‘JOYFUL NOISE’- VIRGIN ISLANDS’ REGGAE

No one has ever accused me of being reggae’s greatest fan, though I’ve always liked it. It’s just that after its early good-time urban Caribbean florescence and its Marley-defined climax, the good-timers turned to dancehall, leaving reggae itself with some big shoes to fill and a messiah complex that was more burdensome than enlightening. Fast-forward thirty years and the results are interesting. Ol’ Bob was prolific in more ways than one, of course, and little by little a new generation of Marleys indeed HAS been filling his shoes, albeit one toe at the time. Meanwhile a plethora of music from Africa has given plenty of alternatives for exotic palm-fringed listening, including several opportunities for reggae-style music without all the rasta-stuff. The first probes of African music thirty years ago, that uncovered Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade, were indeed attempts to find suitable Marley substitutes. I reckon they did. Just because reggae created a new genre of ‘world music’ doesn’t mean they had any monopoly on it.

Like other genres previous and subsequent, reggae had repercussions far beyond its original borders, particularly within the Caribbean, where it is pretty much THE de facto collective national anthem of the region, at least of the modern English-derived cultures. That extends as far as Guyana on the north shore of the South American continent, and includes the Virgin Islands, of course, including the US Virgin Islands, which is where I Grade Records is based. It’s not a bad place to be, where the States meet the islands, and now something of a secondary center for reggae music. Well, early results for I Grade Records have been good and they’ve got a compilation album to prove it. It’s called ‘Joyful Noise’ and it’ll be available to the public in January.

Best of the lot is probably Duane Stephenson from Jamaica with the album’s killer opening song ‘Hard Times.’ It’s classic reggae, with the classic beat and classic lyrics, like ‘Hard times… hard times… I’ve got to run and hide and find a place to lay my head.’ He also contributes another song, also classic in style, the downtrodden but optimistic “I’m Fine,’ with lyrics like ‘I’m sitting in the corner but I’m fine… nevermind.” Queen Omega seconds the emotion while offering a solution with ‘Footsteps’- “Jah is our only friend, he sticks with me to the end.” Yes, for Rasta-based reggae, Jah is still the be-all and end-all, while Jesus doesn’t rate quite so highly, as in ‘We Want Reparations’ by VI’s own Batch- “in Jesus’ name they were so deceptive”- notwithstanding Promised Land Ethiopia’s history as one of the oldest of Christian countries. The chain of injustice goes all the way back through recorded history, as remembered in Pressure Busspipe’s ‘Modern Pharoah’- “Release all the shackles and chains… I’ll never be a victim no more.”

Reconstructing history to suit modern tastes and trends is always tricky business, of course, and the songs that work best are the ones that deal with it on a personal or moral level, not a vengeful one. Reggae has always been at its best with positive and optimistic messages. Guyanese Jahdan Blakkamoore is one of the best at this, with ‘Flying High’- “a new day is dawning and a new song to sing” or ‘Red Hot’- “you can really make a difference if you’re willing… we’ve never known how it feels to be loved, wanted, cared for…”. This is good stuff. Of course reggae has always been better at its lyrics than its melodies, and this compilation is no different, not that the music is weak, just repetitive. Some songs, indeed, are musically almost carbon copies of each other, the same tune but with different words. Only when reggae gets its music up to the same level as its lyrics will it be able to take its rightful place as one of the music world’s great genres. Until then, ‘Joyful Noise’ is as good- or better- than anything out there. Give it a listen.