Roots Archives Forum

No, I am talking about Jamaican reggae. Jamaican reggae is made to be popular, the vast majority of it. I can think of a few guys, like Cedric Im Brooks, recording music just for the sake of music, but everything else has the public in mind and is made to be popular among the crowd, first through the dancehall and then through record-selling.

The first targeted audience of 70s roots music was the Jamaican audience, not the US or Europe, which is why this may be seen as underground music here, but most of it is not.

Even Ras Micheal and the Sons Of Negus sold records. So can they be accused of commercializing Nyabhingi chanting?

I think it is important to understand Bob Marley's motivations.

I don't know for sure, but from what I have seen, heard and read, Marley wasn't too interested in wealth and was always pretty loose about the finances and reputedly very generous too. I feel his primary motivations were to spread the message of peace and love and unity which is at the heart of his religion. He knew that he needed to bend a little here and there to make that happen. Maybe made concessions to the western ear so they would hear the message he wanted to spread.

Bob always maintained he was Rasta. And who is there here who would deny him that?

Of course this doesn't go for Blackwell who is first a businessman and always a businessman.

If the definition of POP MUSIC is that it is music that is popular, then Marley did POP. But then so did the massive Blues star John Lee Hooker, he has sold an awful lot of records. In which case, to say someone's music is POP is not a negative thing at all.

the big misunderstanding is that marley lovers tend to be wound up when they are told that marley is part of pop music despite of its reggae musical character.

I think you make a confusion between marley that became popular all over the world because of the blackwell's commercial startegy and the native jamaican music (obviously) popular in jamaica and not abroad. do you agree it's not same "POP-ularity"?

today you can often find marley in the pop part of a record shop, the same for sean paul, shaggy...
but native jamaican music will always be classified as reggae or world music.

Alhazred wrote:I can think of a few guys, like Cedric Im Brooks, recording music just for the sake of music

sorry to correct you but at that time no one was recording and publishing for the sake of music in jamaica. they recorded things that were requested by the audience or by professionals cos no one could afford studio costs just for the fun of it. when producers started to have their own studio, things changed a little bit and by example duke reid (rocksteady era) made some of the first dubs ever.
versioning became a cheap way to add some release to the catalog or to the albums as the costs were lower than for a normal session with a full line up of musicians. if the release failed the loss of money would be more or less negligible.

Difficult question really the Pop question - Pop and Popular music may be technically the same, but don't forget that meaning of words is altered by custom and practice. So what a word means to one person is not the same as the other. This can lead to circular arguments and is why Academics are supposed to define key terms clearly in dissertations etc.

Being from the UK I associate the term Pop with factory music from Producer manufactured bands - that may not be in line with the Oxford English Dictionary definition, but it works for me and helps to separate different genres of music.
Pop reggae I would describe as a hybrid of Pop and Reggae - Lily Allen does some horrendous examples of this. Bob Marley, for me personally, reaches the fringes of this with 'Could you be loved', which was a big UK chart hit and really not a favourite of mine by any stretch of the imagination.

MightyZ

Bob Marley is my king!
Even if I'm really purist in the reggae listening and addicted to this period from the mid/late 70's, Mr Marley stays the one for me. Maybe this is a consequence of his commercalisation but behind that there is all the poetry and his vision of peace that reflects true hi songs more than in a lot of others singers ones.

We all make the best we can to be in harmony with our ideal, but still have points that can be critized.
Of course Marley went true commercialisation more than every other jamaican singer and his music was changed in more POPular style, but we could also just take the essential of his work, his lyrics, to help up to go thrue life.

I think it is Joe Higgs in a reggae documentary who sings with is guitar but with no skank, just expressing is feelings on simple chords and saying after that: "This is reggae music" So finding out if something IS reggae or IS NOT because of some precise criterion isn't very usefull, a beautiful painting or a sun rise could express the same as what comes out of reggae music. So let us enjoy the message of Marley with an open mind, and be thankfull that someone like him lived once on this Earth.

RIP Bob Marley

Nice post Leswoodies

At the end of the day - words and names are meaningless - what the vibe does to you inside is important

I have total respect for Marley, despite not liking his later stuff so much, because of his message.
Also because I know he used the money he made for the benefit of many poor Jamaicans - at one time he was feeding about 2000 a day in Jamaica!

He also stayed true to his Rasta principles in the face of Cancer - refusing treatment to save his life as he believed Rastas are 'everliving' so there was really no death.

MightyZ

So let us enjoy the message of Marley with an open mind, and be thankfull that someone like him lived once on this Earth.

That´s it! I agree, thank you! Respect due.

Marley wasn't singing about peace because there isn't enough of it, or any, and he knew that.

He was singing *for* peace.

Hello daCENSOREDone,

I agree to say that he was not only speaking about peace, and you gave the right examples, but it was just to say that his song-writting was rich of teachings and poetry.
Of course there are a lot of other subjects in his songs and serious ones too. That's also the power of reggae music, to get the retrospect from the system and to criticize it; free the people of mental-slavery.

I just respect him to the fullness for this work and his songs make me feel good. Maybe that can be called Art. That's the feeling I had by writting down the parallel with the painting.
There was something behing his comercialization that can be appreciated, so just take it has it is.
Of course with the retrospect we can see the influence of the marketing, maybe we can take a teaching of that too...
It would be sad to judge people on what they have done right or wrong, maybe with all the success he had, it was difficult for him to take distance; or maybe it taught that this commercialization was a good way to bring the people his message. And in a way this worked (I discovered reggae with his music, and now couldn't live without)As MightyZ wrote, he stayed as near as he could his principles, that can be appreciated too... Again, we all do the best we can!

Yes leggo, "for peace" is the right terme!

Respects everytime

Did he really stayed true to his rasta belief up to the very end?
I thought he was baptized to Ethiopian Orthodox Church by late 1980.
anyway, his faith on Christ,God, Jah or whatever was always strong.