Half Pint Intends to Measure Up

Half Pint’s “Greetings (to All Ragamuffins)” was the Jamaican equivalent of Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”--a record that went beyond hit status to become a catch phrase and a social phenomenon. The 1986 smash sparked a number of follow-up “Ragamuffin” songs, and other artists freely borrowed the propulsive, bass-driven rhythm for their own music.

Even the meaning of ragamuffin changed as a result--from a term denoting a ragged street person to one suggesting a badge of honor worn by those who weather adversity.

“You have ragamuffins who can live and bear the whole way of life whether the time is hard or the time gets easy. You just live life as it comes,” said Half Pint, who will perform today at the Pacific Amphitheatre as part of the Reggae Sunsplash festival.

“Songs like that happen to me when I see people in rage, and sometimes people should just be their own self, take time out. Things don’t have to be so drastic. Everybody has sad times and their blues, and nobody can cure it but themselves.”

Half Pint, 27, believes that the song’s theme also applies to the current state of reggae music, whose stagnancy he blames on younger artists’ settling for remaking old hits and covering familiar ground. Half Pint sees himself and fellow young upstarts as the solution.

“The real deal is when one expresses (his) own views,” he said. “Youths like me, Ziggy Marley and a couple of others believe in their own selves, and they don’t really have to be like one who is imitating or walking in the next person’s shoes. For me, to be yourself is to be only the best you can be.”

Born Linton Roberts, Half Pint began singing when he was a child, performing in school and church choirs in Kingston. He made his first trip to the recording studio in 1980, before he turned 20.

His first single, “Sally,” wasn’t released until 1983, but his second, “Winsome,” brought Half Pint his first major Jamaican hit--and a delayed-reaction kicker. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards heard the song a couple of years later and recorded the tune (retitled “Too Rude”) on the Rolling Stones’ 1987 album “Dirty Work.”

The Reggae Sunsplash tour also features Steel Pulse from Britain and also Jamaican veterans Sugar Minott and Marcia Griffiths. Half Pint and vocalist Sophia George represent the younger contingent. Although many young Jamaican artists are working in the deejay style--similar to American rap--Half Pint has aligned himself with the message music of reggae’s originators.

“That music which Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and others have been doing is where my conscience is at,” he said. “Ziggy Marley, myself and a couple of others are really intending to restore whatever was there from the beginning. The real factor is to keep the revolutionary concept, which we all know that reggae music consists of, by relating and revealing the true facts of life at home and abroad.”

Reggae Sunsplash, featuring Half Pint, Steel Pulse, Sugar Minott, Marcia Griffiths, Sophia George, the 809 Band and Tommy Cowan, begins at 5 p.m. today at the Pacific Amphitheatre, 100 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $15 to $21.50. Information: (714) 634-1300.