Welcome To Frat-rock

So Damien Marley at the SF Warfield wasn't as irie as I'd hoped.

The warm up act warmed me up all right, a trio of hyperactive rappers in romper suits shouting out The Hip Hop Dictionary - "A hip, a hop, a hipperty hipperty hip hop...hip hop like you don't stop!' they suggested, struggling to stay upright in their enormous sneakers.  And even when coerced to 'wave my hands in the air like I just don't care', there was no shutting this bunch of tits up.

It wasn't Damien's fault that I left early.  He was chugging along nicely but the crowd was unbearable.   I like reggae - most people do - but when buying the tickets, I forgot that the genre has been co-opted by every student subculture the world over.

The night as a whole wasn't awful, it was dreadful.  Full of dreads.  Mostly attached to 17 year old white Californian surfers who think Haile Selassie is code for being spangled - 'Dude, I'm HIGHLY selassie...WOAH!'.  These dudes dig reggae, dude.  Dude, they dig it because they can whoop dude-aciously, drag on rasta cigarettes and do weird up-and-down dude dancing.  And sing along to dude Damien's Dad's songs, like 'War' and 'Exodus'.  Or, at least, mumble along with a puzzled expression when the lyric is...

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed -
Well, everywhere is war -
Me say war.

.....before bouncing up and down and punching the air when the chorus (and words they understand) skanks back in.

I was surprised that Damien played so much of his Dad's stuff. I was also surprised that his threads were so preppy, all blazer and expensive jeans (with a supersized topping of dreadlocks).  It was like watching a genetic tribute band - he did it really well but it was bizarre all the same.  And I might have been slightly 'woah-duded' by the cloud of ganja smoke inside, but I swear I spotted Bunny Wailer bopping up and down at the side of the stage.

Best of all was Damien's decision to find his own Bez whose talent (pictured above) extended to stalking the stage looking wild-eyed and waving the Ethiopian flag.  I'm not being flippant - he was compelling to watch.

Rastafarianism perplexes me, especially after talking to a few Ethiopians about it .  Apparently, the first time Haile Selassie went to Jamaica in the 1960s, 200,000 Rastas (who believed he was God incarnate) turned up to greet him and he refused to get off the plane.  Some God.  They could have picked P.Diddy.  But maybe Haile heard some 'WHOOPING' and a 'HIPPIDY HIPPIDY HIP HOP!' and decided he wanted to go home.  Don't blame him.

Comments

[Sonia Belle]

Thanks for the link. I returned the favor.

Nice blog, btw. Too bad the Ethiopians didn't listen to the Jamaicans and replaced Haile Selassie with Mengistu...