The reggae way

Interview, June, 1996 by Elena Oumano

As reggae's first international figure and the star of 1973's classic Jamaican film The Harder They Come, Jimmy Cliff helped establish the music's spiritual and social mission. A veteran who has stayed the course, Cliff is currently scheduled to release a collection of his remixed and rerecorded classics this July, to be followed by an album of new songs. Reggae's latest sensation, Luciano, who made his major-label debut in 1995 with his luminous Where There Is Life (Island/Jamaica), leads (along with Buju Banton) the '90s wave of singers revitalizing traditional reggae by adding modern hardcore beats. The two singers talked to us sitting side by side on the green hills above Montego Bay, symbolically uniting the two generations.

ELENA OUMANO: What is reggae's message?

LUCIANO: The songs I sing are the voices of my people in the ghetto. It's the same voice through all those years in cane fields and battlefields.

EO: What is the link between Rastafarian religion and reggae?

L: The Rastafarian plays a vital part in terms of tending the flock and keeping the fire blazing, getting us to know ourselves and our direction.

JIMMY CLIFF: Reggae developed out of the time when we were getting a kind of political freedom and gaining independence from Britain, and the music was called ska. But independence means the mind is able to think freely, so it wasn't real independence. After a period, we realized that, so we started looking deeper for our roots. Finding those roots meant searching for the connection to Africa. That's how Rastafari was born.

L: As I always say, everything a man does is an extension of his spirit. It is the Rasta in us that keeps us reaching out to express ourselves through dressing, through the natural food we eat - vegetables, fruits, no red meat, no alcohol - just the herbs. I started out with one intention: to glorify Jah, to sing and be happy, to let others be happy. No doubt, we have seen changes in the lives of other people who listen to these songs. So, as we go along the musical journey, we come to realize that it's more than just entertainment. It's really more a medium through which we can relate on a spiritual level.

EO: What do each of you think of the current state of reggae music?

JC: Reggae is a music that's always evolved. The tree was already planted, and the tree grew. It has branches and it's blossoming.

L: Rastafari! The roots are strong with great spirits like Jimmy Cliff here, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Israel Vibrations, Black Uhuru, Third World, just to name a few.

JC: The foundation was well laid, and that's why the house cannot be broken down. You see, when the tree grows, it lets off old skin as it's making new.

L: Yes, shedding. 'Cause that's how it go. The spirit of reggae is like a life bush. Even if you root it up and throw dirt upon it, it just spring up. It can't die.

EO: Do you think reggae can continue to grow in the U.S. despite sometimes ill-conceived marketing?

L: People will seek for something if it is good. We realize that the same way water travels through creases in the earth, through pebbles and sand, and erupts [in] other parts of the earth, music has a way to travel - through jazz, calypso, funk, or mashed potato. [all laugh]

EO: "Roots" reggae has a vision of an ideal world. What do you think of life outside that vision?

L: This Western way of life, where people see themselves as individuals, is wrong. They grab and scrape for themselves. The tension even here in Jamaica has come about as a result of the so-called Western civilization that has been brought upon us: the desire to have a big house, a big car, big pieces of land.

JC: Modern is really "mad earn" - "mad to earn."

L: [laughing] Yes, I love that!

JC: We have to realize what is real and what is not. The spirit - that is real. When you go into the mirror in the morning and brush up your hair and your teeth and look nice for the physical, remember the spiritual part of you needs a brushup, too.