12 Jun 2023 15 min read The Savor Complex

Music as Culture

Chapter 4.

THE SCENE BACK THEN

The huge white tiles on those floors were transformed into stars in the night sky, twinkling with every step we took. It was a breezy South Florida night, and as we piled out of my best friend’s sister’s white hatchback Toyota and approached the door to that small club, it might as well have been Carnegie frikkin Hall, because if you let me and my three friends tell it, we had arrived, baby! The music was pumping, the lights were flashing, the energy was electric, and the focal point of the night was us.

It was our first time performing at a club, and to have a *Sound System create mixes specifically for us to dance to, was basically everything we could ask for in life at around 17 years old.

Our dance crew walked in with our signature combination of B-girl and Dancehall Queen energy. Our strides were long, and our giggles incessant. I was rocking self-installed, hella-perfect Poetic Justice style braids, and all four of us were feeling extra fly in our matching outfits, courtesy of one of the few places our minimum dollars could be put to good use--the 183rd Street Flea Market in Miami Gardens.

We had gone there a few times to find the exactly-right-for-us outfits for our umpteenth dance performance, none of which were more important than our club gig. The Sound that my best friend’s brother-in-law introduced us to, was our access point to the club, because none of us were yet 18. Our dance crew name was the same as the Sound’s name, with the word Girls added to the end of it. And back then, that was a major source of clout and pride.

Walking through 183rd, a fully indoor flea market, was like going through a combination of airports and markets in the various cities I’ve been in since those days. The buzz of the constant chatter of shoppers and vendors in a medley of accents permeated the air. The beeping of cash registers, and the music coming from certain stalls was a whole vibe. The walls were lined with stalls selling everything from clothes and shoes to electronics and furniture. The place was packed with people, all jostling to get the best deals. It was a type of sensory overload, but it was also strangely exciting.

Knockoff versions of anything that you saw on Yo! MTV Raps, the first nationally televised Hip Hop TV show in the US, were prevalent and most importantly, in our price range. That day we went in to find the perfect outfits for our upcoming performance with our Sound chaperones. That's where we spotted the velvet bodysuits that we knew we'd use for our big performance. Above-the-knee, skin-tight, halter back. Mine was a deep purple, and the others were maroon red, emerald green, royal blue. We tried them on.

Butt cheeks appropriately cupped by the material? Check.
Titties cinched in and slightly propped up? Check.
Outfit material stretchy enough to manage our low-key gymnastics, while not obscuring the body mechanics at work when we ben’ ova an juk? Check.

Shoes didn’t really matter a ton because we took them off when we danced. The last piece of the outfit showed up as see-through hoodie jackets that were oh so poorly sewn, but perfect for the one night we needed them to last. Their major selling point was that they did not cover up our full-a-shape bodies and the swirly, mesmerizing, well-rehearsed shapes we would make with our dance moves.

The see-through hoodies didn’t last five hand-washes, but they came in clutch because they gave a sort of Mary J Blige vibe of the cool and casual, hoodies and Tims girl, who was also confident in her femininity. The bodysuits with the sheer hoodies was a classic Hip Hop look and feel; the perfect goodaz aesthetic in Dancehall speak. Patra, one of the celebrated deejays of the time (albeit for a brief stint) was absolutely high on our style inspo list.

Our performance night rolled around, and we were bona fide Dancehall Queens in our minds, complete with the moves, the outfits, and the dubplates to prove it. It's funny because most of our parents were pretty conservative for us to outwardly claim Dancehall Queen status, but we danced competitively in local competitions that were legit in our parents’ eyes, so we slid under the radar.

It was incredible to be in the spotlight at a club at our ages. We had been cheated out of our last competitive win (no for real, because the sponsors of the competition gave the prize to their children!), so that night felt like a re-affirming of our skills and status. I’m giggling as I write this at how serious we were about that life back then!

I think that night was our last official performance as a group. We were juniors in high school and class, internships, scholarship searches, and part-time jobs took priority over the time-consuming dance competition circuit.

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IN RETROSPECT

I came of age in the 90’s when Dancehall, a subset of reggae music out of Jamaica, was (in my professional opinion 😀), the best it ever was. It was fantastic and varied, and artists had healthy competition that they did not take lightly. Lyricism was an important aspect of moving the crowd, and it was normal for a Soundman to pause di riddim so that the crowd could ear-witness the lyrical wordplay that artists like Bounty Killer, Spragga Benz, Capelton, Supercat, and Beenie Man, would bring forward.

And mind you, pausing the music to hear the words was not a small thing because the creation of the riddim was a major aspect of our music. When a new riddim came out, the best artists and the ones who wanted a shot at becoming the best artists, had their time to shine by releasing a song on that riddim. It was completely normal to hear at least ten songs on the Pepper Seed riddim, for example. The Soundman, with his musical skillfulness and deep connection to our culture, would play the best ones at that time, and few of them would get the honor of that well crafted riddim being paused for you to hear the lyrics being belted out in perfect, hit-you-in-the-chest wordplay.

In Dancehall culture the Deejay is the rapper, the one delivering the lyrics, and the person on the turntables is the Soundman, also known as the Selector. So we had the Selector, aka the Soundman, and then we had the Deejay doing what we called voicing the tunes.

Their words/lyrics either needed to be catchy or lyrically exceptional. Lyrics were usually among a few specific categories. It's actually amazing how many different lyrical combinations could come from a few basic topics, because 90s Dancehall in the ‘92 to ‘96 era, my High School days, really talked about the same six things. Here are examples of the most consistent topics in some of the most popular ones (which, I’m not finna lie to ya, were also among my absolute faves!).

Details about the act of sex - as in your sexual prowess (like this)
The lead-up to sex - as in getting to the potential partner (like this)
What to do and what not to do during sex (like this)
Being a bad man (gangster) to be feared (like this)
Instructions for new dances (like this)
How women looked - as in the aesthetic results of a woman “caring for” her body (like this)

Of course there were other topics, but in Dancehall in particular, those were absolutely the main ones. And within those, of course, other aspects of our culture were discussed, not the least of which was the major biblical lean—the “God Bless” music (as the Soundman dem would call it) that glorified Jah or Jesus. Jah, aka Jah-Jah is the Rastafarian diety. Rastafarianism is derived from much of the Old Testamant and from the Book of Relevations, and the songs were a combination of scripture, praise, and warnings. It’s Me Again Jah, by Luciano, is a great example. Other God Bless music spoke of the more traditional Christian God/Jesus. It was Gospel Music, essentially, with the type of bass and all the other elements required to qualify as Dancehall vibes.

The God Bless segment was present at every live dance and every pre-recorded Dancehall music production. Garnett Silk’s Lord Watch Over Our Shoulders was a staple. Even the artists know for their more raunchy focal points put out their own God Bless tunes because it was the ever-present precursor, an “early warm” to the music we were all itching to hear (see items 1-6 above 😀). It’s kind of like making sure you eat something with actual nutrients in the morning before moving on to the sugary, high-calorie, low-nutrient deliciousness you actually want to eat.

And just like the sex-focused music, this gospel-esque segement reflected prevalent values of the times. It was real and true for us that we were a people blessd by God, and we wanted to pay that upfront offering, that homage so to speak. That’s what I love(d) about Dancehall, it didn’t try to smush us into this or that in certain ways, because a woman good be religous and sexual, a professional anything who also loved to shake her ass to drums. We got that memo and approved it instantly!

DETANGLING FROM THE DETAILS OF DANCEHALL RITUALS

Nobody started off at Level 10 at a dance, so the music at the top, the early warm stage, reflected that. We had the God Bless music, we had the Beres Hammond vibe of love songs, and we had the Old Hits where you’d likely hear some Isley Brothers or Anita Baker—the music you swayed to while it washed over you like warm water. For us, the early warm segment was basically the time we got to stretch a little bit in preparation for the thangthangs that were sure to play later one.

Roll your neck, grab a drink, make your rounds, work the room.
Decide where you're gonna be when the music really starts hitting.
Do you want to be seen? Or do you want to be deeply boo’d up with the music, close to a speaker out of view of the infamous video light?
Most importantly, are you ready to heed the one clear directive of any good Dance, which is to *Bruk Out?

Every legit dance had at least one camera person whose job was to make sure that the footage from the event made anybody who was not there, clear that they missed out and that they could not afford to miss another one. They should be ashamed that they missed it, and so the video light sought out women who were clear about the Bruk Out directive and executed accordingly.

Women were definitely the focus, though men, if they were good dancers, could get a bit of spotlight too. And they did have their moments because Dancehall crews were often both men and women, but there was always an unquestionably special place in Dancehall for the woman, di ooman dem. The songs called for us.

MESSAGE: STRAIGHT PATH ONLY!

Capleton, one of the top deejays at the time, said, “gimme di ooman dem” because it wasn't just about celebrating women, it was also about celebrating heterosexuality and simultaneously burning (rejecting, admonishing, pushing back out loud against) homosexuality, a thing that was often referenced in the same light as pedophilia and other heinous acts that Dancehall artists wanted to make clear were not part of our culture, and were unacceptible choices that wayward people made.

The messages we got were that these “behaviours” these “lifestyle choices” should not only be rejected, but called out, and the perpetrators of them needed to be punished in severe ways. This was the language of Dancehall, and we did not question it. The songs were basically Bible verses set to dope beats being told as if they were just laws that everyone understood and believed. Homophobia was the other category I didn’t list in the Top 6 list, mainly because it was seasoned all through every category. It was normal to hear a Deejay talk about ways to kill, beat, burn or somehow harm someone solely because they were gay. It was not only normal, it was also glorified.

As recently as 2021, reggae artist, Lila Iké from popular Deejay and Producer Protege’s label, felt the wrath of our cultural firing squad. Lila sings about God, about love, and about life’s struggles and rewards. So, when she came out as gay, many Jamaican people were calling for her to be dropped from the label and called her out for being a liar because how could she be singing about God and about relationships when she was sleeping with women?! It was not only socially unacceptable, it is legally criminial where Lila and I come from.

Jamaica’s 1864 Offences Against the Person Act punishes the “abominable crime of buggery” and acts of gross indecency between males with up to ten years in prison with hard labor. Once released, people arrested under these laws are required to register as sex offenders.

So, those laws, interlaced with the religious elements—the deep religiosity of the densely Seventh Day Adventist Church populated island nation; the Catholics; the Anglicans; Episcopalians, and all of the varieties of Christianity. With all of that firmly in place, what arises and lives above tolerance, let alone acceptance and respect, are questions like How can humanity progress if people keep becoming gay? How di baby ago born if ooman deh wid ooman an man deh wid man?

In a lot of those songs, we also heard the connection of pedophilia with homosexuality as they were viewed as one in the same. If a man liked men, that meant he liked boys. It was all mixed in and we rolled our hips and did all the things with our shoulders and legs and arms, necks and heads to that. We sang those lyrics with attitudes and conviction; I sang those lyrics with attitude and conviction, and those things went unquestioned for me, for years. As I write this, I can feel the angst of members of my own family (my generation and younger, not just my elders) who might read this and see my Wild Weed status, and call me out on it.

I was with that at one point, because as I said, I never questioned it, and I certainly didn’t disagree with it as a child. As I approached my 20’s, I remember feeling like my culture’s approach to sexuality was extreme. Not wrong, just extreme, because I still hadn't questioned the very idea of the person not being good or safe because of who they wanted to be with, sexually. What started to shift it for me was the narrative that gay people were inherently predatory. So culturally I could not have a gay friend, because if I as a woman found out that my friend was gay, she was going to try to “gay me” without question, and she would do it forcefully if she had to because a so dem stay!

MY PIVOT POINT

I don't have any direct recollection to write about here. I can’t say ‘this particular thing happened and I changed my mind and evolved my thinking.’ It was unquestioned for so long throughout my time in Jamaica and in South Florida! When I went off to college in Atlanta, I just got a lot more exposure to people who did not identify a straight, and my interactions shattered my previous perceptions. I didn’t meet any aggressive lesbians who tried to “gay me up” like my elders and my music had warned. The young gay men I met where varied in their outward appearance and personalities just like everybody else.

So then my thoughts got many opportunities to shift from indoctrination to discerment.

I started to realize that the people who were teaching and telling and warning about staying clear of gayness, hadn’t had any actual interactions with gay people! I was experiencing lots of biases and uninformed opinions about Jamaicans, and made a connection between people’s lack of itneractions with Jamaicans, and how that fed them wildly incorrect ideas about us.

And I got lots of experience with people who were not straight, and who did not identify as gay. They were queer, they were something else, something that didn't fit into a box. I remember feeling a sense of connection to that, not with my sexual identity or sexual preference, but with other aspects of me. Like my exploration of religion or even my exploration of my presentation of myself through my hair, and what I wore. Pondering things like whether I was dressing to look pleasurable and shapely, or I just wanted be comfortable.

There was so much emphasis in our music on the Coca Cola bottle shape, and a bumper batty (booty)! It became a form of currency, a form of validation that I could and should carry around and try to preserve as long as possible…right? Because who wanted to be a koo kum kum, the term back then for skinny aka maaga (as in meagre) or a mampi, the term we used for a fat woman?!

Later, terms like mampi were replaced by endearing ones like fluffy when Deejays like Miss Kitty would show up and celebrate her full, round body. She bellowed confidently that her shape was not like a small Coca Cola bottle, but like two barrels, stacked on top of each other. She used music and charisma to bring that into our culture as acceptable. But even then, she could not just walk out of the house in regular clothes. Her waistline had to be cinched and her face beat for of Gods, with a fly outfit to match.

And even if a woman did have the required Cocal Cola bottle shape, She had other criteria to meet:

Big batty
Small waist
Pretty skin
Visible bellyskin, free of stretch marks.
No cuts on your legs
Pretty feet
Long hair (or at least well-groomed hair). And back then you would not have locs as a woman. Hell no! Not unless you were actually Rasta. If not, your hair either needed to be long and straight or you bought long and straight hair so that you could complete your Beautiful
And if you are a dark-skinned woman, then yu betta have everything on this list in check at all times

And the songs were our curriculum for what to do. Just like there were many songs that told you the exact steps for doing the latest dance, there were also steps for validation of beauty, for what it meant to look good and to be good as a woman. What it meant to be a good woman was inextricably linked to how you looked.

Those same directives told us that as a man, you could have marks on your skin, and your hair could look however it looked, but you better be good in bed. And only women should be in your bed, of course. Oh, and your penis better big! And not just in your opinion, but in the opinions of the many, many women you slammed. And so you better be good at sex, if not, you need to have a lot of money to compensate for not being good at sex. Got it?

IT’S JUST MUSIC, NO HARM THERE, RIGHT?

Perhaps it might seem like that's “just music” but the thing is that it was both a reflection of and a deep influencer of the culture and the perpetuation of the culture. And the recognition of that reality is linked to our capacities to evolve to meet the truth of diversity of people in all identities, as opposed to holding strong to the notion of whatever our colonizers and our fears told us and gave us, whether that lived in the law or in the church. And of course those same premises lived in the people who also taught in our schools, so it was just a normalized all around.

In all of this, I make no claims to Dancehall being the cause of something bad, wrong or pervasive. I also haven’t been much into Dancehall music made in the 2000’s so I’m not up to date on what has changed or evolved to meet the truth of people and nature and God|Spirit|Universe and love.

What I'm working through here are the ways that I have learned to detangle myself from unquestioned aspects of ideas turned cultural norms. As an unschooler, I am trained to and skilled at questioning everything, and not just for the purposes of finding answers either. We question for direction. We question to notice. We question to witness (noticing and witnessing are different things). And for me personally, I am questioning as part of my own personal archiving work where I get to find out in some instances why I think and act the ways I do. In other instances. I don't find a reason why, I just see the thread and then I can make a choice to investigate whether the things that I am tied to are still things that are true for me now. So then I get to find even better questions like, ‘Is this a thread to follow or a rope that has me tied to some shit I’m ready to be free from?’

That Jeff Brown quote “Out with the old, in with the true” resonates like a mofo here, because what's true for this version of me is sometimes not true inside the culture I come from. And so my ideas, much like my unschooling path, are ways that stand as Other |Othered in relation to a culture that I love and identify with in many ways.

What I am discovering is that I am not trapped inside any culture including the one(s) most important to me. I influence culture, as a human being, as an out-loud thinker, as a writer, as a community member, as a mama. I too influence culture, and so while there are aspects of what I come from that would still see my ideas as wild weeds to pluck out in efforts to preserve something old, I am learning to be and see differently, and that is the offering here.

*Sound or Sound Man :: the simple and beautifully accurate word Jamaicans use to describe a small group of deejays who play the best and latest reggae and other types of music at live events

*Bruk Out :: get unruly, be rebellious. Do you, out loud.