“World music is defined as all contemporary popular music that comes from anywhere outside Europe or North America except Jamaica.” Electronic Mail & Guardian, October 2, 1997

Now when you think about it this is an astonishing quote. It is hardly surprising that North America and Europe, which have maybe 1 billion people between them and dominate the planet economically and culturally, should be its leading musical forces. But is it not incredible that Jamaica with a mere 2.5 million people should be more musically important than any other country in the 5.5 billion people strong non-western world?

Certainly no one could ever have predicted this when we became independent in 1962, because at that time our music consisted mainly of r&b covers and touristy mento songs. Not even in the wildest ganja induced fantasy could anyone have dreamed then that 40 years later Jamaican music would be admired and imitated all over the planet.

The growth and spread of Jamaican music’s popularity across the planet is surely one of the late 20^th century’s most intriguing cultural phenomenons. For reggae is probably the only music not of European or American origin which can be heard in every country on earth, and is arguably the first example in modern times of a third world nation exporting its culture to such a wide audience. I hope the University of the West Indies Reggae Studies Unit is doing extensive studies into the linguistic, racial, cultural and musical factors that made a country with less than one twentieth of one percent of the earth’s population and even less of its GNP a world musical power. Or must we continue to depend on foreigners to explain our culture to us?

One extraordinary aspect of Jamaican music is its ability to continually re-invent itself. Trinidadian Calypso, Cuban Son and Brazilian Samba for example have remained relatively unchanged over the years. But our beat has never remained frozen for any length of time, for reggae encompasses everything from ska to rocksteady to deejay to roots to dub to lovers rock to dancehall. And remarkably almost every popular Jamaican sound has been hugely influential overseas.

Ska has become so popular abroad that it is now an accepted genre of music in itself, with North America and Europe boasting hundreds of ska bands. While the heavy drum and bass dub created by men such as King Tubby and Lee Perry helped to transform club dance music everywhere.

Deejay music gave birth to American rap. Nothing is more irritating than to hear foreigners refer to dancehall as a “rap influenced version of reggae”. After all it was Jamaican Clive Campbell, also known as Kool Deejay Herc, who introduced sound systems and toasting to New York in 1972. This of course was long after King Stitt and U Roy had established deejaying as cornerstone of the Jamaican musical scene. Whatever they have become, rap and hip hop indisputably began as American versions of Jamaican deejay toasting.

Bob Marley, one of the 20^th century’s greatest musical icons, has made roots reggae globally known. Indeed some foreigners entranced by the exotic Rastafarian and Marley mystique behave as if roots is the only legitimate form of reggae. And many overseas writers habitually treat any Jamaican music before Marley’s time as crude precursors and anything that came after as degenerations. But this is patent nonsense, for roots reggae was only one stage in a continuous process.

Ironically the period which most reggae aficionados regard as its golden age, the rocksteady and pre-roots era, is the one that has gained the least overseas popularity. Why this is so no one can say. But nearly all those who are really knowledgeable about the entire spectrum of Jamaican music agree that the roughly 1966 to 1968 period produced the sweetest sounds this island has ever known. No one can seriously argue that Jamaica has produced better songs than Bam Bam, Shanty Town, Hold Them, On the Beach, Baby Why, and 54-46 – to name only six that come immediately to mind.

Unfortunately many “golden age” admirers have a knee jerk tendency to condemn all dancehall, which to them means more or less anything made after 1980 or so, as inferior rubbish. But then age tends to have this effect on most people. As someone once quipped, whenever you turn 35 something horrible always seems to happen to popular music and it all starts sounding the same.

But to dismiss all dancehall as garbage is akin to saying all Jamaicans who bought records after 1980 were morons. Those dancehall condemning curmudgeons should remember that their parents probably thought ska was trash. I remember as a very young boy hearing my father condemn the deejaying of U Roy, the spiritual founding father of dancehall and hip hop, as the tunelessa ravings of a madman.

Like all popular music dancehall has produced a lot of rubbish and a much smaller number of very good songs. Luciano’s “Me Again Jah” for example is the equal of any roots tune ever made. But I must admit that in about 1995 my appreciation of hardcore deejay dancehall began to wane. Maybe it was advancing years, but somehow the music didn’t move me as it once did. And tired of a seemingly continuous diet of Beenie Man and Bounty Killa I turned my radio dial from Irie FM and slowly tuned out of the hit music scene.

But last year I found myself drawn back. I still couldn’t really get into the hard core stuff like Elephant Man’s “Log On”. But I found my attention really captured by songs like VC’s “By His Deeds”, Warrior King’s “Virtuous Woman”, and Tony Rebel and Swade’s “Just Friends”. For these are not only musically arresting, but have intelligent, grown up lyrics.

“By His Deeds” is by any standards an excellent satire on hypocrisy. “Virtuous Woman” is a wonderfully authentic tribute to female dignity. And “Just Friends” playfully but forcefully addresses the sometimes contentious matter of non-sexual male and female relationships in Jamaica. In my opinion they are all first rate tunes which would be a credit to any era of Jamaican music and further evidence of reggae’s great ability to transform itself and resist stagnation.

So the doomsayers can mutter away, but to me reggae is far from dying. For as long as it can produce songs of such quality, Jamaican music will remain a vibrant wonder of the world. changkob@hotmail.com