Contents - Beth Lesser

Brigadier Jerry & Jah Love
International
Where there was slackness, there was also “culture”, the opposing force in
dancehall, championed by those who felt music ought to be a force for
change in society and a tool for teaching the youth. “Slackness in the Garden
hiding, hiding from Jah Jah…” * cultural deejay Brigadier Jerry used to chant
on the microphone, as if taunting the slack sounds and challenging them to
try and beat ‘culture’.
Arrow’s deejay, Crutches, a purely roots and cultural toaster explains, “At
the time, it was two different set of deejay. It wasn’t a physical segregation. It
was just a different type of man. Cause them [slack deejays] drink. We [culture
deejays] don’t drink. We don’t eat meat. At that time, you had two different
set of food sell in dancehall. You have a thing named I-tal food – I-tal
stew. And you have the curry goat section, different. That time, [Rasta] man
don’t drink beer. It was them kinda thing.”
It was a battle for the heart and minds of the dancehall fans, as sounds of
both types tried to appeal to a larger segment of the population. In the early
‘80s, slackness was in the lead. As more deejays picked up on the slackness
style, the soul crowd began to pay attention to reggae. While the thunder rolling
and lightening flashing of the ‘70s roots music had kept the soul crowd at
a relative distance, slackness meshed better with the themes of foreign songs,
disco and funk. The more commercial (i.e. soul) sounds were gradually adding
more reggae and getting the majority of the bookings in the big venues.
It looked like the days of roots and culture were fading away. So, who could
have predicted that one of the most highly rated and well respected sound
systems of the ‘80s would be the small, non-commercial, ‘orthodox’ set, Jah
Love Music, the official sound of the 12 Tribes of Israel organization, with
toaster Brigadier Jerry.
The Twelve TriBeS of iSrael
The 12 Tribes of Israel, founded by Vernon Carrington, alias the Prophet
Gad (or Gadman), grew out of The Ethiopian World Federation, Charter 15.
The EWF, incorporated in 1937 had, as its original aim, the support of Ethiopia
against the invasion by Italy. In the early ‘70s, EWF member Gadman
turned that Charter 15 into an organization he called The 12 Tribes of Israel
* Taken from the West Indian folk song, Adam in the Garden Hiding.
122 | RUB A DUB STYLE – The Roots of Modern Dancehall