Reggae University in Spain

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor

Last night, the curtains came down on the 18th staging of Rototom Sunsplash, the European reggae festival that attracts thousands of fans from all over the continent and far beyond for 10 days of immersion in Jamaican culture: both the real thing and 'nuff-nuff' imitations.

The first time I went to the festival in 2009, I met a Jamaican anansi, Ras Reno, who lives in Switzerland. He had an 'Iriejamarts' booth full of 'bandooloo' souvenirs. Practically everything was made in China. When I tackled him, he said he couldn't afford to buy authentic Jamaican products. He'd wanted to carry Sun Island T-shirts, for example, but the cost proved prohibitive. 'Man haffi live,' I suppose.

This year's festival was billed as 'Marley's People Love Tribute'. An ocean away from the roots of the music in Kingston's concrete jungle, Rototom Sunsplash was celebrating the Marley legacy. Stephen 'mash up di place' opening night. So did Africa Unite, Ky-Mani, Ziggy and Mama Rita a few days later. But the most spectacular tribute to Bob I saw was a larger-than-life tattoo of his face covering the entire back of an enthusiastic male devotee!

One of the premier events on the Rototom calendar is the 'Reggae University' forum. Artistes, journalists, academics and knowledgeable fans sit down to analyse reggae music in all its global diversity. Dr Donna Hope Marquis read from her book, Man Vibes, sharing the stage with Shaggy. I gave a talk, 'More Fire: Chanting Down Babylon - from Bob Marley to Capleton', excerpted from my book Sound Clash.

Rita makes her voice heard

I also engaged in conversation with Rita Marley about her autobiography, No Woman, No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley. In a remarkably shameless manoeuvre, the publishers of the book (co-authored with Hettie Jones) describe it in this way: "Full of new information, No Woman, No Cry is an insightful biography of Marley by someone who understands what it meant to grow up in poverty in Jamaica, to battle racism and prejudice."

And sexism. For in that sentence - and I do intend a pun on 'sentence' - Rita Marley becomes a mere witness to the life of Bob. Her autobiography is really his biography. Rita's own voice is deliberately muffled in a blatant marketing strategy to exploit the Bob Marley brand.

But as early as the prologue, Rita decisively attempts to right the balance. She acknowledges Bob Marley's overpowering voice. But she insists that her own voice must be heard as well: "And one interesting thing about it, to me, is that most people only hear him. But I hear more, because I'm on almost all of the songs. So, I also hear my voice, I also hear me."

Rototom's Reggae University confirms the fact that rigorous study of Jamaican music can create incalculable wealth. And it's not surprising that much of the enriching journalism and scholarship on reggae originates outside Jamaica. The dollar value of academic work on popular culture is not always understood or appreciated at home: familiarity breeds contempt.

The key organisers of the Reggae University forum are David Katz (USA/UK), Ellen Köhlings and Pete Lilly (Germany), and Pier Tosi (Italy). David is the author of Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae, as well as the biography, People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Ellen and Pete are co-editors of Riddim magazine, with a bimonthly circulation of 45,000 copies. The magazine is now in its 10th year. Pier hosts an extremely popular radio show in Bologna called 'Soul Shakedown Party'.

Many non-Jamaicans naively assume that academic work on reggae is well-established 'a yard'. An amusing example is the question I was asked by Stephan Schulmeister, manager of Germany's acclaimed dancehall DJ, Gentleman. 'Schulmeister' means 'schoolmaster'; but Stephan, though well informed, still had a lot to learn about cultural politics in Jamaica.

Looking at Reggae seriously

In November 2003, I invited Gentleman to speak in the popular series hosted by the Reggae Studies Unit in which a wide range of reggae musicians and DJs talked about their work. Vybz Kartel was not the first artiste to be invited to lecture at UWI. Ninja Man, Capleton, Bounty Killer, Luciano, Tony Rebel, Queen Ifrica, Lady Saw, Judy Mowatt, Cherry Natural and 'many more', as the dancehall posters say, have spoken at the university.

So when Schulmeister gets out of the car in front of the Assembly Hall at UWI, he turns to me and asks in all seriousness, "Is this a reggae university?" 'Mi nearly dead with laugh.' For more than a decade and a half, I did try my best to turn the University of the West Indies, Mona, into the original 'Reggae University'. Or, at the very least, into the home of a 'proper-proper' academic centre on reggae. Not without resistance in some quarters.

Thanks to campus principal, Prof Gordon Shirley, and his predecessor, Prof Kenneth Hall, I garnered extraordinary institutional support for an academic conference on 'Global Reggae: Jamaican Popular Music A Yard and Abroad', which was convened in February 2008. Invited keynote speakers documented the impact of reggae on all continents. In 2010, Dr Donna Hope Marquis chaired a follow-up conference on international reggae.

The organisers of the Rototom Festival do acknowledge the role played by the UWI Reggae Studies Unit in inspiring their Reggae University forum. But so much more still needs to be done right here in Jamaica to give reggae music the sustained academic attention it deserves.

Perhaps, one of these days, there will be 'Reggae University' forums at Sumfest. And don't make the mistake of thinking that this is superfluous in Jamaica. If we don't value our cultural heritage, we're going to lose it. As Ambassador Don Mills once said to me, "Someday, somebody is going to say in astonishment, 'They have reggae in Jamaica, too!'"

Carolyn Cooper is an ideator. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com/. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.