Building on what Jamaican reggae and ska artists, such as Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, had done before in the late 1970s and 80s a new wave of British ska and reggae acts sprang up, form the ska bands on Jerry Dammers’ Two Tone record label to the homegrown reggae acts such as Janet Kay who was hailed by the Guinness book of records as the ‘First British Female Reggae Singer to top the UK charts’ (although this proclamation was premature as her hit Silly Games only reached number two).[1] The most significant of the ska bands of the late 1970s to the early 1980s undoubtedly The Specials who, like others before them such as Jimmy Cliff, weren’t afraid of tackling social issues in their music. However, unlike those who had gone before The Specials weren’t an underground act with limited recognition like Junior Murvin, nor did they dance around the issues they addressed. They tackled their subject matter head on whether it was racism, the economic situation of the working class in Thatcher’s Britain and the complacency of said working class. Other bands on the Two Tone record label included The Beat; whose saxophone player, Saxa aka Lionel Augustus Martin, was Jamaican and had played on records of the original ska artists like Desmond Dekker and Prince Buster; The Selecter, whose hits included On My Radio, and Madness whose success would survive the end of Two Tones relevance in the pop music world. The black and white checks of British ska was no accident, it was symbolic of the fact that the majority of bands in the second wave of ska were mixed race and their message was one of anti-racism, as shown on The Specials records such as Doesn’t Make it Alright and Racist Friend. The period in which The Specials recorded the majority of their output was one marked by a ratcheting up of racial tensions, Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech inn 1968 bought the subject of race hurtling back in to the public conscious with the National Front organising marches up and down the country and anti-racist anti-fascist groups organising counter marches against them.[2] By the end of the 1970s the question of controlling immigration had been wrested away from the National Front and their ilk and had become an accepted part of British politics and the police, especially the Metropolitan police, were targeting black communities with the stereotype of the black ‘mugger’ being imported into the UK providing a pretext for the police’s action against said black communities.[3] The second wave ska bands stood against that, Powell claimed that black and white could not exist in this country without strife yet there they were, resplendent in black and white checks giving lie to Powell’s claims with their unity.

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[1] Lloyd Bradley, Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital, (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2013) 209

[2] Mike Phillips & Trevor Phillips, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain, (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1998) 265-367

[3] Mike Phillips & Trevor Phillips (1998) 266, 302-303

Reggae and Rastafarian culture have long gone hand in hand. The most obvious example of this I can think of is the song By the Rivers of Babylon, an old Jewish song about the longing for Israel that was repurposed to be about longing for the ancestral home of Africa and the place that it has in Afro-Caribbean culture. It was a minor hit in the UK for a Jamaican Reggae group in the 1970s and a much bigger hit for Bony M in the same decade. In the Melodians’ version, less so the Bony M version as that was decontextualised from Rastafarianism with the group being the project of a German record producer, of the song Zion ceases to refer to the Jewish homeland of Israel and the song becomes about longing for a home in Africa that the ancestors of Afro-Caribbean people were taken away from as slaves drawing a direct comparison between the diasporas of both peoples. Rastafarianism has its roots in the prophetic writings of journalist and writer Marcus Garvey who wrote that Afro-Caribbean people should ‘look to Africa for the crowning of a black King, he shall be the redeemer’.[1] The black King that is being referred to is believed to be Haile Selassie whose 1930 coronation as Emperor of Ethiopia was seen to be the fulfilment of said prophecy and who was known as Ras Tafari before ascending the throne.[2] Though it’s connection to Haile Selassie and Ethiopia would break down with Garvey being highly critical of the Ethiopian monarch during the Second World War Rastafarianism did not go away, in fact it had a profound affect on black Britain. In the British Caribbean colonies Afro-Caribbean citizens were taught that they were British subjects and that Britain was the ‘mother country’ instilling a sense of national pride to the aforementioned ‘mother country’ that stood in stark contrast to the racism faced when the Windrush generation arrived in Britain, answering the call that had come from Britain to help rebuild after the Second World War. In Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multicultural Britain by Mike Phillips and Trevor Phillips there are interviews with men who migrated to Britain on Empire Windrush that show both hope for a better future and acceptance but also the harsh reception they faced upon arrival with ‘they don’t belong here’ and ‘why don’t they go home’ being a familiar refrain coupled with a grudging acceptance that they were there to do a job but never a true acceptance of their presence in Britain.[3] Faced with such a reception there was a turn away from idolising Great Britain as a benevolent ‘mother country’ towards Rastafarianism as a cultural heading, particuarly among second generation migrants who could not comprehend their parents’ admiration of the country that had failed to embrace them and was often outright hostile.

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[1] Marcus Garvey as quoted in Eddie Chambers, Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain (London: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2017) 77

[2] Eddie Chambers, Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain (London: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2017) 78

[3] Mike Philips, Trevor Philips, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multicultural Britain (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1998) 81-82

Music was an integral part of the lives of not only Afro-Caribbean migrants but migrants and immigrants from all over the globe who had found themselves living in the capital. In his introduction to Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital member of pioneering music group Soul II Soul Jazzy B writes that music was ever present in his house while growing up in the capital with the music becoming their connection to the Caribbean and the people there while also serving as an escape from working class life and all the pressures that comes with it.[1]

The first real wave of music to come in from the Caribbean to Britain was Calypso. Lord Kitchener (it was common for Caribbean singers to give themselves such names, see also Lord Tanamo and Lord Creator) was one of the first calypsonians to gain recognition in Britain. Already a star in the Caribbean, Kitchener (real name Aldwyn Roberts) had hardly stepped off the Empire Windrush when a microphone was placed in front of him for him to sing, among others, his ode to the capital “London is the Place for me”, a seemingly spur of the moment performance that of a song that had actually been written weeks before in anticipation of appealing to a west Indian audience that had been in London since the end of the First World War.[2] In the 1950s record companies started to realise there was a market for calypso and started to have musicians such as the aforementioned Lord Kitchener along with his contemporaries; Lord Beginner, Roaring Lion and Bill Rogers, fellow expats who came to London hoping to make a living through singing calypso.[3] The record companies had initially hoped to sell Calypso to the Caribbean, competing with American companies who were doing the same thing, but soon found a home audience, first the audience of black communities in Britain but then Calypso started to find a mainstream audience of white listeners in both the UK and USA with celebrities such as Harry Belafonte coming from the genre thus priming the pump for later crossover of Afro-Caribbean music with mainstream white audiences, though it must be remarked that the American version of calypso was far more widely recognised than the London variety, as influential as it was.[4] Calypso itself however was a bit of a flash in the pan, many big American stars failed to gain traction for very long with calypso releases with the beginnings of rock and roll starting to take hold so the Brtish music behemoth EMI decided with so many stars underperforming their London calypsonians were no longer bankable so calypso was relegated back to the independent labels.[5]

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[1] Lloyd Bradley, Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital, (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2013)  7-9

[2] Bradley, (2013) 19-20

[3] Bradley, (2013) 36-37

[4] Bradley, (2013) 37-38

[5] Bradley, (2013) 38-42

Firstly, I would like to start by saying what cultural history is not. Cultural history is not social history, there is overlap but they are distinct from one another. Social history uses social theories to interpret records of the past in those terms and is heavily influenced by Marxism. Cultural history builds on social history in taking an abstract view on the past and often telling history from below.[1] To define cultural history I feel it would be helpful to first define culture, a task not easily done as culture is an elusive word that means many different things depending on context. However, if I were to be so bold as to make an attempt, insofar as it relates to the topic I am covering, culture is the concepts which bind otherwise disparate individuals into groups with a shared identity. Cultural history seeks to gain some understanding of these concepts, where they come from, how these concepts have influenced the actions of people within those groups and how minority groups within a society have kept their culture alive in order to maintain a distinct identity in an alien, and possibly oppressive, land. Perhaps the earliest form of cultural history would be art history, a distinct discipline in its own right, which seeks to draw conclusions from art about the period.[2] Applying the same process to popular culture is a relatively recent phenomena, as is popular culture itself. For example, Cheryl Deedman uses 19^th century literature tailored for and marketed to women to extrapolate conclusions about the lives of women in the period, how they coped with the hardships they faced and what they aspired to. I believe importance of cultural history lies in combating essentialism, examining how a concept could be viewed as fundamentally opposed to a culture when in fact cultures have mixed, influenced, assimilated and been assimilated throughout human existence. Culture is not a rigid thing to be maintained at all costs as many right-wing pundits and politicians would have it but something fluid and ever changing that does not reject outsiders but welcomes them. Cultural history examines how cultures develop over time gathering influence from other culture, from events and from the movement of peoples across the globe, by examining how cultures have changed in the past we resist the narrative that cultures cannot change in the present day. In the coming blog posts I hope to explore the a part of Afro-Caribbean history as it pertains to the music created by West Indian artist, how that music was transported with the people when they migrated elsewhere (the greatest focus will be on Afro-Caribbean people in Britain) and how that music was exported around the world while also touching on the importance of that music had in a cultural sense to those migrants living far away. The musical styles from the Caribbean I will be focusing on are Calypso, which has roots all over the Caribbean but is mainly associated with Trinidad, Ska and Reggae, which are associated with Jamaica in particular.

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[1] John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, (New York: Routledge, 2015) 205

[2] Tosh (2015) 206

Firstly, I would like to start by saying what cultural history isn’t. Cultural history is not social history, there is overlap but they are distinct from one another. Social history uses social theories to interpret records of the past in those terms and is heavily influenced by Marxism. Cultural history builds on social history in taking an abstract view on the past and often telling history from below.[1] To define cultural history I feel it would be helpful to first define culture, a task not easily done as culture is an elusive word that means many different things depending on context. However, if I were to be so bold as to make an attempt, insofar as it relates to the topic I am covering, culture is the concepts which bind otherwise disparate individuals into groups with a shared identity. Cultural history seeks to gain some understanding of these concepts, where they come from, how these concepts have influenced the actions of people within those groups and how minority groups within a society have kept their culture alive in order to maintain a distinct identity in an alien, and possibly oppressive, land. Perhaps the earliest form of cultural history would be art history, a distinct discipline in its own right, which seeks to draw conclusions from art about the period.[2] Applying the same process to popular culture is a relatively recent phenomena, as is popular culture itself. For example, Cheryl Deedman uses 19^th century literature tailored for and marketed to women to extrapolate conclusions about the lives of women in the period, how they coped with the hardships they faced and what they aspired to. I believe importance of lies in combating essentialism, examining how a concept could be viewed as fundamentally opposed a particular culture when in fact cultures have mixed, influenced, assimilated and been assimilated throughout human existence. Culture is not a rigid thing to be maintained at all costs as many right-wing pundits and politicians would have it but something fluid and ever changing that doesn’t reject outsiders but welcomes them. Cultural history examines how cultures develop over time gathering influence from other culture, from events and from the movement of peoples across the globe, by examining how cultures have changed in the past we resist the narrative that cultures cannot change in the present day.

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[1] John Tosh ‘The Pursuit of History’ (New York: Routledge, 2015) p.205

[2] Tosh (2015) p.206

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.