Roots Archives Forum

Gangs Of Jamaica, The Babylonian Wars
By T. Ehrengardt
(DREAD Editions)

Rated ESSENTIAL by The Gleaner (Ja): "Thibault Ehrengardt pens a provocative work that transcends the violence and mayhem that bleed through its every page. This is clinical journalism. It is insightful, investigative and written with sheer brilliance. It is how a story should be told. It is raw and cutting, dragging the reader into the trenches of an urban battlefield."

Find more here: http://www.gangs-of-jamaica.com

After years of listening to roots music i've realised that what sets it apart is its conscious,positive message. Big people making beautiful music. I for one wouldn't wanna read about the gangs of jamaica, I dont see that it adds anything positive or conscious

Not everything that is interesting is positive and conscious.

dubisamust wrote:After years of listening to roots music i've realised that what sets it apart is its conscious,positive message. Big people making beautiful music. I for one wouldn't wanna read about the gangs of jamaica, I dont see that it adds anything positive or conscious

The positive message is surely born out of the violence. If JA was all peace and love and big spliffs what would be the point of reggae music with a message of peace. The music only really makes sense when you understand the violence of the country (or its capitol at least) it is against that back drop of violence that the musicians say: hey there is another way to live our life's we don't have to kill each other for politics or turf wars or gang wars whose origins are lost in time, we can love each other instead

Reggae talks so much about Kingston violence, historic poltics, districts and garrisons and real gangs and real bad men, if you don't understand the violence and it's history then you don't understand the real meanings of the songs

Reggae IS the counteraction to the political madness of Jamaica, this has nothing to see with hippie music. When you hear the word "peace" in a song it doesn't mean in Vietnam but in Rema and Jungle. When Bod adapts Haile Selassie's speech, he names it WAR and talks about Trench Town. When they talk about Marcus Garvey, it is to tell about the last days (the 1970s) before Judgement Day (Haile Selassie was the returned Christ so Apocalyps was coming shortly) when the dragon (politics) shall reign before being defeated. It is not necessary to know the history of reggae music to enjoy it, but then you can't tell no one about "consciousness", as you're not aware of anything about it.

No disrespect, just discussion.

Well said Congo & DREAD.

@dubisamust

To imply that reading about JA gang warfare doesn't add anything positive or conscious comes across to me like an ignorant statement.
Its a bit like saying that watching a TV programme about the apartheid years in SA adds nothing positive or conscious.
On the contrary, if people read and studied more about these things that affect the world (or a considerable fraction of it at least), then they would have their eyes opened and would probably be less blinded by their apathy and ignorance.

In the case of reggae music, as has been stated already, it is partly the backdrop of violence that fuelled the cries for peace and unity in the ghettoes and garrison communities of Kingston and other areas in JA.
Many musicians and artists themselves were in these gangs, rightly or not (Prince Lincoln, Prince Hammer, Bojangles to name but a few) and most were auto-initiated into gangs and posse's simply because of their postcode!! And subsequently these same artists saw the folly of gangsterism and criminality, and recorded this peace, love and reality music for the world to hear wha gwan back-a-yard, at the same time as trying to make a pound note to help them and there family escape from the vicious cycle of ghetto poverty, gangs and crime. And obviously hoping to reach out to their gangster brethren still stuck in the game, to reduce murder, violence and crime in Jamaica.

And those are just a few points. Basically, books like the above mentioned one should be well worth a read for reggae fans and non-fans alike. Although you may feel you know what the message is saying in a lot of the reggae music of that time, the political, economic, historical, social and cultural background should NEVER be ignored.

Why not just ignore it??
Because to do so would be a bit of an insult to those artists and musicians who lived that life and worked there asses off to escape it fo the sake of them and their family.
To ignore it is enabling blindness in terms of the meanings behind many of these anti-political, anti-crime music of the day.
If everybody was unable to take positives from the negatives (or make sense out of nonsense) then my friend what kind of world would this really be????

Check it out for yourself - half price right now: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FAOFXU8

Interview of the author at CITS: http://camerainthesun.com/?p=26658

GANGS OF JAMAICA (DREAD Editions): $2.99 only!

(at amazon.com / co.uk only)

Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FAOFXU8

A new extract: http://www.gangs-of-jamaica.com