Toasting Jamaican Music : U-Roy, Who Lives in Santa Ana, Will Bring His Message of Unity to Long Beach Festival of African and Caribbean Music

“When I was young,” says Jamaican deejay U-Roy, “I didn’t think I would ever live in the United States.”

When asked just how he came from the Kingston ghetto of his youth to an apartment complex in Santa Ana, he is a little hazy on the details. He has some music business friends in Los Angeles and, well, he just kind of settled in about five years ago.

He does his best to simulate some of the comforts of home. Every morning, for instance, he drives to Newport Beach to shop for fresh fish. And he tours heavily in the United States, so living in California (rather than Jamaica) comes in handy.

“I just chill and make the best of life,” he says.

U-Roy will be part of a packed lineup of attractions at FESTAC--the Festival of African and Caribbean arts and music--Sunday at the Rainbow Lagoon in Long Beach. Others on the bill include Trinidadian soca star David Rudder, a quartet of salsa veterans billed as the Salsa All Stars, African reggae singer Mutabaruka and Zairean soukous star Tabu Ley Rochereau, a veteran of the original FESTAC in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977.

U-Roy (born Ewart Beckford) may make his home in Orange County these days, but Jamaica remains close to his heart. He travels back often (“If I don’t go back to Jamaica, it’s like I turn my back on my country”) and owns a sound system there, a mobile deejay setup that travels to various neighborhood dances throughout the island nation. Such systems were a fixture in Jamaica in the ‘60s; U-Roy, now 52, first joined one as a deejay at age 14.

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The deejays at that time were local stars in their own right, adding flamboyant introductions to the records and “toasting” over the instrumental sections. U-Roy’s big break came when he was heard by King Tubby, who owned one of the most successful sound systems in Jamaica. Tubby is credited with inventing “dub,” the spacey, echo-heavy, bass-driven remixes of top reggae hits.

“That’s when things started picking up for me,” U-Roy recalls. The dub versions allowed him to toast at length, and the inventiveness of his raps quickly earned him a reputation. Record producer Duke Reid heard him at a dance and wasted no time getting him into a recording studio.

His first three releases were huge hits in Jamaica, holding down the top three spots on the chart for six weeks. “Wear You to the Ball,” which went to No. 1, recently was covered by UB40.

U-Roy was surprised to find himself a recording star.

“Before that, the deejay business was not something that people take seriously,” he says, his thick patois intact despite his time in the States. “I never really took it serious . . . . People weren’t really used to this stuff.”

His rhythmic sense and distinctive voice, with its gravelly exclamations of “Wow” and “Yeah,” have been much imitated, but international success has been elusive for U-Roy. Still, he continues to have spells of success, and his recent recordings for Washington-based RAS Records have been well-received.

In any case, he is widely recognized for his pioneer role in the breakthrough of toasting, the precursor to modern “dance hall” music (the biggest dance hall star, Shabba Ranks, is a graduate of U-Roy’s Jamaican sound system).

Toasting also is considered by many to be a major influence on rap, a view U-Roy shares. But although he enjoys much of the music in dance hall and rap, he sometimes is dismayed by the lyric content.

“The only thing I want from these kids is to be more positive,” he says. “There’s a lot of young kids who follow whatever these guys say or do.”

Lyrics that glorify guns or are disrespectful to women are his biggest concerns. “The music should be uplifting for the youths. That’s only what I’m saying. Whatever I say, it’s just life as I see it.”

In his own lyrics, “I just talk about unity with people. I don’t really try to put down people or anything like that. Violence is very ugly, and love is very lovely. I never been to college or anything like that, but I have some common sense, and what I learn I just make the best of it, you know.”

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He is encouraged by the current acceptance of reggae in the United States, particularly on college campuses. “I think it’s a good time for music. When I started as a deejay, I didn’t see Americans getting on to reggae at the time. I didn’t see the people feeling the music.”

As for his own fluctuating fortunes in the recording business--well, with prototype Rasta patience, he takes them in stride. “The music business is something that wants to go up and down. I’m a survivor, and I can be comfortable with whatever comes.”

* FESTAC takes place Sunday from 11 a.m. to dusk at the Rainbow Lagoon on Shoreline Drive near the Long Beach Convention Center. $10-$18. (310) 474-8685.