CAPÍTULO 2. DISEÑO DE LA MODELACION DE LA TÉCNICA DE
2.1 Códec AMR-WB (G 722.2)
The very existence of ‘Fire In Soweto’ shows the truly global dimensions of reggae by the late 1970s. Unsurprisingly for a music rooted in a Pan-Africanist view of the world, reggae had ‘crossed back over to Africa’ with relative ease throughout the
666 Ibid. 667
Sonny Okosun, ‘Where you Gonna Go (Soweto)’, London Calling: 25th Anniversary Edition, The Clash (Columbia, 517928 3, 2004) [CD Album].
1970s, in part fuelled by African tours from Jamaican reggae stars such as Peter Tosh.668 Throughout the continent a number of reggae groups emerged, with many
such as Nigeria’s Sonny Okosun and Ivory Coast’s Alpha Blondy even achieving international success.
Within South Africa itself the global outlook of reggae, meant that it was eagerly adapted and adopted by many in South Africa who appreciated the efforts of Marley, Tosh and many others to promote pan-Africanism and the anti-apartheid movement. Although the SABC was extremely reluctant to play reggae music, like jazz and soul before it, reggae became extraordinarily popular in the townships.669 As Coplan noted in the mid-1980s, reggae and other international styles became so popular within South Africa because,
African record shops have great influence on sales, and once word gets out about a politically meaningful recording... it will sell thousands of copies... Explicitly political foreign styles like the reggae of Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh also sell well in the townships. Musical cries for justice, recognition and social action from black American performers... became anthems for township youth.670
Reggae’s seemingly African identity and radical politics made it attractive to many South African musicians. Like jazz before it, reggae offered South African
musicians, inspiration, a source of successful black role models and most importantly a sense that they belonged to a wider struggle beyond South Africa.
Crucially, its inclusive nature meant that, like jazz before it, reggae was readily co-opted by South African musicians from the mid-1970s onwards. As John Collins noted in 1985, Reggae had an ‘immense impact’ on the South African
668 Salewicz, Bob Marley, p.369.
669 David B. Coplan, In Township Tonight!: South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre, 2nd edn
(London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp.193-195.
music spawning many enthusiastic imitators.671 Many found the journey from
township jazz styles such as mbaqanga to reggae was a logical one which involved wholeheartedly embracing Rastafarianism.672
In this way the Pan-Africanism that had long been championed by reggae musicians found a powerful echo, particularly among the generation who had embraced the cultural politics of Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement.673 As with reggae artists throughout Africa, some of these South African reggae musicians, such as Lucky Dube, were even able to find international acclaim and success.
‘Why Must the Youth Fight Against Themselves?’
Whilst reggae became increasingly popular inside of the South African townships it was making unexpected turns in its traditional homelands. In Jamaica, the golden age of roots reggae symbolically came to an end with the death of Bob Marley in 1981. Whilst Marley’s passing was an occasion of overt civic unity in Jamaica, with both Seaga and Manley amongst the mourners, the events of the 1980 election in Jamaica had splintered the Jamaican reggae scene.674The 1980 election saw a
massive increase in violence, with over 900 murdered, a fourfold increase on the 1976 election, with many musicians caught in the crossfire.675Even those not
directly affected by violence were seemingly drained by events. By 1978, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, who had done more than any other to shape reggae in Jamaica, prepared for the dawning of the 1980s, with what many have argued was a
breakdown.676 There was even a longstanding rumour that Perry set fire to his own
671 John Collins, African Pop Roots, p.93.
672 Hugh Masekela, Freedom Sounds, BBC Radio 4, 21 June 2010. 673 Coplan, In Township Tonight!, pp.196-197.
674 Denselow, When The Music’s Over, p.xiii. 675
Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per Minute, p.331.
Black Ark Studio in a fit of rage.677 Though Perry would later claim this breakdown
was a ruse designed to drive away people he found a nuisance, the episode nicely sums up the ways in which reggae was seemingly exhausted in its homeland. Particularly interesting is the suggestion of many that this was in many ways driven by Perry’s frustration with Rastafarianism. Max Romeo would later tell Lynskey that Perry made a special effort to ward off Rastafarians by attaching both rotting pork and a sign reading ‘I am a Batty Man [homosexual]’ to his car.678
Furthermore as Lynskey has argued, after over a decade, roots reggae itself was exhausted, with audiences and musicians naturally drifting away.679 Notably
one of Marley’s final songs ‘Redemption Song’, took a form much closer to a folk protest song than roots reggae, appearing to signal the way in which the genres innovators and leaders were prepared to move on to different styles.680 In a final
strange development, the void left by the decline of roots reggae was increasingly filled by a glut of reggae records made by British groups, as the distinctly less political British lovers’ rock crossed over to Jamaica.681
677
The events of this period remain extremely unclear. David Katz’s biography of Perry, People Funny Boy, has argued that it is extremely hard to get to the truth of many stories of Perry’s
behavior in this period. Referring directly to the notion that Perry set fire to Black Ark, Katz notes ‘Perry himself has given conflicting accounts of the fire, and despite him claiming responsibility for it most of the time, we are unlikely to be ever certain of its true origins’. Other sources have been more willing to give Perry the benefit of the doubt. On the Frequently Asked Question section of his ‘official unofficial’ fan-site the fire is blamed on electrical faults. However the fact that the same section also contains questions such as ‘Did Lee Perry take LSD and then go nuts?’ and ‘Why does Lee Perry act so crazy?’ is a testament to the way in which Perry’s behaviour in this period led people to believe that he had suffered a nervous breakdown.
David Katz, People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee Scratch Perry (Edinburgh : Payback Press, 2000), pp.355-356.
Eternal Thunder, ‘Lee Perry F.A.Q (Frequently Asked Questions)’, 2005. <http://www.upsetter.net/scratch/faq.htm#5> (7 November 2015).
678 Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per Minute, p.332. 679 Ibid.
680 Bob Marley, Redemption Song, Bob Marley and The Wailers (Island Records, WIP 6653, 1980)
[7” Single].
Meanwhile in Britain itself, reggae was developing in equally strange ways. As punk mutated into post-punk many of the stylistic hallmarks of reggae,
including heavy bass lines and cavernous echo, would be co-opted by newly emerging groups. Most notably this can be seen in John Lydon’s post Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd. Lydon, a self-confessed reggae connoisseur, had spent time following the break-up of The Sex Pistols, in Jamaica ‘talent spotting’ reggae artists for Virgin.682 PiL, formed after Lydon’s return to the UK, subtly embraced many
reggae hallmarks, most notably in the prominent bass lines played by John Wardle, who acknowledged his debt to reggae with the stage name Jah Wobble.683
Even more marked was the change in The Specials, whose second album
More Specials owed more sonically to soundtrack albums and mood music than it did ska. Reactions to the album were mixed, with many confused about such an abrupt change in direction.684 Even largely positive reviews seemed bemused by
just how much The Specials had changed. Writing in the NME, Vivien Goldman noted,
Musically, the Specials have done a double back-flip. Fans expecting more frenetic ska re-runs will do a treble-flip when they hear the conglomerate of Zhivago-esque movie soundtracks and other much-maligned music’s the Specials have re-validated. Their energy has become more sensual, too, less St Vitus's dance, more mellow hip-grind.685
Subsequent reviews and reappraisals of the album would be less generous about the albums radical departure. Reviewing the CD reissue of More Specials for Q in 1989, Bradley argued that the album had failed to stand ‘the test of time’ and noted
682
John Lydon, Keith Zimmerman and Kent Zimmerman, No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (London: Plexus, 1994), pp.272-277.
683 Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again, pp.7-8.
684 Simon Reynolds, ‘The Specials: Reissues’, Uncut, May 2002, <
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-specials-reissues (7 November 2015).
685Vivien Goldman, ‘The Specials:
More Specials’, NME, 20 September 1980, <
the ‘thin’ and ‘empty’ sound of the album.686 Furthermore, Bradley also noted the
way in which the ‘agitprop’ present throughout the first album, dominated More Specials, rendering it less relatable than the street level politics of The Specials.
It would be this seriousness that contributed to break up of the band shortly after the release of the album. Driven by, an increasingly dictatorial, Dammers,
More Specials tackled a range of difficult subjects such as consumerism, menial employment and powerlessness in the face of a coming apocalypse.687 If the first
album had documented the dying embers of the post war consensus, then More Specials spoke to the uncertainty of the newly emerging Thatcherite 1980s.
In the wake of the album half of the members The Specials left to form the distinctly more light hearted and straightforward Fun Boy Three.688 Meanwhile
Dammers next project, under the guise of The Special AKA, would be the logical conclusion of the process of radicalisation that had begun with The Specials. Containing songs that were in some cases, lyrically, little more than slogans, the resulting album, In The Studio was a challenging listen. Yet despite what Cynthia Rose in the NME called ‘undue dips into polemicism’, the album was also praised for its diverse musical content as an embodiment of ‘multiracial and multicultural Britain.689 Crucially, In The Studio also contained the single ‘Nelson Mandela’,
which would spark even more musical protests against apartheid.
686
Lloyd Bradley, ‘The Specials: More Specials (2-Tone)’, Q, July 1989, <
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-specials-imore-specialsi-2-tone (7 November 2015).
687 In particular the album track ‘Man at C&A’ details the dread of facing impending nuclear war
over which it was impossible to exert any influence over.
Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers, ‘Man at C&A’, More Specials, The Specials (Two-Tone Records, CHR TT 5003, 1980) [LP Album].
688 Williams, You’re Wondering Now, pp.121-124.
689 Cynthia Rose, ‘The Special AKA: In the Studio (2 Tone)’, NME, 4 August 1984.
<http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-special-aka-iin-the-studioi-2-tone> (7 November 2015).