Reggae saved Jamaica

I’m Jamaican by birth…and didn’t listen to reggae music growing up.

Jamaica in the late 1960’s, was chaotic and dangerous.  Barely 5 years after gaining independence from the United Kingdom, political differences had spilled over into warfare.  

It was the Peoples National Party, the PNP versus the Jamaican Labour Party, the JLP.  Particularly in the Kingston area where we lived, the body count rose steadily in daily and nightly skirmishes.

The music that saved the nation…literally…was Reggae.  At a huge concert, Smile Jamaica at the National Stadium on December 5, 1976 Bob Marley took the stage and played his heart out and brought a fractured nation together with rebel music…Reggae!

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first popular song to use the word reggae, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. 

While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as by American jazz and rhythm and blues, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady.

Stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento (a celebratory, rural folk form that served its largely rural audience as dance music and an alternative to the hymns and adapted chanteys of local church singing) and also draws influence from traditional African folk rhythms. 

One of the most easily recognizable elements is offbeat rhythms; staccato chords played by a guitar or piano (or both) on the offbeats of the measure. The tempo of reggae is usually slower paced than both ska and rocksteady

Reggae is deeply linked to Rastafari, an Afrocentric religion which developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, aiming at promoting pan-Africanism. 

Reggae music is an important means of transporting vital messages of Rastafari. The musician becomes the messenger, and as Rastafari see it, "the soldier and the musician are tools for change”. 

Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock Rasta

There was a Buffalo Soldier

In the heart of America

Stolen from Africa, brought to America

Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival

That is the opening verse of the Bob Marley and the Wailers hit, Buffalo Soldier from the album Confrontation. It sums up the deep underlying foundation of reggae.

Rock bands in the 1970s were inspired by reggae.  Big names included:

• The Police,  Walking on the Moon
• Elvis Costello, Watching the Detectives
• The Specials, Ghost Town
• The Clash, The Guns of Brixton
• Eric Clapton, I Shot The Sheriff

‘I shot the sheriff’ was originally recorded by Bob Marley and the Wailers and released in 1973 on the album, ‘Burnin’.  It was a cry for justice. A popular theme in Jamaica then and an important issue for Bob Marley in particular.

Eric Clapton was inspired.  He covered it and released it on his second solo album, 461 Ocean Boulevard.  Reggae was firmly atop the world.

Back to 1976…

The political violence worsened in Jamaica after we left for Canada in 1972.

Ahead of the national general elections planned for early 1977, the economy, driven by the tourism industry had ground to a halt and there was almost open warfare across the island.  

The nation was on the brink of disaster. 

At 8:30pm, on December 3, 1976, two days before the Smile Jamaica Concert, seven men armed with guns raided Marley's house at 56 Hope Road. 

Marley and his band were on break from rehearsal. Marley's wife, Rita, was shot in the head in her car in the driveway. 

The gunmen shot Marley in the chest and arm. His manager, Don Taylor, was shot in the legs and torso. 

Band employee Louis Griffiths took a bullet to his torso as well. 

There were no fatalities.

Despite the attempt on his life, Marley insisted his performance at the concert go ahead. What was to be only one song turned into a 90 set.  

Too strong to say Reggae saved the Nation that day?

Maybe not…

Rise up this mornin'

Smiled with the risin' sun

Three little birds pitch by my doorstep

Singin' sweet songs of melodies pure and true

Saying', ("This is my message to you")

"Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Singing' "Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright!"

I mentioned earlier that I didn’t grow up listening to Reggae Music.  Times change…

Reggae plays a big part in my life now.  

My favourite groups include Third World (Try Jah Love) and Bob Marley’s Exodus.  Both are on repeat play.

And by the time you read this, I’ll be back in Jamaica in Negril at my 12th running of the Reggae Marathon 10k event.  

Until next time…