Search results for "reggae"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
"Don't Call Us Immigrants": The musical and political legacy of reggae in Britain
2020
International audience
Reggae Outernational: Borders and Trans/National Identity in Jamaican Popular Music
2020
International audience; The history of post-1945 Jamaican popular music is one of constantly changing borders. Despite efforts on the part of the Jamaican state to turn reggae into Jamaica’s exclusively national music and a tourist attraction, reggae and its related subgenres remain to this day a minority culture of the underground, in Jamaica itself and in the many places around the world where it is produced and performed. Recent research on the history of Jamaican popular music suggests that it cannot easily be contained within strictly national borders. Reggae can rather be seen as a focal point around which an incipient alter/native, working-class Jamaican identity is built, both insid…
Conscious Entertainment: Commitment in the Reggae Lyrics of Clinton Fearon and Protoje
2016
International audience; This article provides an analysis of the lyrics of Clinton Fearon and Protoje, two major figures of contemporary Jamaican popular music. They are consistently described as committed singers/songwriters and proficient lyricists in a context where reggae music and culture are seen as falling into the excesses of violence and “slackness.” A study of commitment in their respective last two albums will show that despite some contradictions, conscious reggae is still alive today.
"Dis poem shall call names names": Naming in reggae culture, the example of dub poetry
2013
International audience; The question of names and naming emerged as a crucial concern in the cultures of the African diaspora as a way to resist the anonymity and loss of identity imposed upon slaves. Through examples taken from reggae culture and the subgenre known as dub poetry, this paper looks at how names imply a political and poetic use of language in black Atlantic cultures.
“A Modern Slave Song:” Reggae Music and the Memory of Slavery
2019
International audience; From early ska tunes to modern-day dancehall sounds, Jamaican popular music has been a privileged site for the re/creation and transmission of a communal memory of slavery, within Jamaican society itself but also in the broader context of the African and Afro-Caribbean diasporas. The lyrics of reggae songs constitute a vast textual repertoire where a predominantly oral discourse on slavery is produced and circulated, mostly outside institutional circles. In such texts, slavery serves as a memorial matrix which fosters a sense of identity, community and resistance for Afro-Caribbean people around the world. This chapter examines a corpus of 250 song lyrics dedicated t…
« It Dread Inna Inglan », une chronique des luttes des Antillais au Royaume-Uni dans les poèmes de Linton Kwesi Johnson
2019
International audience; Linton Kwesi Johnson, dit LKJ, chanteur, poète et musicien de reggae s’est affirmé depuis les années 1960 comme un artiste noir de premier plan en Angleterre. Né en 1952 en Jamaïque, LKJ arrive à Londres parmi les dizaines de milliers d’immigrants antillais qui s’installent au Royaume-Uni à partir de l’après-guerre. Dans un contexte social tendu, marqué par le racisme et les violences policières auxquels font face les Antillais, LKJ développe une nouvelle forme d’expression artistique entre musique et poésie : la « dub poetry ». Ce faisant, il devient le porte-voix des luttes des Noirs pour leur reconnaissance au sein de la société britannique.