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It’s a strange circuitous series of events.
The Jamaican sound systems that toured NY in the 70s were the
genesis of rap, yet hip-hop’s roots still lie in gospel
and the Afro-American tradition. Reggae itself is deeply indebted
to the early R&B sounds which were Caribbeanised with mento,
ska and Nyabinghi rhythms. Trip-hop and electronica, despite the
emotional facelessness of the latter wouldn’t even exist
if it weren’t for the pioneering experiments of Jamaican
DJs such as Lee Scratch Perry. Yet strangely, perhaps because
of the numbing redundancy (love that word) of commodity music,
the fruits of creativity poisoned by commerce, internationally
the demand for the original reggae sound has never been stronger,
even if its popularity in Jamaica has been largely supplanted
by dancehall and soca. As is true of everything else the spirit
of tradition burns in Africa…Cuban son, I’ll take
that back, thank you….samba, kaseko, rock, blues…blah
blah blah and ta….you’ve had it long enough…The
same goes for reggae.
One performer, South African Lucky Dube has built up a loyal following
in Jamaica itself. Lucky has quite a large fan base here in Australia
as well and regular Australian tours always draw a 1000+ crowd.
The singer has been criticised by some critics for not deviating
from the tried and proven sound that has endeared him to fans
worldwide. While there may be some justification to their carping,
there’s a hell of a lot of stuff around today that is just
different for difference’s sake without the hard yakka having
been done beforehand. “Hey, you! I’ll give you 50
bucks if you do something different….no, on second hand,
make that a mil and I’ll toss in a modern recording studio
for free.”
Well, even if those aforementioned critics don’t have pause
for thought on Lucky’s latest CD “The Other Side”
(Gallo Record Co), one thing is never in doubt. He’s done
the hard yakka. All the elements are there…the superb emotion-charged
voice that touches on themes of guilt, violence, heroism, oppression
and relationships….the swirling organ and bass lines that
gives Lucky’s music its distinctive South African identity…the
one drop skank that invariably follows brief intros that might
allude to other genres…be it soukouss (as on Cool Down)….or
blues (Julie Julie) or whatever. “The Other Side”
has some catchy themes (in particular “Ding Ding Licky Licky
Bong”) or pretty ones, and a little charmer “Family
Values” featuring the singing of his baby daughter Laura.
I have a specially prepared hard-hearted-bastard email for any
cynical critic who may deign to pontificate at the theme or her
inclusion.
This is a good CD (does the sun rise?), although I don’t
think it reaches the level of Lucky’s last album “Soul
Taker”. There the singer added some extremely well-done
non-reggae African material which did receive very positive feed-back
from his fans. In an interview I conducted with him in 2002 Mr
Dube did say he may try to do some more but it didn’t eventuate
on this release. Be that as it may, Lucky has his well-deserved
niche neatly sewn up and his fans certainly won’t need my
recommendations in order to snap this one up. Richard Jasiutowicz
June 2004
