Bass Culture

"Bradley covers the development of popular Jamaican music from ska (a speedy, jazz-tinged shuffle beat) to its languid offshoot of rocksteady (a rhythm said to have been adapted from waves hitting the sides of a slave ship), and finally into reggae, which, with its slowed-down, marijuana-heavy beat, would absorb happily into middle-class hippie culture. What I particularly like about this book is that it concentrates on ska music, which was an authentically commonwealth music, in that it took hold in the British cities where there was a concentration of West Indians in the 50s. This music, this ska, was absolutely electric, and it brought a taste of a Trenchtown, a sort of Kingston swagger, to Britain. Singers like Derek Morgan and Desmond Dekker – these are far greater exponents of Jamaican music than Bob Marley. Bradley in this book says precisely that: that Marley, to a lot of middle-class white people, is reggae – and it isn’t at all. It’s the kind of airbrushed version of reggae, with rock music overlaid. Not the same at all. Well, from the musical point of view, we’re in the pits. This digital, computer-generated, dance-floor ragga stuff borrows a lot from American rap and hip hop. Not that all of that is awful, not at all, but it’s rather sad the direction that that music has taken. I think that music has lost its moral compass. None of that morality from the classic period of reggae is there at all. And I think you could say it reflects where Jamaica is today; it’s a country that’s absolutely ridden with crime, and it’s a sad story. Well, there’s a sense in which Britain has abandoned this country, and I think a lot of Jamaicans do feel that. I think that most Jamaicans look to America now, and no longer to Britain. Something’s been lost there, for sure. And something gained, as well – because this old imperial view had to change."