A decade of 'Death before dishonour' - Irish and Chin pave the way for dub plate specials and selectors

Mel Cooke, Sunday Gleaner Writer

For 10 consecutive years, from 2001 to 2010, on Easter Monday as the Christian community celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, sound clash fans have gathered in western Jamaica to witness death. Not a literal demise, as the sound systems and selectors who perished musically in the annual 'Death Before Dishonour' clash lived to battle another year - if they had died enough of an honourable death to merit a return.

As the competing sound systems - normally five - were winnowed down by a show of hands from the crowd to one champion, the dismissed sound men were, in musical terms, dead. Many-time champion, Black Kat, took last year's 'Final Warr' and among the previous winners were Mighty Crown, Sound Trooper with Ricky Trooper, Tony Matterhorn and Bass Odyssey.

Money issues

In the end, though, the organisers could not win the war with rising fees from competing sound systems, who were passing on increased rates for specials - one-off recordings done for a particular sound system by a performer - geared towards Death Before Dishonour. This was in a climate where Irish and Chin were unable to secure sponsorship for the decidedly hardcore event.

In a previous Sunday Gleaner interview, Garfield 'Chin' Bourne of Death Before Dishonour organisers Irish and Chin, said, "The first Death Before Dishonour was in Trelawny with Mighty Crown, Bass Odyssey, David Rodigan and Tony Matterhorn. It was a sold-out event. The venue was too small, so we decided to move to the closest city, which was Montego Bay. We've been at Pier One since 2002."

The event was part of an Irish and Chin series that began in the United States and spread to Canada, Antigua (for a one-off clash) and London (where UK Cup Clash was done in partnership with another organisation). It started in New York, when then rival New York-based sound system operators Bourne and Gilbert 'Irish' Murchison were unable to settle on financial terms for a clash between themselves and decided to bring in Kilamanjaro and Black Kat from Jamaica in 1997. The event was successful and the clashes, as well as the company Irish and Chin, continued and grew into World Clash.

Birth of the sound clash

"In 2001, we decided to bring World Clash to Jamaica. We called it Death Before Dishonour so people would not be confused," Chin said. However, he said, "Some people still called it World Clash Jamaica."

The first event pulled in 8,000 people, but Chin identifies 2004 as the pivotal year. Then, Death Before Dishonour was part of the build-up to the Olympics in Athens, Greece. "Puma comes in and asks me to keep a competition that would allow them to have a little story about going to Athens. It was supposed to be at Mas Camp (in New Kingston). I told them I would not compete against myself," Chin said. And since Irish and Chin already had Death Before Dishonour, it was integrated into the Puma promotion.

This, however, led to significant changes in the visual presentation of the clash. "Puma said, 'It has to be in a format that is presentable to our people.' So we had to change the ragga ragga and put them on a stage," Chin said. "We came up
Irish and Chin pave the way for dub plate specials and selectors with Death Before Dishonour, the Road to Athens. The winner was rewarded with a trip to Athens to play for a private party in Greece."
Black Kat won and, after the stage presentation that year with all the sound systems playing on a single system, even when Puma pulled away from music and started focusing almost exclusively on sports, Irish and Chin could not let the standard fall.

"Now, I am left with a level of expectation that I have to keep up. There was no way I could go back to the way I was doing it before," he said. "Hence, a new level of sound-clash competition is born."

That 'new level' was borne out not only in the stage presentation but, Chin said, a higher profile for selectors. "We are using four, five selectors and pulling more people than the artistes could pull. While we were pulling 4,000 people, no three or four artistes could do that," he said.

Plus, with the uniformity of the sound systems, the selector became more important in making the sound system stand out. "In the era before, it was dub plates, specials and sound system quality. We took sound system quality out of it. Everybody was playing on the same sound," Chin said. And he lays claim to shaping an era where selectors are stars.

Trendsetters

"We are solely responsible for making selectors celebrities. Before it was the sound system and then the selectors. We created an era where the selectors became the stars," Chin said. That came with the 'star dressing' for the clashes - Pink Panther in his general's suit, Ricky Trooper in his dapper glory and Mighty Crown's selectors in Ninja suits.

And while the bulk of the titles were shared among Black Kat, Bass Odyssey and Tony Matterhorn, Chin points out there were benefits to just being a part of the clash, as the sound system became known. "You can juggle at a million dances and the world recognition you are looking for you will not get it," Chin said, noting that "some get lucky". The events, Chin said, also fuelled the dub plate industry, as sound systems spent on "making the ammunition for the clashes".

Winning paid off, as the top sound system could then increase its fees. "You could win and kick back and know you could get US$4,000, US$5,000 (for performing)," Chin said.

Then there were those who benefited from having the audio of the clash available for sale first.

Still, Chin said "we were too young to really understand the significant role our brand - the World Clash Brand - was playing in the market". And, eventually, the Irish and Chin clashes were wrapped up, beginning with New York in 2007 and ending with Jamaica in 2010.

They ensured that the series ended on a high, so the story of the clashes is not one of rise and fall. 'We have the rise, because there was no fall for us," Chin said. "No one can say 'you remember when World Clash flop?' We left a decade in the US and a decade in Jamaica that no one can ever erase."