King Stitt at the controls.DESPITE ITS economic success, dancehall music and the deejays who perform it continue to struggle to prove their validity to the nation. While the form has, in some way, got the light of mainstream acceptance, in many cases the lyrics are still considered derogatory and mere slackness.
It is against this background that the fourth annual Don Drummond symposium was held last weekend. The symposium, organised by The Department of Government and Reggae Studies Unit of the University of the West Indies (UWI), chose to look at the contributions of dancehall pioneers Count Matchuki, King Stitt and U Roy.
Titled 'Wake The Town and Tell Di People', the symposium got its name from one of U Roy's lines which has become indelibly graffitied on the Jamaican psyche. Those who have taken even only an idle glance at the history of Jamaican popular music should be aware of at least the names of these three men. What should also be readily obvious is that they are the precursors to today's manifestation of the deejay.
Born Winston Cooper, Count Matchuki is credited with being one of the first deejays, and some even give him credit for creating the genre. The Count came to prominence in dancehall during the 1950s.
During his lecture, titled 'Forging Identity and Community Through Aesthetism and Entertainment: The Sound System and the Rise of the Deejay', Dr. Clinton Hutton stated that Count Matchuki was the first man to systematically use the microphone.
Hutton cited a quote from Matchuki, wherein he pointed out that he used to talk in the 'weak' segments of the song so that the people would remain 'happy' in the dance. Of course, this sits very well with the original function of the deejay (before he was separated from his role of selector), which was to 'ram dance' and 'cork party'.
Originally a dancer, Matchuki became renowned for his ability to weave words into the music he played during the 1950s. Legend has it that this was so well done that in the early days persons would go to record shops and request songs they had heard in a dance, not realising that Matchuki had been vocalising. Unfortunately, there is very little recorded work featuring Count Matchuki.
King Stitt was another of the master selectors from the genesis of the dancehall. Born Winston Spark Stitt, he was also known as 'Ugly', due to a facial disfigurement. Stitt, who continues to work with Clement 'Sir Coxone' Dodd of Studio One, started to master the turntables in the 1960s. Keith Brown, who chaired the first half of the seminar, remarked that the story of King Stitt is a tale of creating opportunity out of adversity. Stitt made his name by creating his own brand of 'jive' talking.
RECORDING ARTISTE
U Roy, often dubbed 'Daddy U Roy', brought with him the beginnings of the deejay becoming a sustained recording artiste. Through his work, U Roy earned his title as 'father' by showing that with enough style and timing, skatting/toasting could stand on its own. Thus, he turned the form Stitt and Matchuki had pioneered in the dancehall into a viable commercial artform. Born Ewart Beckford, U Roy has ridden rhythms into the halls of dancehall legends, having created two of its anthems in Wake the Town and Rule The Nation. According to theiceberg.com, U Roy started as a selector in 1961 with Doctor Dickies' set. He would later go on to work on Coxone Dodd's sound system and work with King Tubby during the 1970s.
Despite the continued illegitimacy of the artform, according to those who presented, dancehall music has made significant contributions to the development of a national identity. The day became a discussion of not only the contributions of these three men, but the contribution of dancehall and the sound system culture which they helped to popularise.
Hutton argued that Western Kingston became something of a cauldron of Jamaican culture due to mass migrations to the capital and that area in particular during the mid-20th century. He pointed out that Western Kingston was the small space in which Jamaica's varying cultural forms, such as Gerreh, Bruckins and Dinki Mini, all came into contact.
In his presentation, Hutton spoke of the importance of the emerging sound system culture, to which the deejay was particularly important. Arguing that the sound system is as Jamaican as the Doctor Bird, he stated that deejaying came before singing, it was simply that singing was the first to be recorded.
According to Hutton, the development of the sound system was communal in nature. He argued that the popularity of the deejays and the sound systems depended on their appeal to the 'massive' and thus they were integral to its development. He described the dancehall as a 'ritualistic, communal entertainment. A space where boys and girls growing into adulthood had their rite of passage'.
Hutton also discussed the financial imperative of the sound system. He stated that in the early days, dances were often kept to raise money for either those about to migrate to England or for those who were recently released from prison and thus needed start-up capital.
Professor Carolyn Cooper also made an interesting argument for the value of dancehall culture to Jamaica's national identity. Professor Cooper presented a 'dub version' of the paper 'Toasting the Dancehall Nation: Language, Identity and Cultural Diversity in Jamaica', which had been co-authored with Dr. Hubert Devonish. Cooper argued that the popular acceptance of dancehall has helped to further the acceptance of Jamaican Creole as a legitimate form of expression.
Cooper argued that Jamaican Creole lacks the 'backative' of literature to be deemed a legitimate language. However, the recording industry, through dancehall, is helping to provide a body of creative work, thus giving it the 'prestige' of being a language.
What the symposium showed, was that as dancehall continued to climb the Billboard charts (with Sean Paul retaining his number one and Wayne Wonder steadily rising), the importance of those who nurtured the artform was not being ignored. Although the audience which turned out to the symposium was rather small, it was certainly an attempt to 'wake di town and tell di people'.
