Mid-90s Rasta revolution withers

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

While Buju Banton's legal fate literally hangs in the balance, exactly at the fulcrum of an evenly split Florida jury which leaves the 'Gargamel' heading towards retrial on cocaine charges, one thing is certain: Acquitted or convicted, there has been irreparable damage to the aura of the man who is the poster boy for the then celebrated re-emergence of Rastafari in the modern dancehall beat in the mid-1990s, his transition marked by the landmark Til Shiloh album of 1995.

The title track, which must be one of the shortest on any major album release - and done without music at that - announced the metamorphosis. Buju intoned:

"Strange this feeling I'm feeling

But Jah love I will always believe in

And though you may think my faith is vain

Til Shiloh we'll chant Rastafari name."

Buju was not the only entertainer - or the first - who had the 'strange' feeling of moving to Rastafari in the mid- to late-1990s; others included Louie Culture and Terror Fabulous. And he is not the only one of the entertainers who were part of the celebrated Rasta Renaissance in the most popular of Jamaican popular music to have stumbled, leaving a void at the time when they should be heading towards certainly elder, if not iconic, musical status.

Ironically, at the time the mass musical movement to Rastafari was celebrated as countering the deluge of carnality, with the X-rated man Shabba Ranks at the forefront, and the explosive lyrics of the 'gun pon teet Don Gorgon' Ninja Man as well as Bounty Killer, whose first double handful of songs - which included Lodge and Coppershot - was banned due to violent content.

In the 1995 tour, Capleton, who himself moved from deejaying about Bombo Red to being the 'Prophet', noted the mass transition to Rastafari, deejaying "Mos' a de yute dem stop diss Rastaman/dem get fin' sey Rasta a de right tradition/respect Selassie as the Almighty one/if slackness a de fault culture a de solution".

Professor Nuts, in his humorous way, attributed the mass conversion to a resistance against homosexuality in Funny Guy.

He deejayed:

"Whole heap a deejay stop jheri curl and dye

Dem a knot up them head an a say Rastafari

Hol' up them head high an a cry Selassie-I

An whole heap a people waan know the reason why

Too much funny guy inna de business

A inoculate an a spread up dem diseases

Too much funny guy an a no lie

That's why the youths a say Rastafari

Youths as long as you a say Selassie-I

The guy nah go tes' yu much less come try

Afta dem a no fool none a dem no waan die

Cyaa bring dem ting deh to Rastafari"

Transformation

Nuts goes on to name a number of deejays who made the transformation ("Capleton dread an a de wickedes' ting/Natty natty pon head picky picky dung a chin/Serious like a judge an him ugly like sin ...) and, significantly, one who was on the verge: "Buju mus tun dread an me know him nah go trim ..."

And Nuts spoke to one outstanding retreat from dreadlocks by someone who has just passed, deejaying "It bun me fe see Gregory me haffi wonda a wha take him."