Reggae - “The first encounter”

When I was a little stereo :)

Often people ask me how I first encountered reggae Music and how I got so hooked on it. The strange thing is that I can`t recall my real “first encounter”. And in the same way I am not able to answer the question “what was your first reggae record? But what I do remember is how the music hit me and never let me go. First I want to go back to a moment that illustrates for me what reggae music can do with people.

It was at the end of the eighties. As a youngster I went with five friends on a summer holiday in Spain. The type of holiday which later on became subjects for compromising TV shows in Holland. Five youngsters in a small apartment in Salou. A small town full of youngsters with lots of beaches, beer and parties. To me it felt close to the heart of Babylon, and so I had absolutely no fit with my environment at the time. One afternoon I stayed behind in the apartment by myself to get some peace of mind. From the little balcony on the third floor I overlooked a small but busy shopping street. Constant noises from car horns, voices, and music. I was standing on the balcony listening to a reggae tape that I brought from home. While I was observing the people who strolled on the street below. When the tape started playing a re-mix of the “Throw me corn” riddim I couldn`t resist to turn up the volume of the ghetto blaster to the max. And then, down in the little street below, I saw it happened. The people in the street were hit by the music in a positive way. Some of them started to swing, others looked up at the balcony with a big smiles on their faces and put up their thumbs as a sign of appreciation. For me it was so cool to observe this from where I stood. The setting was not special at all,  but once more it became clear for me just how much of a positive influence, like no other, reggae music had on people.

The same happened to me when I had my “first encounter” with reggae music. The patterns of drum and bass hit me like no other music and they created this enormous boost of energy in my body. Energy that caused an urge to dance and made me feel completely free to express myself. Reggae music touched me deeply, and that feeling never left me. From that “first encounter” I started a thorough search for the roots of this music and culture behind it. It became a fascinating journey on which I discovered beautiful music, interesting people but above all, a lot about myself.

“What was your first record?” I can`t recall that one. My interest in reggae grew slowly. Actually at the time I was one of those persons who hardly bought any music at all. I was not interested in radio and music charts like most people at my age. It was somewhere in the early eighties that I became infected by the reggae fever. Just after the heyday of the roots, and just before the transformation to the digital dancehall. It started with tapes that I got from friends, with tracks of which it wasn`t important to me who the performing artists were. Later it appeared to be artists like Dillinger, Mighty Diamonds, Wailing Souls and Burning Spear. The first records in my recollection were Black Uhuru “Red”, Frankie Paul “Strictly reggae music” and very important Augustus Pablo “King Tubby`s meets the rockers uptown”. I bought this last album in a small second hand record shop without having a clue of what this album was about. Red, gold and green edge around the sleeve. That must be reggae! This album put me early in my reggae journey on the track of dub music. At first it started out with buying some records from time to time, but as I said before I do things thoroughly. Around the mid eighties my pattern of buying records became one of an avid record collector. From limited available reading sources I started to dig deeper and deeper into the history of reggae music. King Tubby and Lee Perry were my early heroes. The strange thing was that in those days the more popular English reggae bands such as Aswad and Steel Pulse completely passed me by. Even the albums of Bob Marley were not for me of interest in those days. I bought those much later! What hit me most was the raw Jamaican sound almost strictly built on drums and bass. From my point of view no other than the Jamaican musicians are able to play the riddims with such an unpredictable thrill. Let`s call it “the vibe”! And I love this vibe!

Those who know me personally know how “this vibe” changed my life in an unpredictable and exciting way. Meanwhile I am exposed to a huge amount of Jamaican music; live, on vinyl or through Sound Systems. I met lots of interesting and extraordinary friendly people from all over the world who all handed me a little piece of the puzzle. Adding to my eagerness to learn more about Jamaican music and the underlying culture, of which I am very grateful for. My taste in Jamaican music and my knowledge about the culture behind it has broadened from Mento, Ska, Rock Steady, Reggae, Dancehall to Ragga. It is still an amazing journey. And I hope a never ending one!

Flying D.