Roots Archives Forum

are there any reggae artists that are against or who don't smoke weed? looking mostly for jamaican artists around 70s early 80s but anything is good.
thanks in advance

Well... it's quite hard for me (and I guess for everyone else...) to believe in thnigs like these, but anyway...

I recently bought the beautiful Makasound repress of LEROY SMART'S remarkable "Dread Hot In Africa" album in a double-set LP, full of great liner notes and with a quite interesting (and recent) interview with Mr. Smart...

To my surprise, at the beggining of the interview leroy is asked if he used to lick chalice and he categorically says "No, never, I never smoked weed, it's just a lyrics that saying "we used to lick chalice, cook ital stew together..."

Then at the end the guy asks again bout him saying that he doesn't smoke ganja thou he appears licking chalice in the movies rockers...

Then "Mr. Smart" (not without reason...) comes out of that saying that he was "just acting"...

"that's just fiction, it's for a movie. Illusion!"...

Coincidently or not, I've never seen a picture of Mr. Smart smoking weed, of course besides his apparently pretty well done scene in the movie rockers, where he appears "pretending" he's licking the chalwa...

Either way, Mr. Smart is quite funny... whether with his lyrics, interviews, wheter acting or being himself... but still a mystery to me... does mr. smart smokes or not?

Blessings,

I can't think of any artists speaking out against ganja, simply because it's so popular among their audience. It would be like an artist coming out in support of homosexuality- career suicide.

I know Lee Perry has claimed that he gave up smoking, but who could trust what comes from that guy's mouth (I don't mean that in a bad way, he's just delightfully mad).

I'm sure there are artists who don't smoke, but I don't imagine that they would advertize the fact.

Leroy Smart - Dread Hot In Africa

The tune "Love In My Heart" there is another tune on that riddim a vocal. Do you know the name of it?

I once read that Mutabaruka had never partaken of the herb. His song "dispel the lie" is about this topic.

yes its true, muta hasn't smoked herb... i hear b. spear gave it up too, jimmy cliff no longer smoke herb. a lot of them probably partake of other substances though... many drink heavily i suspect

I remember going back stage at one gig in the early 80s and offering one of the band guys a toke and he refused, saying he didn't smoke it. I think it may have been Black Roots, I don't remember too well...

If you've spent a long time smoking a lot of weed you may get bored with it. Or you may want to smoke less or not at all so you can make some progress in your life.

And lately weed has been genetically interfered with to produce strains of skunk that some people find rather too mind altering for their taste.

I know many people who have stopped smoking because they say it adversly effects their mental stability.

Of course, herb isn't the only substance that can do this, tobacco has been implicated as a cause of mental ilness by some scientists who say it effects the delicate chemical balance of the brain. And that chemical balance is the very thing that makes it work properly.

The same is claimed about junk food which has been scientifically linked to causing a huge number of mental problems. But of course this is well supressed by the agro/food industry which has plenty of scientists in its pay.

Benjamin Zephaniah dont smoke

I saw an interview of Tony Rebel where he said he didn't smoke anymore. When the reporter asked why he just simply answered "I used to but I just don't smoke anymore" he never said it was a bad thing or something like that. I think at certain stages of your life you can get bored of smoking ganja if you have been smoking it for many time. I haven't got tired, yet, lol. Anyway, Ganja is a sacrament so it must be used consciously and not at every hour of the day... just my opinion...
Also Lucky Dub from SouthAfrica does not smoke...

Bless