Montel Gordon Reggae and resistance

Music was the soundtrack to Black British rebellion

MUSIC HAS often been a coping mechanism for the oppressed, which is evident when exploring the history of music across the Black Atlantic.

For example, with reggae music, we often connotate the genre to the rise of the Rastafarian movement.

Birthed in the 1930s under the leadership of Lennard Howell, they were inspired by the Pan-African philosophies of Marcus Garvey, viewing Africa as the promised land or Zion and Jamaica (in addition to the rest of the West), as Babylon, the symbol of oppression.

For the first generation of the Windrush, Rastafarianism was quickly adopted in Britain.

It allowed Black youths to reject their parents and/or grandparents’ traditional Christian ‘assimilationist’ values and adopt a more ‘conscious’, rebellious and anti-establishment stance.

As a result, Rastafari became a symbol for the alienated mass of marginalised Black youth in 70s Britain.

However, it was also a potent symbol for the moral panic created around ‘mugging’, as dreads were synonymous with ‘muggers’ and criminalised Black cultural protest.

The fractured relationship between Black communities and the police worsened during the 1960s.

The police already expected Black involvement in ‘trouble’ and ‘crime’ in ‘immigrant’ areas. This was further exacerbated by a moral panic around ‘black muggers’.

Howell argues that crime statistics were manipulated to create public anxiety around street crime to better ‘police the crisis’ in the economy and broader society.

The tension between Black youth and police boiled over during the infamous 1976 Notting Hill carnival — Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves became the soundtrack that articulated police relations.

Police and Thieves has a somewhat prophetic feel about it. Murvin sings “peacemak- ers become war officers” foreshadows the police brutality of Carnival ‘76, and the song, produced by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, has been given unofficial status as the Carnival anthem.

A closer examination of Police and Thieves, the circumstances surrounding its creation, and the significance of the record, however, reveals a more comprehensive narrative that encompasses and places the summer of 1976 in its historical and social context, much like Carnival ‘76 as a singular event was indicative of the more significant issue of systemic overpolicing of Black communities in the UK.

Jamaica was in a state of emergency and disorder because Michael Manley’s administration failed to assist the nation in resolving its economic problems.

Recession

Similarly, the growing socioeconomic crisis and global depression following the Yom Kippur War in 1973-74 decimated inner-city Black communities.

As the recession deepened, unemployment hit Black labour first, hardest, and longest, with a shortage of economic opportunities forcing Blacks down the hierarchy of skilled occupations.

Reggae music attacked the West’s capitalist, bourgeoise structure, which exploited Black people worldwide. Black British youth found solace in the lyrics of Tosh, Wailer and Marley, who spoke of cultural resistance against a Babylonian system and a mobilisation of Black people. The growth of reggae was an attempt by Rastafarians to spread race consciousness inspired by the social conditions of Black Jamaicans and Black people worldwide.

The ‘roots, culture and resistance’ dynamic of the late 6070s was an expression of and response to weight put upon the sufferers in Jamaica and the UK. The political culture that reversed the triangular trade connected Black people and politics in Africa, the Caribbean and Europe, inspiring them to ‘get up, stand up’.

PROPHETIC FEEL: Junior Murvin is best known for the single Police and Thieves which has been given unofficial status as the Notting Hill carnival anthem (photo:

For example, Steel Pulse’s Handsworth Revolution is commonly lauded as optimising this cultural resistance with the fight Black youth were facing from racism in all societal sectors; right-wing populist groups such as the National Front, police, and the government as they sing: “Doesn’t justice stand for all mankind; we find society putting us down…” and “Handsworth means us the Black People”

This cultural resistance of reggae music on both sides of the Atlantic was the strife against imperialism and revolutionised the hearts and minds of the dispersed Black diaspora.

My latest magazine of the Nostalgia’99 series, titled

The Black British Experience Through Music, above, examines events such as Notting Hill 1976 and the dynamics of genres such as reggae and sound system culture. Additionally, on the 75th anniversary of Windrush, this magazine celebrates the musical contribution of Black Brits to this island and why it’s vital to tell our history from a musical standpoint.

Nostalgia’99 issue 002 is available to purchase at: www.nostalgia99.uk