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Musik Reggae/Dancehall Roots, real roots reggae
Musik Reggae/Dancehall Roots, real roots reggae
| Roots, real roots reggae |
| Skrivet av Rikard Rehnbergh |
| 2010-08-10 22:33 |
 The legendary Bunny Wailer The first day of the 10th anniversary of Uppsala Reggae Festival started as usual; mass arrests on presumptuous ganja smokers (some 20-25% do not even have it in their blood), massive queues and a lot of hassle getting passes and bands. It didn’t, though, end as previous years, in sunshine and clear skies, but in a rare never-ending (so it seemed, at least!) rain which did not stop Anthony B from showing who's the new prince of conscious reggae/ragga! The first day line-up is usually the weakest of the three, and some say this was also the case in 2010. Besides a lot of Swedish reggae , there were the legendary London band Misty In Roots (who gave quite a lively performance) and the German (although he likes to see himself as a Jamaican man) Gentleman, who made a rewind/pull-up after just a couple of beats in to his show to deliver a strong and firm message to the around 8000-heads large crowd: "Now, this is the first reggae festival I've been to where I don't smell any ganja smoke in the air. Are you afraid of the Swedish police, have they got you all paranoid. Light up your spliff, man!"  Otherwise, the festival area looked much better than previous years, apart from being nearly all commercial (a famous Swedish kiosk and a multinational cigarette brand, for example). However, at the far end one could also find some political parties and youth organisations, and NGO's such as Naturskyddsföreningen and Latinamerikagrupperna. From the latter, Margareta, who's been working with and for the organisation some 20 years said: "It's a really nice atmosphere here, the younger festival goers are so polite and well-behaved. And we don't push any political message down their throats, they're welcome to just sit down, have a cup of coffee, read a magazine or just a chat. If we can get the message across, it's just a bonus!" On the Friday there was a manifestation taking place at the festival site to commemorate the 65th anniversary and victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. air force in August 6, 1945. This is somewhat typical for the organisers, and private couple, Yared and Adiam, to be peace promoters and always include love, peace and harmony in the festival program. Apart from that, the Friday went on in the sign of roots, real roots reggae. The very tight 5-man band Midnite from the Virgin Island (a former U.K., nowadays U.S. colony, close to the Bahamas) of St. Croix (the Holy Cross) went on the main stage as first act of the evening. The group's foundation rests on the brothers Vaughn (vocals) and Ron (various instruments and production) Benjamin's shoulders. One could hear some complaints from the audience that the performance was too monotonous, but eh, that's the whole idea, like! Their music is very much like an all night long Nyabingi-Bobochanty session – where the monotonous drumming and chanting is the key to reach divinity and spritituality, trance and harmony – but with an expanded and enlarged set of instruments. On the side of the crowd, Urbanlife bumped in to Anette from Oslo, with a Mauritian flag in her hand and standing beside a baby pram with her 4-year old daughter Angelene in it: "I've been coming here for the last three years, because this is a really nice festival, and we don't have any reggae festivals in Norway. I would hate to see it ending next year."  Next on stage was the Abyssinian vocal trio, with a Swedish back-up band though. The Abyssinians might be old and legendary, but when they move their gear onstage, they sure don't look it. It must be the music which keeps them "forever young". They started out around siblings and childhood friends, the Manning brothers from Jonestown, Kingston 12. However, meeting Donald Manning (left) backstage after the concert, it became clear that some of them today live in Florida, and not Jamaica. And Mr Manning even told Urbanlife a secret: "I want to live in another place, I want to go to Africa, and live there. The World's for everyone, ya know!" Last, but not least, on the main stage, entered one of the princes of reggae: Bunny Wailer. Dressed in a long white robe and a Rastafarian scarf around his shoulders, he started off with the glorious Rastaman Chant from the classic Wailers album Burnin' from 1973. The atmosphere became ecclesiastical and electric, as if all the burdens, sorrows and sufferings from the African-American-Caribbeans being oppressed today, tomorrow and yesterday by the white European and North American man shone through in Mr Wailer's voice. After that mesmerising start, the concert had, unfortunately, difficulties catching up again, until the end, when Wailer sang another one of The Wailers many milestones: Trenchtown Rock (Kingston 12 again, has ever, in musical history, a smaller section of a city had a bigger impact on the world music?). Last day of the festival (hopefully not the last day ever) was strictly dancehall and ragga. Jah Cure got on stage late, and got the whole program out of phase- but surely all the ladies found it worthwhile awaiting him and his slick looks, soft voice, and smooth style of reggae. Cure made three albums while serving a 15-year prison sentence – he has claimed his innocence since day one – and one could say that it perhaps brought out some creativity in him. The Urbanlife editor, Andy Collins, commented the case outside the press tent: "Well, look at Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and Jomo Kenyatta, they were all doing time but at the same time doing some serious freedom fighting!" After Cure followed the Italian singer Alborosie whom, after the awkward arrest in Uppsala 2008, wrote the tune Operation Uppsala. One would think that he was up for a boycott of the festival, but no. He explained with one word after the show why he returned this year: Yared! The third evening act was Busy Signal, being close to the very opposite of Jah Cure and Alborosie, he ran wild onstage while delivering his gangsta lyrics and dancehall riddims.  The new prince of reggae? Last man standing was the Boboashanti Rasta Keith Blair, a.k.a. Anthony B, from the parish Trelawny (north of the island, in-between Saint Ann & Saint James). Now, B has performed many times in Sweden, one can recall the classical concerts of 2005 and 2007 in Uppsala, when he “killed” the festival on the opening night – no other artist managed to come up to the same high standard thereafter. Though, yours truly has been around for so long that he remembers B's first gig in Sweden, a Sunday, of all days, at Sturecompagniet, of all places, at the end of the nineties, when and where a young and highly energetic B showed the world why he'd one day become the new prince of reggae. As he did on the final concert of the festival. This time, however, with his band The Roots Harmonics, the Uppsala crowd met a more mellow and low-keyed Anthony B. Gone, in some parts, was the more abrasive, militant and high-pitched Anthony B, whom some listeners, yours truly included, miss a lot. But B (as in Bolt, both Usain and the flashes that swept across the dark Uppsala sky during his performance) did without any competition at the goal, the most energetic concert during the festival. He delivered most of his hits from the latter years, and ended, programmatically, with the tune Police, and the text goes: Who want the dancehall fi stop? Police! Who no want fi see herbs a shop? Police! Who kill the youths pon the block? Police! Them no want fi hear truth… Rikard Rehnbergh |