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Roots, Reggae, Riddim and Rain

The Ghetto Sound Studio in Phillipi, Cape Town, is the only studio in the townships. An analogue reel to reel flashing a brash smile at the city's digerati. The sound is warm, the studio buzzing and this weekend they launch their latest project, Reggae da Jazz. Iain Harris asks if reggae still putting its message where its mouth is?

Exactly a month ago, the grand Gilberto Gil, Brazilian superstar and minister of Culture, was in Maputo. He sang Marley's Every Thing's Gonna be Alright and the audience chanted and waved lighters in the rainy sky. The rain stopped. There was healing and belief and liberation in the air. 

Is there reggae beyond Marley? Gilberto Gil is one of the greatest lyricists in the world, and yet the best conduit for his message is Marley. Marley seems to say it and elicit it better than anybody else. At the Cape Town Festival this year, the Mikanic Swing Orchestra, fronted by Zolani Mahola (star of Tsha Tsha on Ya Mamphela, vocalist for Freshly Ground) and Nick Turner (formerly Sons of Trout) sang Redemption Song, resplendent with Jannie van Tonder's aching trombone. Some young Angolan students in the audience, fresh in the country and adjusting to new language and new cultural habits, jumped up and started dancing and whooping. Because Marley makes you feel at home no matter how far you are from it. 

Reggae is the people's messenger. It is the people's voice. Or so it was. If you took a listen to the reggae emerging in a vacuous Europe today, at bands like Gentlemen from Germany, you would say that reggae is a cheap commodity: Politically sanitised to sell it to the politically apathetic. What, after all, could the comfortable German's have to protest against other than failed traffic lights and a welfare system that no longer simply gives them money from a hole in the wall? Ah well, all's well that sells well. Just look at Lucky Dube.

In South Africa reggae has had a powerful history. In Steve Gordon's Talkin` Bout Survival - The Repatriation of Reggae he writes that "reggae's arrival circa 1977 injected a new pan-African thinking and flavour into popular culture in the 70s and 80s… It exploded with meaning for South Africans at a time when the local recording industry was actively complying with apartheid's agenda… It was no longer just a music, it was Message at Work…" Steve quotes a Xhosa Rastafarian in 1981:`I prefer Rasta music, because it gives me the full story."

And so it was one of the greatest ironies of 2002 that Red Bull energy drink produced the big Back to Our Rootz reggae festival, held, of all places, at Century City. "In the heart of Babylon," somebody chuckled over an exaggerated joint. There was an uncomfortable complicity here, a sense that the full story wasn't being told. The gig was packed and Burning Spear was great. But you couldn't hear or see the message for the smoke in the air and the joints in the mouths. And you couldn't break away from the thought that this was nothing more than a fabulous nostalgia trip. `Rasta is not an -ism', declared the Wailers over several Hail Marley's while throwing back Red Bull. It wasn't quite putting your message where your mouth is. 

Reggae bands like Sons of Selassie, fronted by Bra Manchie (who also runs a music project in Elsie's River to get kids off the streets), and Spear of the Nation (which featured Ghetto Sound Studio's Wakhile Xhalisa and his brother Mkhuseli) took on Cape Town's serious issues in their time. Spear is long gone and up until just a couple of years ago Sons was still a brilliant social commentator. Now there's ragga/dancehall man Theba, about to release independently his debut solo album. His message on social issues affecting the youth, particularly AIDS is strong. `AIDS is a killer, just like Hitler", he sings. It's brash, uncomfortable and effective. Then there's Black Dillinger's reggae rap and Sugar (from Ghetto Muffin). Both of them are bringing out harmonies and soul contrasted with hard, KO uppercut lyrics. 

"Reggae is still relevant," insists Wakhile Xhalisa, bass player and music boss of the Ghetto Sound Studio. "And reggae is not just Rasta." By way of example there is his wife Ajita, a German and a Hare Krishna whose talk is a dashing mix of Irie speak, German lilt and Krishna calmness. She's the mobilising force behind the studio, the spokesperson and the spark. 

As Vince Kolbe, the Godfather of Cape Town, will state at any opportunity, we are a creolised society. Nothing is cut and dried, nothing is just one thing. Each and every thing is many things at the same time. 

It's a good way to describe the Ghetto Sound Studio. Bra Winston Mankunku rehearses there often and has been doing some recordings on the warm bassy reel to reel. Hilton Schilder, Ezra Ngcukana, Sylvia Mdunyelwa, all the city's jazz proponents rehearse there. Then there's the young cats, some doing hip hop, some doing dancehall, some doing roots reggae. Everybody crosses each others paths, and there is a cross-pollination taking place here which the city studios never see - and that the music is benefiting from. 

"It's about more than the music," says Wakhile. "People come here and they meet. When they leave, its not just music that's moved them, it's the exchange of ideas, it's the connections and relationships formed across styles and generations. We're not just about reggae in the studio, but that's one of the things reggae is so good at. It absorbs so much."


Originally published in the Mail and Guardian.