IT'S FU MANCHU MANIA OVER HERE.

Just as I was parking my car tonight a song came on my CD player from a long forgotten reggae compilation. I was listening to it, thinking "Maybe I should post some reggae tonight". I had second thoughts, "Oh jeez, what a segue, from Fu Manchu (yesterday) to reggae". Then I looked at the title. It was a song by Desmond Dekker, the song was "Fu Man Chu". It doesn't take much for me to select something to post. A little coincidence like that is all I needed to seal the deal, so there you go. You get Desmond Dekker courtesy of the loosest of affiliations.

Dekker had a bona fide top ten hit in the U.S. with "Israelites" in 1968. That's nothing short of mindblowing when you consider that reggae was a totally unfamiliar music in the U.S. at the time. The film The Harder They Come was still a few years away and Bob Marley wouldn't be widely known in the states for another five years or so, and even then he never had a top ten hit here. Dig it.

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Listen:
Desmond Dekker - Fu Man Chu mp3 at Le Mellotron
Desmond Dekker - Pickney Girl mp3 at Cubik Music
Desmond Dekker - Pretty Africa mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Desmond Dekker - Jeserene mp3 at Oh Hey Great
Desmond Dekker - Wise Man mp3 at So Well Remembered
Desmond Dekker - 007 mp3 at Tumblr
Desmond Dekker - Problems mp3 at Tumblr

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR FIRST

If you are at all into reggae and haven't seen The Harder They Come, you have missed an entire semester and you will be put back. Go get the soundtrack. Watch the film. It'll not only school you on the varied strains of early seventies reggae, but with the film you'll get an idea of what 1970s Kingston was like. And those of you who are familiar with both, you can stand around looking like a big shot, or you can try a nifty exercise. Listen to the songs below and reflect on when you first heard them, or saw the film, and how it's shaped your views on reggae ever since.

Production on a sequel, The Harder They Come Pt 2 is scheduled to start later this year, with Jimmy Cliff reviving his role, despite the fact that he was shot up and presumed dead in the original. You can read about it here. In the meantime check these. If you're still not convinced, poke around for other clips from the original. They're all over the place.

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Listen:
Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come mp3 at Cause Equals Time
Toots and the Maytals - Sweet and Dandy mp3 at Atumblr (?)
Scotty - Draw your Brakes mp3 at Le Blog de la Grand Chose
The Melodians - Rivers of Babylon mp3 at Brendan McGetrick (?)
The Slickers - Johnny Too Bad mp3 at DJ No DJ
Desmond Dekker - 007 (Shanty Town) mp3 at Midwestern Housewives
Visit:
Jimmy Cliff to reprise role in 'Harder They Come Pt 2' at The Gleaner
The Harder They Come at Wikipedia

TOUGHER THAN TOUGH

Derrick Morgan

The glorification or condemnation of criminal activity is a common theme in music, you know that. For a lot of people, the first music that probably comes to mind is gangster rap (kind of obvious). Mexico has had narcocorrido, a genre of traditional music largely about drug traffickers, dating back to the thirties. I'm sure if I wasn't kinda lazy I could do some actual research here and figure out just how far back this whole bad guys sell routine goes back. But I'm lazy tonight (and, really, about every night) so I'll cut to the chase.

A random check of ol' Version's Galore just sent me on a wild rude boy goose chase. For the uninitiated, rude boys were what you might call hooligans, back in 1960's Jamaica. "Dem a loot, dem a shoot" as Desmond Dekker sang ("007 (Shanty Town)," link below). Typically poor, typically male, typically stylish and typically badass, these disenfranchised youth made quite a stir in their day. Lurking in the streets of Trenchtown, packing weapons and attitude, plainly speaking, they didn't take any shit. There have been many bastardizations of the term rude boy, particularly in the UK, but these were proto-OGs you did not want to fuck with. I won't go into the Specials or the whole Two Tone thing here, because any mention of the terms rude, rudie, or rude boy, in that stuff seems a little disingenuous (I know, they're just playing covers). Regardless, here's a few from the original crop. Some are favorites. The Slickers cut in particular, is one I've always liked. "Johnny Too Bad" paints a picture in the first two lines that sucks you right in. It is high on my list of the most innately badass reggae songs ever.

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Listen:
The Slickers - Johnny Too Bad mp3 at Art Decade
Derrick Morgan - Tougher Than Tough .mp3 at Cubik Musik
Peter Tosh & The Soulmates - Rudie's Medley mp3 at Wizznutzz
The Pioneers - Rudies Are The Greatest mp3 at Wizznutzz
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes - No Good Rudie mp3 at Pixie Radio
Desmond Dekker - 007 (Shanty Town) mp3 at Le Blog de la Grande Chose
Dennis Alcapone - DJ Roll Call mp3 at Versions Galore (rhythm from "007")
Highly Recommended:
Twenty two variations on Dekker's 007 (Shanty Town) at Versions Galore
Video:
Rude Boy trailer at YouTube Excellent overview. Highly recommended.
Visit:
“Rudie’s In Court Now”: The Rudeboy and the Role of Popular Vernaculars in the Politicization of Jamaican Music by James Mathien, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago