Don't stop the music, but ...

Lance Neita, Contributor

JAMAICAN POPULAR music has seen several changes ever since the development of the amplified music systems that first emanated from downtown Kingston in the early 1950s.

By that time, the traditional mento rhythms had succumbed to the transmission of popular American music that tickled our fancies with the latest rhythm and blues.

The metamorphosis of Jamaican culture is indelibly linked with the dynamic changes recorded in our music over different eras. For example, the names of performing artistes and bands have adapted to the prevailing culture that drives its own peculiar music at a particular time.

As our music evolved, the more sedate names of the past gradually gave way to the habit of copying colonial titles, such as Lord Flea, Count Sticky, Lord Messam, Duke Reid and Sir Coxsone. This period was followed by a return to normal or nicknames during the ska to reggae period, such as an Owen Gray, Laurel Aitken, 'Toots' Hibbert, Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, and band names like the Mighty Diamonds and the Dragonaires.

Aggressive tone

This has given way to the modern 'Assassin' and 'Bounty Killer' stage names, where the musical language has taken on a more aggressive tone, representing a more volatile society than it did when Prince Buster ("You said it") and Derrick Morgan took pot shots at each other during the 1960s.

In earlier times, mento delivered some teasing and playful lyrics, naughty enough to be banned from airplay, but written without rancour and leaving behind memorable hits such as Goosie, Belly Lick, Penny Reel and Daphne Walkin.

The hit parades of 1966 had a friendly mixture of Jamaican and foreign songs, featuring the Maytals' Bam Bam mixing with Matt Munro's Walk Away and even Frank Sinatra's Strangers In The Night.

Contrast with today's Gangster City, Big Up All The Shotta Dem, Tek A Gal Man (When we tek a gyal man, we nuh do it an seh sorry) where the messages going out reflect the harsher survival environment of present-day society.

I am not a fan of the current dancehall rage and its music, but reject any argument that suggests that a class distinction blocks the universal appeal of this medium.

Dancehall reigns at uptown as well as downtown parties and brings out a mix of all the Jamaican shades when we take to the dance floor.

It's more the age difference, and a conscience and value system among the more venerable of the society that will not (and in some instances cannot) contort the body into the lewd and sexual configurations that litter the stage.

If the dance form of the centre pole is in any way representative of societal behaviour and norms then we may as well throw away all those traditional values of respect, manners, discipline, and plain 'broughtupcy' on which most Jamaicans, regardless of class or creed, have been bred.

Unbearable noise

So much for the lyrics and the dance steps. The other concern must be the volume and the heavy bass sounds that plague and terrorise street corners, neighbourhoods, plazas and sometimes the entire village with their unbearable noise.

Being a culture thing, these sessions have become part of our daily life. That's a given.

What I invite us to take back is that ugly phenomenon of those huge speaker boxes and their mighty blast that seems to have become a necessity at school sports days.

Teachers who have attempted to correct this disorder are bluntly told "that's what the people come for".

There are happy exceptions to this rule, for example, the principals at Ocho Rios High and Brown's Town Secondary who are adamant that their sports days must remain under school control.

But even basic school fun days are not immune to the sound monster as mini-dancehalls are encouraged in the middle of the schoolyard, where the infants perform adult style dances to cheering encouragement from parents and siblings.

It all starts here at the basic level, Jamaica's sports and culture, two of Jamaica's most outstanding characteristics that have made us unique in the eyes of the world. Don't stop the music, but do turn down the volume.

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