Singing Them a Message

Adjusting the levers on his four-track console, Jamaican Record Producer Lee Perry does absent-minded dance steps on a patchwork carpet composed of Ethiopia's national colors. On the studio side of the control booth's soundproof window, a singer implores "Jah," the black god who many Jamaicans believe was Haile Selassie, to deliver him from Babylon. Seated on the floor are half a dozen musicians whose hair is plaited into myriad ominous, serpentine "dreadlocks." Each man reverently smokes a large, cone-shaped "splif" filled with marijuana, and all nod agreeably whenever the singer alludes to Africa, domestic politics or Jamaica's national hero, Marcus Garvey.

Americans like their popular music to rock and roll, but Jamaicans take their pop songs more seriously. Most of the island's musicians are Rastafarians, members of a sect that believes Jamaica's culture should reflect its people's African roots. What they sing and play is called reggae music--the name comes from the title of a 1968 hit--whose lyrics treat political tensions, social grievances and "black roots" culture. Because an unpopular law or politician can become the subject of a popular song, reggae is a political force that is felt at the government's highest level.

"Reggae is much more accurate than a political machine when it comes to gauging mass reaction," Prime Minister Michael Manley told TIME Correspondent David DeVoss, who went to Jamaica to examine the reggae phenomenon. Manley won the votes of the poor by making the reggae song Better Must Come his campaign anthem. Says he: "I listen attentively. At a time when the Establishment cries halt, these songs provide a wonderful counterweight."

Black Pride. In a country with some of the worst ghettos in the world, songwriters have plenty of material. By becoming social commentators, reggae songwriters like Jimmy Cliff, Toots Hibbert and Bob Marley and his group the Wailers have turned their island into one of the most music-conscious countries in the world. "Reggae songs are the strongest way to reach the people," says Songwriter Max Romeo. "People will pay a dollar for my message and reject the politician they can hear free of charge." The message is grim these days, with unemployment near 30% and the island a tinderbox of factional passions. Many of the Reggae Rastafarians urge that Jamaica drop out and become an agrarian nation based on black pride and African culture.

Created 15 years ago in the west Kingston ghettos by amateur musicians, reggae is characterized by a scratchy, staccato guitar, incessant drumming and full-volume bass. Its rhythm is distinctive because, unlike rock, it emphasizes the first beat instead of the second. Harry Nilsson, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton have recorded songs with a reggae beat.

The most popular reggae performer in both Jamaica and the U.S. is Bob Marley, 30, a dreadlocked singer who dispenses a back-to-the-roots philosophy with electric-rock intensity. A lean, imperious Rasta, Marley is deeply distrustful of politics. "Never make a politician grant you a favor, they will always want to control you forever," he sings in the song Revolution. The current hit single in Jamaica is his song about the island's upcoming parliamentary campaign. Its title: Rat Race.

Raw Capitalism. Marley is Jamaica's superstar. He rivals the government as a political force. The mythical hero of his last album, Natty Dread, has already become a national symbol. Marley is a cynosure both in Jamaican society and in the trenchtown ghetto where he grew up. He seldom appears in either milieu, but when he does, it is with a retinue that includes a shaman, a cook, one "herbsman" laden with marijuana, and several athletes.

Reggae has produced a boisterous, exciting local record industry. Operating on a six-day schedule, Kingston's five record plants and twelve major recording studios grind out 24 new singles every week. Top singles that averaged 25,000 copies a decade ago now routinely sell between 80,000 to 100,000 units.

Anything goes in this atmosphere of raw capitalism. Marley's rock guitars, the tribal chanting of a group like Burning Spear, even Toots and the Maytals' infatuation with U.S. country-and-western, are allowed inside the reggae big top. Organs, saxophones and flutes often accompany the basic guitar-drum-bass troika.

In small (pop. 2 million) Jamaica, there is nothing like U.S. rock's instant riches in reggae. Top musicians receive only the royalties record companies are willing to pay; sidemen are paid a miserly $15 a song. But who needs to be a sideman? In Jamaica, anyone with a song and several hundred dollars can make a record. There are hundreds of record labels, many of them sold by energetic musicians who stand inside record stores, jawboning customers into buying their "hit."

Producers also spike sales by making "dubs" of their hit releases. Designed for dancing, dubs consist solely of the five guitar-drum-bass rhythm tracks. Kingston's 70 discotheques crave "greatest hits" album dubs, but since they cost twice the normal amount, only the capital's top dozen discos can afford them.

Reggae has not, of course, solved Jamaica's problems by scrutinizing them, but it has grabbed the attention of the island's politicians, who now realize that the easiest way to reach the electorate is through music. In most of Jamaica's record stores, next to the Maytals' Funky Kingston and the Wailers' Natty Dread is a $5.50 album called Michael Manley Speaks to the Nation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.