Lambeth Life December 2009

South London Press, October 23 2000

Maroon Town

Hootnanny, tonight

It is impossible to say anything about Maroon Town without mentioning their remarkable touring record, which is largely inspired by a tireless commitment to helping others through music.

Driven by an uplifting political idealism and staunch musical independence, this legendary Brixton ska outfit have spent the past 20 years touring the world.

We're not just talking about North America and Europe, but about Venezuela, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Indonesia, Argentina, Ukraine and many other parts of the world where you would not expect a small British band to venture.

Recent years have seen them focusing their attentions on Central Asia visiting Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, all with the assistance of the British Council.

As well as all the gigging, they also hold workshops in many of the countries they visit (and back home in South London) using music to engage with prisoners, children, the mentally disabled and many other groups they meet along the way.

It's a commendable record of altruism to say the least, from a band who appear as committed to social initiatives as they are to barn-storming shows. The exuberance of their spicy hip-hop infused ska has understandably universal appeal, and there are videos on YouTube of a Tajik crowd going wild at one of their shows.

Tonight the band's fellow Brixtonians get a chance to do the same, when Maroon Town arrive at Hootnanny's ska spectacular.

MAROON TOWN IN JAMAICA

THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER 17 January 2000

This article was written by Rajan Datar

As the band van weaved its way through Kingston's lunchtime traffic, the sight of barbed wire fencing and watch-towers triggered a collective intake of breath from the passengers on board.

The ebullient and irreverent dancehall track that had been pumping out of the stereo suddenly felt oddly inappropriate. A sign confirmed suspicions : "South Camp Adult Correctional Centre." We had reached dreadpoint - the prison-gates - and were about to go in and play our distinctly South London cocktail of ska, dub, techno and rap to a crowd of inmates, most of whom are locked up for gun-crimes.

If anyone was going to be vociferous in their contempt for an amateurish pastiche of their own music, then it was going to be these guys -and everyone in the band knew it. Talk about taking coals to Newcastle ! It may have been billed as "a unique day in Jamaican penal history", by one of the organisers, but right there and then we didn't care. We were scared shitless.

For the nine-piece band, Maroon Town, this was definitely the Ruff'n’Tuff Guide to Jamaican Music. I am a trained journalist by profession but because I started the group as a ska-junkie over a decade ago, I'm luckily still tolerated as a member. And anyway, no music journalist could gain this kind of insight just by being on a typical Caribbean freebie with Sting. This was no gentle heritage tour with drinks parties in Kingston’s rich Beverley Hills district.

No, this was a week-long mission to the island's troubled capital and a million miles away from the corporate fanfare of most orthodox band tours. Sure, we're a tight band with pedigree in our musicianship and a good smattering of success in the commercial sector thanks to collaborations with the likes of Basement Jaxx and Morcheeba. But on this trip we were the equivalent of an extended family on a pilgrimage to Mecca. With the modest patronage of British Council funding, Maroon Town were flown over partly to help blow apart images of a mono-cultural Britain but also to pay respects to the roots of the music we play. And this pilgrimage didn't involve champagne riders and groupies. It meant checking out the grassroots and that included jamming with convicted criminals. A few days before the band had held an intense discussion as to the point of doing this gig at all. And we were nearly spared the trouble when it transpired that some of the evangelical Christian fraternity in the prison objected to our using the Demon Internet service in our E-mail correspondense. Particularly around Christmas time. But they relented and now we were about to enter the lion's den.

Two hours later and we're ecstatic. The prison governor who bears an uncanny similarity to Haile Selassie is hugging one of the singers. The gamble has paid off. Too often globalisation means multi-national media and entertainment conglomerates plundering talent from developing countries and then flogging it off for huge profits. But there is another version, whereby ordinary people from different cultures meet, swap ideas and destroy a few preconceptions along the way. From the moment we walked in and Prisoner Abdel Wright demanded that we join him for an impassioned rendition of Oasis's "Wonderwall" we kind of grasped that. The jam session was a triumph, with the bedlam on stage and in the courtyard never going beyond exuberant showmanship on the part of the inmates. Our initial confusion over who were prisoners and and who were visitors or staff became irrelevant as the music swung from ragga and dancehall to ska classics and gospel. The sheer energy and talent that were unleashed that afternoon was breathtaking and it was clear that these prisoners considered reports of the demise of reggae a tad premature.
So what exactly is the state of health of popular music in Jamaican ? The common diagnosis from the outside for some time now is that in the post- Marley era, the country has never really recaptured its form. But according to charismatic RJR radio presenter, Jerry D, this viewpoint dismisses the current popularity of dancehall amongst younger Jamaicans people at its own peril. "Every generation demands an expression of itself - every generation !" he exclaims to me in his radio studio during an effervescent interview with the band on his show. He leans back, adjusting the squashed sides of his cream Kangol- style hat. "Today that expression is dancehall music which may well continue for several years. So we have to appreciate our reggae heritage but also appreciate the dancehall scene which after all is a derivative of it, but faster - There are parallels with the way music has developed in Europe." After making half the band rap spontaneously on air over a dancehall backing track (largely, I suspect, for his own amusement) Jerry D proceeded to explain that thanks to technological progress, dancehall contenders are pouring out of the shanty-towns. CD burners make recording far cheaper and easier for the burgeoning MC.

But this according to fellow radio presenter Paula-Anne Porter of Fame FM, this proliferation of product has created new problems. "The landscape has broadened so much", she argues. "There are so many people who are trying their hand at dancehall, at being a DJ as a means to financial success. So everybody’s doing it and you get a lot of one-shot hits (one -hit wonders)". Jerry D accepts that one skill that has suffered in the rush is attention to craft and detail in recording and mixing.

Current artists who gain the respect of music aficianodos include Luciano and Buju Banton on a more melodic tip and Lexxus and Capelton on the chatting and toasting side. But curiosity compelled us to go and check out newer talent. On the advice of a local producer we went on an impromptu crawl of all the recording studios to see what's going on, ending up at the Mixing Lab in Dumbarton Avenue. Outside the studio, a large group of Jamaican youths sat smoking and talking. With stage names like Egg and Bread, Gummy Ninja and Mega Champion they launch into excerpts of their material for our benefit. The only woman amongst the MC's is a shy but original talent called Kizzy B. who eschews the sexual bragadaccio of most of her colleagues.

As in the prison, I am struck by their thirst for more knowledge of what is happening musically and culturally outside the Caribbean. The youths are well-aware of the power of global outlets like the BBC and CNN and curious about life in modern Britain, particularly after the World Cup heroics of UK-based Jamaican footballers like Deon Burton and Robbie Earle. Mind you, even though Maroon Town are a multi-racial outfit with some Jamaican lineage, these kids couldn't get their heads around a contemporary band drawing on ska and classic reggae for musical inspiration. It is akin to a new Jamaican group citing Jim Reeves and Gerry and the Pacemakers as influences.

"Youth culture is very sophisticated and quite cautious in Jamaica", it is explained to us later by a promoter. "Events here are promoted in a very particular way, there are certain agencies who are respected and people have to trust the organisation before they commit themselves. In spite of our worldwide image as being loud, noisy and extrovert , Jamaicans have a certain reserve. They tend to hold back . Maybe it's because they have this reputation."

And further evidence of an unwillingness amongst Jamaicans to be typecast, is the rise in interest of "alternative music." It seems Prisoner Abdel Wright is not alone. "Alternative music has come on the scene pretty recently", Paula Anne Porter informed us. "It's developed through a love of pop through exposure to European and American artists in the eighties and ninties. Nowadays you find persons who perform rock - although to be fair it is a a growing middle class uptown trend. The grassroots people prefer dancehall and hip -hop."

As far as Maroon Town was concerned our highlights related to our own musical influences . Performing at the National Arena, we were suddenly called upon to play authentic ska grooves so that local dancers could come up on stage and perform traditional ska moves and steps. We held our own although the temptation was to drop our instruments and just gape at the grace and verve of what was taking place in front of us.

And then there was the ultimate pilgrimage to the Alpha Boys Music School. This has been an academy for generations of deprived and often orphaned kids who then went on to join national orchestras, direct the London Symphony Orchestra, tour with Louis Armstrong and most significantly for us, develop ska and reggae. It is the alma mater of ska heroes like Tommy McCook, Joe Harriot and the legendary, tragic figure of Don Drummond after whom we named our last album.

As we entered the tattered but proud school hall, a thirty strong big band launched into a medley of timeless ska greats penned by old boys. Classic original album covers adorn the walls alongside brass instruments donated by alumni like McCook and Harriot. And next to them, somewhat anomalously, was a framed album cover by the British 1980's ska outfit, The Potato Five. Respect is due, as they say in Jamaica, to the Potato Five.

For the band the the ultimate accolade came from the school's musical director Winston "Sparrow" Martin, a veteran of the world-famous Studio One set-up and one-time member of Jimmy James and the Vagabonds. First he played congos when we performed one of our original tunes to the school. Then he complimented our sound as being "more physical, more natural, more rootsy". "So we're OK ?" I asked with a nervous laugh. "You're OK", he smiled.

It was all a long way from our initial apprehension when we first arrived in Kingston to find we were sharing a hotel with members of a travelling circus which had just pitched up in town. I must admit I wondered briefly, which one of us, Maroon Town or the circus, would the locals regard as more of a freak show ? What I should have realised is that owing to their humility, most Jamaican musicians do not realise the impact their music has had on the rest of the world, even today. If our trip achieved something, hopefully it was by going some way to correcting that misconception.