Sunsplash book launch brings back memories

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

On Saturday evening Dr Michael Abrahams' opening poem, Our Music, stated the need for Jamaicans to respect, document and own our music - which is what has been done with the book which was being presented at the Ashanti Oasis Restaurant.

The author of that book, Reggae Sunsplash 1978-1998, Java Immanuel-I, ended his closing address with the stated intention to petition Minister Olivia Grange for the founding member of the festival to be given a national honour.

Woven into the general atmosphere of respect and even near reverence for the late Reggae Sunsplash (the 2006 attempt at a revival at Richmond Estate, St Ann, was not mentioned in dispatches), were congratulations and reminiscences on what University of the West Indies lecturer Dr Sonjah Stanley-Niaah defined as "one of the world's natural wonders".

The book itself is detailed, Abrahams joking that "the only thing the man did not document in this book is where the toilets were located and how many times they were flushed each night".

And naturopathic physician Ted Emanuel, speaking to the author's pioneering role on the Philadelphia-based Temple University's radio station, spoke about Immanuel-I's heart, love and "pureness as a man".

"It is not easy. To get this printed is not easy," Emanuel emphasised. "When you put your heart and soul into what we have it should not be just honoured, but treasured."

Stanley-Niaah spoke about her earliest contact with the festival, seeing concert-goers adamant on reaching the event having to use canoes one year when there was a flood.

"Reggae Sunsplash was/is magical. What a walk down memory lane," she said of the book. Then there was her first time at the festival in 1984, when her parents rented a stall at the festival and he saw the I Threes in performance.

"I see it as a record of cultural certitude," Stanley-Niaah said of Reggae Sunsplash 1978-1998, later adding that it was a record of what Jamaicans had achieved. According to Stanley-Niaah, the book was also a practical record of what the country needed to create.

Immanuel-I spoke about the effort and approach that went into the book. "As I till the soil I think not of the benefits. I just know the significance of tilling the soil," he said.

Importance of reggae sunsplash

After going through the reasons Reggae Sunsplash was so significant (among them the use of state-of-the-art equipment, attendance by journalists from all over the world, and the calibre of the performers), Immanuel-I made a call for memories. The sole response he got was about the 'reggae bed' (a cardboard box cut open) and Immanuel-I spoke about two memories that he had been told about after Reggae Sunsplash 1978-1998 had been published.

One is from Brother Kelly of Tuff Gong, who told Immanuel-I "this book is personal". He said when he went to Sunsplash and saw white men with dreadlocks, he could not believe it. When he told people in Kingston what he had seen, they did not believe him. When he was supposed to go back to his room, he just walked around, looking at the many, varied people who had come for the festival.

Then there was a cousin of reggae mover and shaker, Copeland Forbes, who Immanuel-I met in New York. She was living in California and at the time there was no flight to Jamaica. So the Sunsplash fans chartered planes to attend the festival.

"We did something so incredible to the world at an early stage of our development," Immanuel-I said, summing up the impact of Reggae Sunsplash.