Table Of ContentCUT ’N’ MIX
CULTURE, IDENTITY AND
CARIBBEAN MUSIC
Dick Hebdige
London and New York
A Comedia book
First published in 1987 by
Methuen & Co. Ltd
Reprinted 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997 and 2000 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1987 Dick Hebdige
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means. now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hebdige, Dick
Cut ’n’ Mix: Culture, identity and Caribbean music.
1. Music—Caribbean area
I. Title
781.7’09182’1 ML3565
ISBN 0-203-35928-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-37184-4 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-05875-9 (Print Edition) (Paperback)
Cover Design by Andy Dark
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
A note on the title of this book xi
PRE-MIX: VERSION TO VERSION xiii
ORIGINAL CUT (rebel sound: reggae and other
Caribbean music)
Introduction: the two Jamaicas 1
1. Slavery days 5
2. West African roots, West Indian flowers 11
3. The music of Trinidad 17
4. Reggae and other Caribbean music 25
5. The roots of reggae: religion and religious music 29
6. The Rastafarians 33
7. The roots of reggae: black American music 45
8. Rocksteady and the rude boy era 55
9. Reggae 59
10. Dub and talk over 67
11. Dread in a Inglan 75
DUB VERSION (the rise and fall of Two Tone)
12. Ska tissue: the rise and fall of Two Tone 91
CLUB MIX (Breaking for the border)
13. Sister Posse forward: is this the future? 103
14. Slack style and Seaga 109
iv
15. Lovers’ rock: reggae, soul and broken hearts 117
16. Rap and hip hop: the New York connection 125
17. Fast style reggae: designer label roots 139
Notes and references 151
Index 157
For J.L.P. (and I don’t mean the Jamaica Labour
Party)
“But what are roots? Music is shapeless, colourless…”
(George Oban)
vi
Acknowledgements
In his book There Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack (Hutchinson,
forthcoming), Paul Gilroy has suggested that music functions within the
culture of the black diaspora as an alternative public sphere. Sometimes
a reggae toast or a soul rap might consist of little more than a list of
names or titles. Naming can be in and of itself an act of invocation,
conferring power and/or grace upon the namer: the names can carry
power in themselves. The titles bestowed on Haile Selassie in a
Rastafarian chant or a reggae toast or on James Brown or Aretha Franklin
in a soul or MC rap testify to this power. More importantly in this
context, the namer pays tribute in the “name check” to the community
from which (s)he has sprung and without which (s)he would be unable
to survive. The speaker or singer’s individual voice is drowned beneath
the sea of names which it summons up around itself.
There are many people without whom this book could not have been
written. I would like to thank Albert on the door, Bonk, Mikey, Steve
Gibbons, Pete King, Martin and Simon Fuller, Norrie Davis, Paul, Vron
and Marcus, Greg, Rosa and David, Sam Rosenberg, Iain Chambers, Roy
Bailey, Geoff H, Su Fawcett, my mother and father, Charlie Luck, Griff,
Ken Brown, Clinton, Alan Bayes, Larry Grossberg, Red Rum, Clare,
Patrick and Edward, Van Cagle, Dave Darby, Polly M, Prudence, Vic
Lockwood, Maggie and Trevor, Mo, Peta Legat, Serafina, Steve Bonnett,
Richard Madgwick, Paul Swinson, Jessica Lucy Pickard, Jordi Rippoles,
Winston at the Three Crowns, Kathy K, and the Golden Eagle (the one
that flew away).
I would also like to thank all the singers, musicians, producers,
engineers, djs and microphone artists who make the music this book is
about. A special word of thanks to: The Skatalites, James Brown, Toots
and the Maytals, Ranking Ann, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Big Youth,
Jerry Dammers and the Specials with Rico, Don Drummond,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Peggy Lee, Sly and the Family
Stone, Etta James, Miles Davis, Afrika Bambaata, the Soul Sonic Force
and the Zulu Nation, Howling Wolf, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles,
ix
Shirley Brown, Gene Vincent, Gregory Isaacs, Dion, Exuma, John
Coltrane, Dennis Brown and Aswad, Niney, Barbara Jones, I Roy, Elvis
Presley, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Joe Gibbs, Esther Phillips, Mickey and
Sylvia, Tina and Ike, The Angels, Gram Parsons, Shirley Ellis, Jimmy
Hendrix, Sam Cooke, Eek a Mouse, Billie Holliday, Dinah Washington,
Booker T and the MGs, Patsy Cline, Pharoah Saunders, Bo Diddley,
Malcolm McLaren, John Lydon, Ben E King, The Fatback Band, The JBs,
Fela Kuti, U Roy, Roland Kirk, The Yardbirds, Planxty, The Ohio Players,
Linton Johnson, The Ronettes, Basil Gabbidon, UB40, Johann Sebastian
Bach, Billy Fury, Otis Redding, Hank Williams, Executor, Mighty
Sparrow, Black Stalin, Prince Buster, Count Ossie, Dennis Bovell and
Steel Pulse.
I should like to thank all the writers, radio and music business
personnel whose work I have used, quoted or otherwise borrowed from:
Dotun Adebayo, Verena Reckford, Andrew Carr, J L Collier, Robert
Elms, Carl Gayle, Sheryl Garratt, Paul Gilroy (again), Tony Harrison,
Steven Hager, Steven Harvey, John Hind and Stephen Mosco, Simon
Jones, Junior Lincoln, Amanda Lipman, Vic Lockwood, Jeremy Marre
and Hannah Charlton, Colin McGlashan, Miss P, Mr Fresh and the
Supreme Rockers, George Oban, Joe Owens, J Plummer, Penny Reel,
Vivien Goldman, David Simmons and David Toop.
I should especially like to thank Albert Goldman for the Elvis extracts
in the Pre-Mix, Alex Haley for the extract from Roots in Chapter One,
Garry Wills for the extract from “Martin Luther King is still on the case”
in Chapter Five, Stephen Davis and Chris May for all their work on music
—it is always well researched, well written and of a consistently high
standard—and I’ve drawn a great deal on the articles Chris May wrote
for Black Music on reggae in the 1970s and on Stephen Davis’ two books
on reggae music—Reggae Bloodlines and Reggae International. Thanks,
too, to Ed Lee for doing a fine edit on the first version of the Original
Cut. And thanks, finally, to Dave Morley of Comedia for his patience,
tact and resourcefulness in dealing with a succession of impossible
requests, for the imagination and hard work he has brought to bear on
this project. And to Andy Dark for designing the visual mix.
A special word of thanks to Patrick Ward for the laughs and for the
poetry; to Mike Stanhope for sounds and brotherhood; to Mike
Horseman for being Major Spar, Vinyl King and The Music Man of the
Midlands; and to Paul Gilroy for taking so much time and care to answer
what must have seemed to him like elementary questions. Without these
last four, I wouldn’t have been able to undertake, let alone complete,
this project. Finally thanks to Amstrad who have brought William
