Reggae Beat Goes On for a New Generation : Music: The Jamaican-inspired sounds of peace and love and unity popularized in the ‘70s continue to have a big following today.
It’s not . . . BOOM . . . hard to tell . . . BOOM . . . that it’s reggae music . . . BOOM . . . that is blaring . . . BOOM . . . from the large speakers . . . BOOM . . . in the Redondo Beach nightclub.
Not hard at all. In fact, the Jamaican music known for its rhythmic beat and meaningful lyrics is booming all over the South Bay. Popularized by Bob Marley in the 1970s as counterculture music with a message, reggae continues to spread its tales of peace and love and unity far from the Kingston ghettos where it was born.
“It’s good-feeling music,” said James Bauman, a 44-year-old Hermosa Beach student and reggae fan who has dreadlocks hanging below his waist. “It talks about equal rights and justice. There’s an anti-apartheid message. We’re all one people.”
Carl Levy, a former reggae artist from Jamaica who now lives in the South Bay, says most area reggae fans are youths not truly tuned in to the music’s message. However, he says reggae’s popularity, even among those who just dance to the beat, demonstrates the music’s power.
“It is there for you to participate or not,” he said. “If you care to delve further, you find there is more there. It can take you on its own trip.”
Reggae in the South Bay can take many forms--mass gatherings like the annual California Reggae Splash at Cal State Dominguez Hills, special reggae nights at area nightclubs and beach cruisers with their stereos blaring and their bumpers decorated with reggae slogans.
At the Cal State Dominguez Hills velodrome last month, there was not an Olympic cyclist in sight on the day of the Reggae Splash, the South Bay’s largest reggae event. Instead, a crowd adorned with tie-dye and dreadlocks, berets and African prints swayed to the hypnotic sound. The music had seemingly taken control.
The concert-goers were just as likely to be blond surfers as Caribbean transplants, just as likely those who voted for John F. Kennedy as those who can’t yet vote.
“The crowd is undescribable,” said Mark Richards, a 21-year-old from Huntington Beach who said reggae’s pro-black messages reach him even though he’s white. “It’s a complete gathering of cultures.”
The concerts also draw the reggae version of capitalism: vendors hawking incense, cassettes, African carvings and a host of other products bearing the symbolic African colors green, yellow, red and black. Filling the air was the smell of jerk chicken, curried goat and other Jamaican delicacies prepared at makeshift restaurants. A man with a clipboard plied the crowd collecting signatures to get a Hollywood Walk of Fame star for Marley, reggae’s standard-bearer who died in 1981.
Reggae’s lyrics can be profound and political, risque or religious. Marley’s albums would mix love songs with calls for a back-to-Africa movement with dirges lamenting slavery, apartheid and the never-ending succession of armed conflicts across the world.
“Give praise to Jah,” Rita Marley, widow of reggae’s biggest sensation, yelled to the cheering crowd at Dominguez Hills last month, using the Jamaican abbreviation for Jehovah or God.
“One good thing about music,” she sang later in one of her husband’s old hits, “when it hits you feel no pain.”
Reggae themes are common on the Jeeps, Volkswagen vans and other beach cruisers parked at Dockweiler State Beach--condensed to bumper stickers. “One Love,” says a sticker on a beat-up convertible from the ‘60s, referring to Marley’s song by the same name calling for universal love. “Kaya,” says another, using the Jamaican slang for marijuana that was popularized in another Marley tune.
“Irie,” the Jamaican slang for feeling good, appears frequently on the T-shirts and posters peddled in downtown Hermosa Beach. Marley’s likeness is popular, too, whether on the six-foot posters at Restyle Too or the T-shirts sold at Greeko’s Sandals & Wearing Apparel.
Nightclubs from San Pedro to El Segundo that blare Madonna and M. C. Hammer on most nights often reserve at least one evening a week for music by reggae artists like Freddie McGregor, Yellowman and the Itals.
Other reggae venues are the Reggae Splash, which has brought top acts and thousands of listeners to Dominguez Hills for four straight years, and the Strand Supper and Dance Club in Redondo Beach. There, such reggae notables as Jimmy Cliff, Eek-a-Mouse and Toots and the Maytals have stopped on their U.S. tours.
“We’re down by the beach, and reggae fits in with these people’s lifestyle,” said Billy Manning, who books local reggae acts for the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, which earned its reputation in the 1960s as a haven for jazz. “Reggae is really popular at the beach. It’s timeless music. The stuff they sing about is current. The music is so relaxing but it’s danceable.”
The Red Onion in Redondo Beach holds its Beach and Surf Party every Sunday, a combination of rock, reggae and what it calls “classic beachin’ music.” At Naja’s, a pub on the Redondo Beach Pier that serves more than 700 brands of beer and a wide variety of music, Jamaican Red Stripe is popular at the bar and reggae at the jukebox. There is even a spot where Japanese sushi and Jamaican reggae mix--Paradise Sushi on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach, where a Jamaican flag hangs next to advertisements for Asahi and Sapporo draft beers.
Black pumps and silk shirts are omnipresent, and upscale is in, when Fashions Night Club at the Redondo Beach pier spins pop dance tunes. But on Thursdays, when it’s reggae night, the looser the clothing, the longer the hair--the more one can do to show that one does not work in a law office--the better.
Reggae music is so unpredictable that one must always be on guard, enthusiasts of the music say. Slow love songs can suddenly erupt into the passionate beat that is reggae. It’s that beat that grabs you, fans say.
“To many, the beat is good and that’s all,” Levy said. “But for every individual that stops at that stage, there is another one or two that takes reggae music a little further. Reggae emphasizes peace and love. That’s for everybody.”
THE VOCABULARY OF REGGAE
Here are terms that may come in handy while investigating the South Bay’s reggae scene:
Ska--A hybrid of jazz and rhythm and blues popular in Jamaica in the 1950s and considered the predecessor of rock steady and, later, reggae.
Jah--Jehovah or God.
Rasta--Follower of Rastafarianism. Ras is the name given to Amharic royalty in Ethiopia. Tafari is the family name of the late emperor Haile Selassie, crowned in 1930 and embraced by Rastas as a black savior.
Ganja--Marijuana. Also known as herb and kaya .
Irie--Rasta greeting. Good feeling. In harmony with nature. A frequent cry at reggae concerts.
Dreadlocks--The matted locks worn by Rastas. They are seen as connecting the believer with the lion, Rastafarianism’s symbol.