yes these reggae history lessons usually just skim the surface of the reggae scene.its like a jamaican promoter ,well hes half jamaican,he general levys manager,he likes my dub,but reckons hes heard it all before and is allways coming up with these stupid ideas of taking old tunes,as he has legal access to the whole trojan back catalogue,and re doing them with hip hop beats and some dj guy shouting pon top,usually sounds shit.give him a straight roots classic and hell reject it as un marketable.its like people rave about damien marleys album,i like jamrock but the rest of it is full of hackneyed r and b,hip hop beats to try and appeal to the non reggae ,mtv crowd.that to me is one of the problems with modern jamaican music,everybody wants to be big in america.the seventies roots tunes seem to have more feeling and impact for me as the singers sound as if their coming from the heart and not just doing what some marketing guy,usually non musicians,has told them to sing.jamaica had something unique with the dub,roots scene but they gave it away.hardly any dub made in jamaica these days.the uk ,european scene took up the gauntlet,and thats where the heart of the dub scene is now.most of the established uk/dub producers are probably about early to mid forties like me and were influenced by linton kwesi johnson,early ub40,dennis bovell, early aswad ,steel pulse,bob marley etc.then started listening to the jamaican underground stuff.not dancehall.more roots.i had the good fortune to work with max romeo a few years back and he told me that he is grateful that their is still a healthy interest in roots reggae as in jamaica he cant get big gigs as the dancehall thing is predominant.yet he can go to places in eastern europe and sell out 3000 seater venues.i talked to a american friend that reckons its all just reggae,but in the uk the crowd that attends the big dub/roots events is a totally different crowd than the blingy ,coke and champagne crowd that go to dancehall nights.totally different camps in attitude and lifestyle.so big up to jah shaka,aba shanti,entebbe,rdk,mannasseh,concious sounds and all the other sounds who kept the roots and dub alive.in fact ,i would say the uk scene is just as important as the jamaican scene in the devolment of modern reggae.
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