Q: Sounds like the documentary from his English tour in about '65 or '66 ('Don't Look Back'). A: At the time we had a TV in black and white and he was on telly, and I really liked that. I have a brother-in-law, an English man too, he used to have a lot of Bob Dylan records. And when I used to play them I never really liked the musicality of it, my type of music, but it ringin' in your ears, the type of whining singin' (chuckles). That is not when I admire him, I admire him after when I start to look into it myself. But after seeing him on that live performance, I see it was really good. So I liked him and the Beatles, too. And the Stones, but the Beatles more. Yes. So, from dem time deh... But the first LP I ever buy was from Louis Armstrong. (Chuckles) I used to like Louis Armstrong singin', and also the trumpet that he used to do. Yeah, that was the firs' album I buy. And then I buy a Bob Dylan too, 'The Freewheelin''. Q: Oh yeah, great. A: Yeah, those two were one of the first, the first two albums. I used to love Frank Sinatra too, yunno. Q: (Laughs) A: Frank Sinatra. I bought a collection of about five albums, four or five, in a big box (chuckles). Yeah, I used to like Frank Sinatra. Q: Those were some big times for music, and for getting deeper into any sort of music somehow. It may not have the same importance or impact for kids or younger people today. A: Yeah. I think music was of a higher quality then. Q: And also, possibly more stimulating for your mind being into the creative process of making and writing music. A: Yes. Well, I used to love... I still love Chopin, y'know. I have a wide ear. I like melodic music. But I love the music that is very resonant, y'know wha' I'm sayin', music that is very strong in what it's saying. I used to love the Beatles, but mostly John Lennon. Q: There was something deeper there? A: Yeah, it have some message. Q: Not just plain 'entertainment'. A: I think that's why people love reggae music. Because we do talk about what we're feeling and how our lives here are affecting us in the environment. Well, I mean that goes on, everybody express themselves. But I dunno, rock music or pop music, it's more for fun. Not rock music, but their popular music is more for fun. I would say rock music, they try to express their inner feelings, yes, but they're a bit selfish with their world. They don't have much of a world view, yunno, them have a selfish point of view, more to do with relationships. That's all right, fair enough. Q: (Chuckles) A: But, you see, when you don't have nutten else to think about, then you jus' sing about that. But Jamaica had I think the high point, beca' I may not like the current batch of singers, but they're all singin' about things that's affectin' them very deeply. Q: But isn't rock music, at least some of it, like reggae, a reflection of the environment and the system which breeds the people and the bands making it? There's classes of people, whites being caught up in the same system and expressing it in their way. A: They're jus' caught up in the system. But you see, so are we, in Jamaica, we're also caught up in the system. But we're under a much heavier pressure to live, so we have more to complain about.

Carl Gayle aka Carl I

Q: Naturally. A: And our government, our rulers not leading us into the light. I mean, Jamaica is in great debt still, today. Nobody can buy nutten. The money is valueless, you have to have a whole heap a money to buy a lickle t'ing. Survival is very hard. There's no jobs, there's no industry. Because remember, just like all over Africa, Jamaica was not used for the Jamaican people, it was used to supply Europe with sugar, tobacco, banana, all kinda t'ings that they want. And that is what's going on all over Africa. So it was all what you call a cash-crop farming, and so the people in Africa never learn to do nutten fe themselves. They might do it now, but they have the worst land and the least of the land to live on. And the rest of the best land is in the hands of the Europeans. And with the freedom from colonialisation they weren't supposed to do that, they were supposed to leave Africa. But they still keep control of it. So I'm afraid the people in the west don't know how lucky they are. Not really 'lucky', it's just built on injustice, cruelty, the western world. So I cyaan keep preachin', I mean I have fe jus' talk what I know. People not gonna wanna hear it, a lot of people, 'cause they're happy with their lives. Why should they... they don't know any other way of thinkin', other than I should be just gettin' the best for myself and my family, and have a nice time. We don't live long enough, so why worry 'bout other people when there's 'nothing' you can do... But they see in life what they've been taught to see in life. There's no other life, life ends when they've put your body underground. And so when you believe in that you don't care about other people eventually, you just care about having a good time yourself. So it's the whole brainwashing system, it's the colonisation of the mind. Q: 'Mental slavery'. A: Yeah! You no seen... everybody sufferin' from it. Q: But that's what I'm saying, simplified: there's a working class, white, oppressed by a ruling class here too, not just black people, refugees and so on, and this was going on long before Europe yelled for workers to come from the Caribbean, South America, or Africa. There's a systematic difference and class divisions among Caucasians or whatever. But the conservative has controlled the rights for underpaid workers from time. It's not that long ago that they organised themselves to get better working conditions... what's the word again? Unions! A: Unions. Right, but now they're gettin' rid of it completely. Now with this globalisation they realise they have to get rid of unions, 'cause they were a threat, a challenge to their authority. So that's part of the plan. They get rid of all the unions, that's why them love Margaret Thatcher. Q: Oh, fuck me... Is that even possible. A: I don't know how them could agree with that. That's the way of the world. The people have no power, because that's the real power, that's democracy of votin' for nothing. The so called democracy because you have a vote, that's ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. You don't do that, all you do is vote an' it's the same people coming, they all know each other, they're all friends. They're the same class of people. They all want the same t'ing for their family and their friends. And people support them. So the upper class still control the wealth and they will always do that. Q: Isn't that where true musicians come in to increase and uplift the awareness among normal people... A: Yeh, Bob Dylan doing it but he sell out as well, yunno. Q: Isn't that the point of good and strong art, to spit on and provoke and criticise the establishment and conservative forces when they're doing wrong, and make people aware what's really going on? A: Exactly, but they're not doing it. Look, you see, the time when reggae music did travel as well in the seventies, there was more rock music doing that kinda work, but they're not doing it now. All a dem sell out, you notice? All a dem, Bob Dylan is a sell out. Yeah man, he cyaan... they wouldn't play him anymore, so he have to stress... But he's living on his reputation, he's not writing anything good, y'know. He is still clever with words but it don't mean nutten. It cyaan mean nutten to people (chuckles). And sell out. There's nobody doing that. And to their irony, they won't play them, they're all unknown. Just like me (chuckles). We have fe get through somehow, I don't know. Bob Marley was lucky at the time, him come still within that time when it was still something that a lot of radio DJ's might play. Not even a lot, beca' by the time, in the 1980's they kill out all kinda message music. Q: I think you realised this too, without criticising Marley and the enormous talent he had and what he achieved, in that time in the early seventies, the pop music, music fans in the west, they were looking for a new Dylan, something more dynamic than what their former hero had become, a musical rebel for the new times. And then Marley came out of nowhere with something totally new and just as rebellious as Dylan did ten years previous to that. He came with something fresh, 'hip', a new hairstyle, dreadlocks, something cool for western kids, and they started to buy that 'package'. A: Yeah, as a look. One hundred percent.

Q: That's really what it was, and Chris Blackwell realised this and could sell that package. But I'm not taking anything away from Bob's obvious talents. A: No, no, no need to. I mean, him ride the chrest of that wave, yunno, created and started by people like the Beatles and Bob Dylan and so on, and others. One has to sing message, protest songs. And yeah, they didn't last, anyone a dem, really. Innit? Q: And Bob, a combination of black and white, or more white so Europeans and Americans could identify with it easily, good looking, and he was poster material. A: That's why they make him their hero, of giving him that Album of the Year, or century, or something (1977's 'Exodus' as voted by Time magazine's readership). Right, but that's good. But they only do that to stop it, when they do that they don't need to do it anymore. They don't need to look at any other reggae artis', you understan', they use Bob Marley to top the rest of the reggae acts. Q: He became the vehicle. A: Because when they mention reggae music they always talk about Bob Marley first and foremost. And with that everybody rushed towards Bob Marley. He had a friendly face. Q: Always with that smile, very image conscious. A: Yeah, them use that smile. See, they don't play 'Survival' or 'Natty Dread', they only play 'One Love' or 'Three Little Birds' and 'No Woman No Cry' all the while, you understan' (chuckles). They don't play some of the other stuff. And they don't play no Peter Tosh. They always push an image that is audience friendly, and all over Europe the youths identify with Bob Marley. Is not really Rasta, is Bob Marley's look them going for. So you see, there's an explosion, I can see that in Europe. When I look at the websites of some of these festivals, reggae festivals in Europe, and I can see the kind of attendance. There's a growing mass of people, young people, who love reggae music or love to take on that culture, they're living out the culture, secondly, in a sense. Yeah. But that's good, that's their lifestyle. I dunno if it helps. Q: (Chuckles) A: I don't know if it really help the struggle, because all they're having is a good time and smokin' herb. The struggle continue, elsewhere, but we want them to really - if they really wanted to get into Bob Marley and the real stuff whe we a sing 'bout, and Peter Tosh or Burning Spear, other people. I mean the way of the world, Rastafari, and fe know what the Rasta sing an' sing, like Count Ossie and especially Ras Michael and the Sons & Daughters of Negus, they would play them that music. But they don't wanna hear that. People are conscious, and the individual DJ's themselves they know that, well, in order for us to do what they're suggestin', then we'll have to change our lifestyle. They don't wanna do that. The understanding is that there's more morality and integrity as well. (Chuckles) So it's a very difficult t'ing fe people to do. So I don't really expect people fe change just like that, but that won't stop me from singin', you see, ca' I have to express myself.

Count Ossie

Ras Michael

Q: What is different in Rasta rhetoric compared between now and thirty years ago, where is the inner reasonings different? A: The influence of the media has had more effect now, it is having more effect on people's thinking than ever before. So it's harder to concentrate and to defend Rasta livity like we used to. Q: I think, in many ways, thirty years ago the Rasta community was more of a militant movement and more closed and introverted for the outside world. Now it feels like it's more open, except for the outburst against certain groups, which the media fuels a lot too, of course. A: More stronger, beca' our living and livity was stronger. Beca' the media and the influence of the rest of the world wasn't so strong as it is now. You have to get in, y'know, in order to get some music sales for a singer and you sing 'bout Rasta, you still have to wait on the people who's sellin' your records, and depend on them. And sing what is current and try to sell to what people want, because people just want fe dance. You know, them waan somet'ing fe dance to (chuckles). The riddim first. So there's a lotta influence of individual music, all kinda other music in the world, and the way of the worl' is everywhere, it's not just outside of Jamaica anymore. It's inside of Jamaica, it's anywhere. The influence of the material world, we don't have enough unity. That's why I'm not even among my Nyabinghi House. If I'm in JA I might go for a one celebration, but I wouldn't waan fe keep going. Because I know their integrity is not what it's supposed to be. We cyaan agree on certain t'ings the way we used to hold to, so we fall out. I see myself more now as a more as an informed Rasta than most of the Rasta in Jamaica. But they're still limited to what they know, what they allow them to know in Jamaica. In a country like Englan' you have access to a lot of historical works, findings that have been written and put out. And yes, it's on the internet, but in Jamaica people don't have access to the internet so good. Especially not in Africa. So all the books that I may have read, they're not available to Africans, to Jamaicans, to Africans in general. Ca' a lotta us in Jamaica, we see ourselves as Africans still, y'know. Q: I mean, to switch the subject and direction, you actually did some of the best 'herb-fuelled' writings ever on the music back in the seventies (chuckling). A: Yeah, I used to smoke and write (chuckles). Q: Did you have a basic idea at first how you wanted to present the music in those days in print, or it just evolved as times went by, as you got more and more into it? You started to write for the Let It Rock magazine back then, before the venture with Black Music, but what preceded it? What role did the BBC DJ Charlie Gillett play in all this? A: Right. Well, Charlie Gillett, I knew him from Further Education College, did I tell you that before? Q: No. A: I knew him from Further Education College. When I leave school I didn't want to start work so I went to Further Education College. A lotta black children, youths, was doing that at the time. So I did that. I went there in 1967, that's where I meet Charlie Gillett who was a tutor to me, y'know. Tutor was just someone who see you once in a while or maybe even every day and just say "How are things going?" You know, "if you need any help?" 'Cause I think they were of the opinion that a lotta these black kids in the college were having difficulty at home or something, or a bit wild, I dunno, so they needed a 'tutor' to guide them. But I guess him one a dem tutor. But at that college, Kingsway College, I meet a lotta people who - one or two are still friends now. And yeah, Charlie Gillett, having been a tutor... when I left there, one day when I was reading Let It Rock - why did I come to be reading that...? I don't know or remember exactly. But actually I may have gone to his house because I used to go to his house and borrow records, when I become more interested in the wider section of rock music, like other artists apart from the well-known ones. He had thousands of records, so I could go to him and borrow records, Van Morrison and all kinda music. So I got into music, blues, he had a lot of blues. He used to like a lotta blues music. That's how I hear Howlin' Wolf and them, Muddy Waters. But I used to love Howlin' Wolf. Q: Howlin' Wolf? Brilliant, probably my favourite in blues music. A: Really? He's my favourite too. Yeah, so through Charlie Gillett I get access to a lot of these music. And because of that, I read his book, his magazine, he used to be one of the editors for Let It Rock. And he did an interview with Jimmy Cliff around 1972, and I wrote a letter to the other editor about the interview that he did, from the point of view of one who, in the West Indian community, listened to reggae music, and could write something about it. I never really expec' no reaction, but they eventually asked me - 'cause he spoke to Charlie about it - and Charlie said to the editor, like "We had a conversation about your letter", and Charlie must've told him that he can write a column or something. So they suggested that, and that's how it started. I didn't really wanna do it, 'cause I didn't know if I should be writing in a magazine. 'Would it be good enough', y'know wha' I mean?

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Article: Peter I (Please do not reproduce without permission)