Reggae Heritage

- I speak of victory, not victim, triumph and not defeat; I have buried hopelessness in the cemetery of compete; the slum was not born in me, but in the born elite; what once left me void; I have conquered to become complete; all my life has been a rock climb, traveled in the bareness of my feet. excerpt from title poem: "Rock Climbing With My Bare Feet". Rock Climbing With My Bare Feet is a collection of poetry that encompasses themes such as internal struggle, women empowerment, motivation, political consciousness, perserverance and a variety of other topics. These themes, among others, are structured into chapters to make an easier read for the audience. The chapter titles are brilliantly named so that the reader can identify the theme of each chapter. Chapters include Who Am I To Be Me?, the author's favorite More Importantly: I AM A WOMAN, Ditchin' Demons In a Deep Depression, Life Should Be Motivation Enough, I Wouldn't Even Trade My Mind (For a Sane One), Rock Climbing With My Bare Feet, Citizen's Arrest, Life's Waves Won't Knock Me Over, Featuring: I Wait on Words! Be prepared to be intellectually challenged, spiritually moved, and genuinely entertained! For young and mature readers alike, of all cultures and ethnicities.

When I started this project to write an account of Jamaica's Reggae Heritage, I first wrote a preface, I now suggest you once again turn to this preface and read it one more time. A little slower, this time, before you continue to read any further. After the book was completed during February 2003, I was shocked to have read a part of a book that was being sold on the market by a Jamaican writer. I will quote a part of that book as I have read it where the word Sebastian was repeatedly spell wrong. The next two paragraphs are from this mistake of a book. As the only survivor of that early period, Clement Coxsone Dodd is often said to have invented the sound system concept. But according to the late Count Matchukie, the first real Dance-hall sound system was Tom The Great Sebastian, the ?nom de record? of the Chinese hardware merchant Thomas Wong: ?There were other sets playing about the place, but Tom was the first sound with an amplifier properly balanced for the Dance-hall. Tom The Great Sebastian started getting competition from Sir Coxsone Downbeat, Duke Reid ?The Trojan, ? and Lloyd (The Matador) Daley. Tom was turned off by the violent rivalry among systems downtown and opened The Silver Slipper Club at Cross Roads. One night he committed suicide by gassing himself in his car, supposedly over financial troubles. Shortly after the Silver Slipper Club burnt to the ground? [End of excerpt from a bad mistake of a book] Tom (The Great) Sebastian did not own The Silver Slipper Club. Mr. Ho, who also ran the "Esquire Restaurant" on the same premises that now is called Silver Slipper Plaza, owned the club. He employed Tom on a gate percentage basis. The club did not burn to the ground, but was closed to make way for the Silver Slipper Plaza. Finally, Tom did not commit suicide over financial troubles, but over domestic problems. There are a large number of people who would like to associate themselves with the early history of Jamaica's music industry. They believe that you had to be standing on the corner of Luke Lane and Charles Street in downtown Kingston. Listening and sometimes dance to the sound of Tom The Great Sebastian (Sound System) Most of these so-called want-to-be were not old enough to realize what was happening concerning the new rising sound systems. I was under parent control at that time and will not lie to prove that I was there at the beginning. I was a part of the early building of Jamaica's Music Heritage, I contributed much more than most of these want- to- be's. I lived it then, not later. I was always a disc jockey, starting with my mother's RCA (His Master's Voice) table model gramophone. When I started high school I realize my dreams when I was introduced to Mr. Thomas Wong (Tom The Great Sebastian) and was taught the finer points of being a Sound system disc jockey. The lesson I retained the most was, as he told me. "You should not let the dance crowd lead you, you have to be the leader, what you play is what they have to enjoy" I was the third Disc Jockey for the Great Sebastian Sound System and remained with Tom (The Great Sebastian), playing at the Silver Slipper Club, Bournemouth Beach Club and many places where we always performed to pack dance halls. During this period, I met many Record producers, Artists and other Sound system operators. It was after Mr. Thomas Wong (Tom The Great Sebastian) untimely death that I decided to go it alone as a disc jockey. The Silver Slipper Club closed to make way for the Silver Plaza, during the late 1960s. I continued to operate The Great Sebastian Sound System with the help of Mr. Thomas Wong's son. The Great Sebastian Sound System played at the following nightclubs, The Blue Mist, Champion House, The Baby Grand, Johnson's Drive Inn and a number of other dance halls throughout Kingston and the countryside. The Great Sebastian sound system ended when Mr. Thomas Wong's son decided to close the Sound system business.

The Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America provides an accessible ready reference on the retention and continuity of African culture within the United States. Our conceptual framework holds, first, that culture is a form of self-knowledge and knowledge about self in the world as transmitted from one person to another. Second, that African people continuously create their own cultural history as they move through time and space. Third, that African descended people living outside of Africa are also contributors to and participate in the creation of African cultural history. Entries focus on illuminating Africanisms (cultural retentions traceable to an African origin) and cultural continuities (ongoing practices and processes through which African culture continues to be created and formed). Thus, the focus is more culturally specific and less concerned with the broader transatlantic demographic, political and geographic issues that are the focus of similar recent reference works. We also focus less on biographies of individuals and political and economic ties and more on processes and manifestations of African cultural heritage and continuity. FEATURES: A two-volume A-to-Z work, available in a choice of print or electronic formats 350 signed entries, each concluding with Cross-references and Further Readings 150 figures and photos Front matter consisting of an Introduction and a Reader’s Guide organizing entries thematically to more easily guide users to related entries Signed articles concluding with cross-references

Praise for the previous edition: "Every reference library...should have a copy...Highly recommended." —Book Report "...a useful, dependable, and attractive encyclopedia." —American Reference Books Annual Now in its third edition, this highly acclaimed and comprehensive reference offers a wealth of information on African-American history, politics, and culture. Chronicling more than a millennium of history, the encyclopedia traces the rich and varied tapestry woven by Africans—from those who remained on their ancestral continent to those who were forced to leave their homes and begin again in a new land. Coverage includes: People: scientists, civil rights leaders, artists, explorers, politicians, athletes, and key figures in ancient African history Places: nations and major cities of Africa, as well as former empires and kingdoms Culture: the Harlem Renaissance, jazz, the Negro Baseball League, rhythm and blues, calypso, and rap Politics: key political groups, movements, and events, including the voting rights struggle in the United States and the victory of the African National Congress over apartheid in South Africa History: major events of the African-American past, including slavery and resistance to it, the abolitionist and civil rights movements, Reconstruction, and Pan-Africanism.

Music and Heritage provides new thinking about the diverse ways people engage with heritage. By exploring the relationships that exist between music, place and identity, the book illustrates how people form attachments to place and how such attachments are represented by sound and music-making. Presenting case studies and perspectives from across a range of genres, the volume argues that combining music with heritage provides an alternative and productive opportunity to think about heritage values and place attachment. Contributions to this edited collection use a diversity of methods, perspectives, cues and genres to reflect critically on issues related to these and other interconnections in ways that encourage new thinking about the character, meaning and purpose of cultural heritage, and the various ways in which people can interact with it through sound – thus re-encountering the supposedly familiar world around them. Taking heritage studies, musicology and place-making research in new directions, Music and Heritage will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of heritage, history, music, geography and anthropology. It will also be relevant to those with an interest in how music relates to place-making and place attachment, as well as to practitioners and policymakers working in the planning, design and creative sectors.

The Routledge Companion to Popular Music History and Heritage examines the social, cultural, political and economic value of popular music as history and heritage. Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, the volume explores the relationship between popular music and the past, and how interpretations of the changing nature of the past in post-industrial societies play out in the field of popular music. In-depth chapters cover key themes around historiography, heritage, memory and institutions, alongside case studies from around the world, including the UK, Australia, South Africa and India, exploring popular music’s connection to culture both past and present. Wide-ranging in scope, the book is an excellent introduction for students and scholars working in musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, critical heritage studies, cultural studies, memory studies and other related fields.

LENARD C. BOWIE, DMA ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, RETIRED THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE , FLORIDA Dr. Lenard C. Bowie has developed an enviable reputation as a consummate musician. He is a classical trumpet artist, accomplished band director, effective music administrator, skilled lecturer and publi shed author. As an author, Bowie's expertise in several fields of endeavor has been documented through the following subjects, as published in the professional music journals indicated: "Solving Problems of Young Trumpet Players, " published in the Music Educators National Journal (December, J979) , a critical review of "Black University Marching Bands in the 80's." published by The Marching Band (January, 198 1), and the Proceedings of an Informal Research Conference whose mission was to document the extent to which African American music courses were offered in Florida's Public Schools was published by the Florida Music Educator (June, 2002). As an undergraduate, Bowie was plagued bymany questions concerning the absence of formal instruction in the music of his people, especially when considering the fact that there were only two authentic types of American music -- that of the American Indians and that of African Americans, with African American Music being the most important of the two. Bowie's search for answers to his probing questions began when he enrolled in Professor Willie Ruffs course in Black Music as a graduate student at Yale University in 1974. This course opened Bowie's eyes, ears and mind to many of his here-to-fore unanswered questions; including the extent to which African music traditions are practiced in African American Music today, and the impact that African American Music has made on the social, political, economic, and religious climates of modern American Society. After graduating from Yale with a Master of Musical Arts Degree in 1976, Bowie struck out on a mission to enlarge on what he had learned about African American Music.This mission brought him in contact with a wealth of information through independent study of numerous publications and documentaries; lectures, festivals, concerts; and personal contacts with scholars who were, or have become, major players in the research, dissemination, performance and composition of African American Music. Some of these scholars include former colleagues Dr.Oily W. Wilson, composer and Chair of Composition at UCLA , Berkeley, Samuel Floyd, Founder and Director of the Center for Black Music Research, found at Fisk University, now housed at ColumbiaCollege,Chicago,Dr. AaronHorne,AfricanAmericanMusic Biographer and Dean of Fine Arts, Winston Salem Unive rsity, North Caro lina, Aramentha Adams - Hummings, Founder and Director ofthe Gateways Music Festival , initiated at the North Carolina School of the Arts, now housed at the East man School of Music in Rochester,New York, Operatic Tenor and Music Educator, the late Dr. William A, Brown. Others include Dr. Portia Maultsby, Professor of Music at Indiana University, Dr. Dena Epstein, Retired Music Librarian, Archival Researcher and Author, Chicago, Dr. Rene Boyer-White, Professor of Music Education, College-Conservatory of Music, The University of Cincinnati, and Dr. John Smith, Dean of Fine Arts, The Univers ity of South Florida at Tampa. During the first of Dr. Bowie's two terms as Music Department Chair at The University of North Florida, he was afforded an opportunity to apply and distribute his long sought know ledge. The opportunity came in the form ofa Mill ion Dollar Endowment from the Koger Company to develop programs of study in American Music. The response of the faculty to the endowmentwas to institute two programs: a Jazz Studies Program and a program in African American Music. The Jazz Studies Program has become nationally recognized for outstanding achievements in jazz theory, history and performance. The latter program , designed and developed by Bowie, was chall

Rhythms of Rebellion: A Beginner's Guide to Reggae Music offers a comprehensive exploration of the vibrant world of reggae, from its roots in Jamaica to its global influence on music, culture, and social change. Through ten chapters filled with historical insights, musical analysis, artist profiles, and cultural commentary, readers will embark on a journey through the rhythmic landscape of reggae music, discovering its origins, legends, subgenres, and impact on society. Whether you're a newcomer to reggae or a seasoned enthusiast, this book provides a valuable resource for understanding and appreciating one of the most influential musical genres of our time.