Reggae Revolution

OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES the popularity of reggae music has expanded beyond the borders of politically torn Jamaica. Even at Harvard, nearly 20,000 persons turned out for a benefit concert highlighting Bob Marley and the Wailers at Soldiers Field stadium last summer. A new album released this month by Marley, the prince of reggae, shows why the music has become so popular. Marley's voice has never been stronger, his message more poignant or his instrumentation more subtle and complex.

Survival is Marley's most political album to date, perhaps a result of the deteriorating political situation in Jamaica, where the ruling socialist party has failed to improve the living conditions of the burnt-out ghettos like Kingston's Trenchtown.

Marley has always been a revolutionary but Survival indicates he now is committed fully to the use of violence to achieve his revolutionary aims. This breaks with his religious ideology--Rastafarianism--which usually extolls pacifism. Marley is a Rasta, a sect whose members believe they are the real lost tribes of Israel, and who revere Haile Selassie, former Ethiopian emporer, as their God. They smoke ganja ritually as a key part of their religion. Rastafarians have always been a peaceful folk. Marley's decision to endorse violence despite his Rastafarian commitment indicates how desperate he thinks the situation has grown in Jamaica.

Marley combines his advocacy of violence with a warning that the eleventh hour approaches for his people, that each year fewer blacks object to their oppression. Politically, Marley's album will probably have a considerable effect in Jamaica. Though many in the U.S. view him as merely a talented composer, Marley is considered a leader by most Jamaicans and a prophet by many.

Survival consists of good, basic reggae. Marley's rhythm guitar playing is as good as ever. His female back-up group, the "I Threes," has improved and the percussion hammers with greater variety. Marley relies often on the harmonica, using it in original ways. Junior Marvin dazzles on lead guitar, interpreting fine intricate melodies though other instrumentation often buries his talent. (Marvin brought the crowd to its feet last summer with his acid-rock, Hendrix-style riffs; when Marley came out, Marvin toned down.)

THE ALBUM BEGINS with "Wake Up and Live"--pure reggae, although Marley adds more brass than usual. The lyrics are simple yet stirring.

We're more than sand on seashores

We're more than numbers

The tune is reminiscent of Peter Tosh's "Get Up, Stand Up." The note of class violence rings clear in Marley's warning--couched in Jamaican dialect--to the Jamaican elite:

You see one one cocoa for a basket

Well, you used to live today, tomorrow you're buried in a casket.

The next song, "Africa Unite," shows Marley's increasing concern for his homeland where he hopes to eventually lead his people in a mass migration across the Atlantic.

Africa Unite because your children want to go home

Africa Unite, because we're moving out of Babylon

Marley and his fellow Rastafarians use the word "Babylon" to describe the modern, U.S.-influenced Jamaican society. The songs on this album emphasize a historical perspective of Marley's battle against Babylon. The album cover features a quote attributed to Marcus Garvey, the late Jamaican black leader: "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots." The inner-sleeve has a centuries-old diagram illustrating how to best pack black Africans into a slave ship. Marley's songs elaborate on these themes of black exploitation.

Marley's great popularity makes suspect his authenticity as a revolutionary. Yet he continues to be the most popular and respected songwriter among black Jamaicans as well as members of industrialized nations. The third cut, "One Drop" shows why Marley has an attraction that slices through age, class and culture. It is a sweet, simple, pretty song about faith and goodness.

But "Ride Natty Ride," is the best on the album. Marley warns the Rastafari that unless they struggle, their way of life will soon be swept away by the forces of modernization. Once again, Marley refers to the need for violence.

Now the people gather on the beach and the leader try to make a speech. But Dread (Rastafari) again tell them it's too late; fire is burning, man, pull your own weight.

This renewed endorsement of violence serves as Marley's own response--if not as the catalyst--to the recent increase in street-fighting in Trenchtown ghettos.

The final song on side one, "Ambush," is Marley's reflection on an incident that occurred when he tolerated the Jamaican political system. Marley had agreed to stage a benefit concert for labor party leader, Michael Manley. Days before the concert, professional gunmen ambushed Marley and his friends, killing one person. Rumors circulated that the attack had been a move by Manley to throw suspicion on his rivals just before the national election. Marley opens the song by mocking the values of the Jamaican power elite. He then asserts that his power to rally black Jamaicans against the system was the reason for the plot against his life.

On side two, Marley continues to blast Bablyon. He points to the American insistence on going to the moon while Jamaicans went hungry as an example of the flaws in ruling class morality. In "Zimbabwe" Marley sings out, proclaiming once again the need for force.

Brothers you're right, you're right, you're so right. We'll have to fight, we gonna fight...Soon we'll find out who are the real revolutionaries.

Marley's voice sounds sad, resigned. Violence works against everything he believes except his desire to end the brutal exploitation of his people.

Survivors--the title cut--is the last song on the album. Marley calls his black brethren the survivors of centuries of hard living, urging them to continue the struggle; to continue to survive "in this age of scientific atrocity and atomic misphilosophy."

IF MARLEY continues to record albums like Survivors, he'll survive quite nicely, and with him, the Rastafarian ideology that gives him his direction. His popularity in places as diverse as Africa and North America proves he has struck a common chord that cuts across class and culture. It's impossible to know whether Marley's popularity in the United States is fed by appreciation or curiosity. The music, fortunately, can be enjoyed on either level.