use samples from earlier reggae songs to help build fresh tracks. This is best evident in the 1997 updating of the original Studio One "Mean Girl" riddim by Phillip "Fatis" Burrell's "Xterminator" label. Here, the basic riddim was reconstructed, but with the aid of an organ sample from the Channel One studio's recut of the Mean Girl riddim (the version which brought the Mighty Diamond hit "I Need A Roof"). Thus, the 1997 version of the Mean Girl riddim features a digitally synthesised bass and drum pattern, the riddim taken from a late sixties song, with a sample of a 1975 remake over the top.
When a reggae-familiar listener hears a song on this 1997 cut (several hits included Luciano's "Sweep Over My Soul", Sizzla's "Babylon A Listen", and Capleton's "Stand Tall") they may at first be unsure of exactly what they are hearing - a new song, a version of a 70's song, or one from the late 60's?
Thus, the listener is engaged in a form of intertextual dialogue, the "phenomenon by which a given text echoes previous texts" (Eco p170) - in accordance with the postmodern dialogue, there is no attempt to conceal the fact that the Xterminator cut has used a sample, for this is explicit and easily recognisable.
It is easy to see how the lines of authorship may be blurred here, when a single song may draw creative input from a multitude of sources. The discursive autonomy of the author is thus threatened, and this "death of the author" is one of the central issues in the shift towards postmodernism (Danks).
In many occasions, the overt use of intertextual material serves a nostalgic purpose, where "by reinventing the feel and shape of an older period" a current form of reggae may "reawaken a sense of the past" (Jameson p116).
This is particularly evident in present "conscious" ragga/reggae. In the early eighties, reggae lost Rastafari as its focus and dealt mainly with the dancehall (Barrow p231). By the end of the decade, the dominant topics were sex and guns, and the riddims were lightweight keyboard and computer productions. However, the mid nineties saw the rise of a new breed of conscious artist, returning to Rasta themes for inspiration. This is in turn saw a return to more rootsy riddims (albeit in digital style). It is evident that the return to a roots style music is connected to a nostalgic view of the seventies roots period when Rasta consciousness ruled supreme.
However, there is nostalgia for all eras of the music. Early this year, Anthony B's "Waan Back" did well both in the reggae charts and the clubs, using the 1983 riddim of Gregory Isaac's "Night Nurse". Lyrically it refers to "Waterpumping", a form of dance which draws its name from Johnny Osbourne's 1983 song of the same name. Thus, on one level "Waan Back" is about the early dancehall period (where the "dance was like a paradise") but "it too conveys that period metonymically" (Jameson p141) through its riddim structure. Rather than satirise the dead form of early dancehall reggae, it satisfies a longing to experience it again.
There is an obvious high degree of self-consciousness at work in a song like this, and this is no solitary example. Through all eras, reggae has drawn lyrical content from its own performance, the recording process, and the conditions in which reggae is heard. This is necessitated not only by the pastiche and intertextuality at work, but also by reggae music's preoccupation with "reality". While the bulk of western pop music can be seen as escapist, the bulk of reggae music deals with the "here and now" and the conditions surrounding it. Thus, we hear songs like I-Roy's "Superfly" (where he starts by chatting "testing Amplex microphone, testing Skully microphone"); we hear songs like Lee Scratch Perry's "People Funny Boy" (which is a parting shot at his old employer, Coxsone Dodd); and we hear songs like the aforementioned "Waterpumping" (which sings about a dance which should accompany the song).
Religious aspects aside, this focus on reality can be attributed to reggae's strong oral tradition, where the music works almost like a newspaper. Deejay Big Youth earned the nickname "the human Gleaner" (Davis p106), a reference to the Jamaica Gleaner paper and his role in publishing news in a form more accessible to the ghetto dwellers. In 1975, a shipment of poisoned flour arrived in Jamaica killing several people - within a single week, three singles detailing the incident had made it onto the Jamaican charts (Davis p114).
Another explanation for reggae's self consciousness comes via the fact that it is exists primarily as a recorded music. In Jamaica, live reggae is very rare, but massive sound systems play the current hits in the dancehalls. In order to achieve the excitement of live performance, deejays and singers often perform their lyrics over recorded riddim tracks. This makes self-conscious lyrics necessary, as the virtues of the "sound" are extolled in order to help whip the crowd into a dancing frenzy.
"Specials" or "dubplates" also serve this purpose, but without the artist being physically present - this is where an artist records a special version of one of their songs, tailoring it for play on a specific sound system.
However, even if you take away the lyrics completely, reggae music exhibits postmodern qualities in another way, as we see with "dub" reggae.
The idea of the remix version is prominent in postmodern music - "it used to be that a song came out and that was it. Now it's how many versions?" (King). Dub, and its chief pioneer Osbourne Ruddock (King Tubby), is widely credited with pioneering the idea of the remix, after studio engineers in Jamaica discovered that they could manipulate an existing recording to create music very different. Traditionally, vocals are either lost completely, or dropped in for the odd disembodied effect, while the riddim takes prominence, worked over by effects such as reverb and echo.
Thus, even if Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie" was done in dub version, it would remain a postmodern text; complete with remix, as well as pastiche, intertextuality, and nostalgia.
Therefore, Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie" can be seen as a postmodern text, but not simply in the ways which Lipsitz outlines. On a more general level, it is postmodern simply because it is a product of a genre which is itself inherently postmodern.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barrow, Steve & Peter Dalton. Reggae: The Rough Guide. Penguin Books, 1997.Corbett, John. Extended Play: Sounding Off From John Cage to Dr Funkenstein. Duke University Press, 1994.
Danks, Adrian. "Genre-mixing, Pastiche & Nostalgia" Lecture, RMIT University, 22/5/98.
Davis, Stephen. Reggae Bloodlines: In Search Of The Music and Culture Of Jamaica. Da Capo Press, New York, 1977.
Eco, Umberto. "Innovation and Repetition: Between Modern and Post-Modern Aesthetics", Daealus, Vol 114, 4, 1985, pp161-184.
Jameson, Frederic. "Postmodernism and Consumerism Society", Hal Foster (ed). Postmodern Culture. Pluto Press, London & Sydney, 1983, pp113-119.
King, Geoff. "Sketch Of Contemporary Issues In Postmodern Music" Lecture, RMIT University, 5/6/98.
Lipsitz, George. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. Verso, London, 1994.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. "Defining The Postmodern", Lisa Appignanesi (ed). Postmodernism: ICA Documents. Free Association Books, London, 1989, pp7-10.