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JAH SHAKA NME 70S

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    Posted: 25 October 2007 at 8:27pm

IT’S something like seeing the Wizard of Oz for the first time; all that mighty, awesome thunder and noise of great rushing waters, then a faint start when you realise the tumult is coming from one man.

Shaka detests dealing in competition, and indeed every sound has its strengths. Mighty Observer gain credit for carrying the sound system revelation abroad, and to people of different cultures. Ray Symbolic the Bionic are the slickest dudes, with Ranking Joe rapping like a sassy fridge salesman having fun among the eskimoes.

All sound system followers have their favourites, and there is a certain section of the population who love only Shaka.

It seemed that when the other sounds had done with their boasting and toasting, there would come a discreet hiss from the corner, and Shaka would mutter a title, or more often an invocation to Jah RasTafari, and the old-style heavy bakelite-style head of his arm would lower to the vinyl. Then it might seem that the walls were tumbling down around your ears. Then it might seem that your body had never felt those rhythms to impel and overwhelm, you’d find your feet flashing like sparklers.

A crowd gathers round Shaka, watching entranced as if he was a conjuror. Sometimes he plays the vocal section straight, then he rides the rhythm until it disintegrates, you hurtle through the instruments like a dance of swop-your-partners, now whirling to the hi-hat, or fist-fighting with the bass. When the music hits, Shaka, well into the dub section now, looks like Lee Perry, swaying faster to a frenzy, bobbing and weaving as the music’s penetrating. His hands seem to flash from knob to knob of his HH amp like lightning. A picture of Haile Selassie sellotaped above the deck acts as an inspirational icon.

Then come certain sounds, the sounds that mark out Shaka. A keening sound cuts you, trailing a tail like a comet. Shaka playing his harp, then syn-drum; he hits it with a drumstick or plays it with his hands, the abstract texture melodies that race like liquid neon through each vein. This is a music, a great improvisation, that goes beyond reggae or any other musical division. Almost beyond physical music, into the mystic; sheets of energy shooting from the barricading standing store speakers.

Some people complain, say Shaka carries too much weight, too much distortion. It’s true it can verge on pain when Shaka shakes a sound by the scruff of its neck till it gives up its secret But he is an extreme artist. Unlike most sound system organisers, he stays alone at the controls, speaking only when the spirit says so, choosing the music that will re-charge the people’s batteries like an orgone accumulator. If Shaka’s sound sticks needles in your ears, it’s like acupuncture, shaking up the sluggish circulation of the blood. He is a serious and dedicated man, who will only play inspirational music.

Shaka inspires the stepper dancers. When his turn comes round, the music hits new intensity, and the youths launch into gymnastic feats. As much mime as dance, the motions of stepping on stones over river currents, of peering through curtains and shinning up drainpipes, of finding your way from a fortress to freedom. These are guerilla movements to complement Shaka’s warrior style. Purposeful and athletic, with the frenzy of dervishes. It is no coincidence that Shaka cites Aswad, and Misty, the two warrior bands, as particularly crucial.

Such a stance is crucial in these times. Last Friday Shaka was making the rafters rattle like loose teeth in a South London Town Hall, playing a new Aswad dub. He cries:

"JAHOVIAH I", a long, warbled yowl that seems to span octaves, the cry he’s adopted from the Twinkle Brothers’ great ‘Daniel’ record. The warrior youth start to step with the crisp decision that marks a militant stepper.

Shaka named himself after the great Zulu warrior; the man who re-structured the Zulu armies in the early 1800’s. He devised a new, lethal, fighting blade: imposed strict discipline, including months of celibacy at a stretch: divided the spoils of war radically, giving most to the poorest soldiers, and less to the rich. Jah Shaka says it’s the Zulu’s work he sets out to continue.

That same day, the papers report a 17-year-old skinhead Sieg Heiling in court as he’s sentenced for the murder of an Asian youth. Akhter Au Baig. Another item next to it quotes Joan Lestor, MP, saying that many victims have no confidence in the determination of the police to seek out-perpetrators of racial violence.

It’s a warrior time, if you want to survive. Daily harrassment of all kinds, the feeling of not being free to walk the streets; Shaka’s answer, in the face of any argument, is repatriation to Africa.

"It’s a complete solution. With the knowledge we’ve got over the years, we know the task. We are not fighting to stay here. If I was to meet with the head of the National Front, it would solve a lot of problems."*

The man who inspires such fierce devotion does not like to talk about himself. "It’s nothing to do with my private life or my slave name, it’s nonsense to bring yourself out into the limelight. I’m not involved with that. All I want to do is get on with my work, till such time as I leave the country.

"I don’t know what the other sounds are doing, I only know what I

 

 

"Moa Anbessa-ah-ah-ah. Got a woman want fe hold little rub, check out Shaka fe play some dubs, check out Fatman fe spin some dubs, Coxone see you come tonight but no bother broke no fight..

Cimarons: ‘Rub A Dub Shoes’

 

 

am doing. It’s nothing to do with what kind of speakers or amps I’m building; I’m only concerned with building spiritually.

"I spend a lot of time with the sound. Talking to the people is more important than the studio business. (Although Shaka himself is a musician and has just released his first record — "Jah Children Cry" by African Princess on his own label.) I’ve got to bring people to remember that we, the black people, have been forgotten. You could call us the forgotten race, as it says in the Bible. I take it very seriously. The people that are mentioned in the records I play — the Children of Israel — that is directly us.

"This is my most important job. People get depressed in this country. You have to give them something to hope for. There’s a lot of pressure. People complain - they say the whole world is upside down. People jump off buildings so as not to face earth as it is at the moment. The only thing to look to is God. People have tried everything else. Haile Selassie came to show us that everything we’ve been hearing about is not in the sky — there is such a place where we could be — Ethiopia."

Shaka’s views are controversial. He arrived from Jamaica when he was five; kept dances from when he attended the Samuel Pepys School in. South London. He gives thanks that he was raised here: "It’s been like a college here for me."

The first sound he checked for was Metro, who still build his amps.

Shaka moves with twelve youths who help set up the sound, transporting the mighty, hand-carved speakers with their heavyweight thunder old American RCA boxes, and amps. Most of them are unemployed. They have followed Shaka for anything from five to seven years, devote their lives to his sound.

Between them the youths around Shaka number the several skills — carpentry, electrical, and so on — necessary to maintain the sound. They are unemployed simply because work is scarce; but this is probably the most fulfilling job they could do. "Money doesn’t even come into it," says one youth whose two brothers have also worked alongside the dub warrior for years. "It’s a message we’re carrying, not just a sound."

Those who followed Rasta as a fashion have moved on to roller disco. For the large hard core who are serious about their beliefs, Shaka is still here. When you hear Shaka play his sound, it’s easy to believe his inspiration is divine.


© Vivien Goldman


* I don't know if Shaka still believes this, or whether it was just a flippant comment at the time. I find it a bit disturbing, personally. As someone who is white and who has also had the misfortune of having to deal with aggression from far right headcases, I am confused by this. Meeting with people who wish to exterminate you is a bad idea, unless the meeting takes place on your terms. I think that such a meeting is unlikely to be beneficial whilst we live in a society where institutional racism is rife. As far as I know, nothing beneficial came from the meetings between the Nation of Islam and the American Nazi Party in the 1960s.

This also raises some interesting questions about the idea of an exodus to Africa - would the rest of us just be left to deal with fascist tyranny? If the exodus is done in agreement with the far right, what happens to people who don't want to go? If the exodus to Africa one way of solving the "problems" that neo-nazis see in this society what should happen to those who do not have such an obvious "homeland", who are also seen as being "problematic" like homosexuals, communists, and those of mixed race? Is it just selfishness on my part to want people to stay and fight against a society which has thrived on slavery, racism and oppression?

If anyone has seen any subsequent quotes from Shaka which shed some light on this, then please get in touch.Wink

WinkWinkWinkWinkWinkWinkWinkWink
IM SO SECRETIVE BUT I CANT TELL YOU WHY
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote russ d Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 October 2007 at 9:03pm
this question was once asked on another forum some years back, dont know if it was from you but i said then that those were words from back in the days, trying to give strength and hope to and for his people, and of more relevence in those darker times, and as such not to be taken so literal today... shaka knows very well that repatriation is still a long, long way down the road, he once said to me it may never happen in his life time but that it was something to try build towards, that was from around the back end of 80`s, i`m sure he see`s things more different now as well.... dont forget shaka is a man, not a politician, so things that are said have relevence for what he saw amongst his surroundings at the time, and that was near 30 years ago now.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote TRE4U2NV Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 October 2007 at 9:22pm
Russ this is by no means a statement of any sort this is just some extracts from a interview taken 30 odd years ago when we all had tough times to deal with
my own views have changed in the past 30 years as most have some mellow some hardcore
IM SO SECRETIVE BUT I CANT TELL YOU WHY
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote russ d Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 October 2007 at 10:09pm
ah ok, i know the nme articles, i still got the cuttings from those times, thought the question was yours tho... the shaka, coxsone and fatman ones were all from the same article, think it was on the www somewhere else before too, maybe thats where you sourced it... i think i have the cuttings to the ribs one, also a moa anbessa, and frontline, maybe a couple of others too... those were the days the rock press had a lot more time for reggae !
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote wasup Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 October 2007 at 6:36am
Does anything come from talking ? I think a bit of both yes and no!
Ok this isnt a SHAKA extract  but talking would be inkeeping with the TEACHINGS of HIM well at least how i see them.......HIM did say all war/disagreements and such like come around as a result of misunderstanding and above all a comunication break down.....
 
Ok we could argue that war /unrest ,social division and the rest is also a form of comunication but i think HIM was pointing us away from that type!!!!
 
more time nice articals!!
 
Yes and tolorance on all sides is needed moving away like you point out wont change the mental state of the oppressors of any nationality........That is after all what has to change WICKED INTENTION!!!!


Edited by wasup - 26 October 2007 at 6:39am
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Profile of the legendary Jah Shaka
JAH SHAKA THE DUB WARRIOR
   
 
   
  I first heard Jah Shaka in June 1981 at The Havana Club in Derby. It was a Wednesday night and the place was packed. I’d heard a lot of sounds
before like Sir Coxsone, Fatman, Quaker City and Jah Tubbys and I’d heard a lot about Shaka so I was eagerly anticipating it. I wasn’t disappointed. He was playing with another sound from Derby whose name I’ve forgotten. They were good - crisp, clean and heavy with some good music, but when Shaka started playing it was like an earthquake in the place. He played one piece of plastic to sign on with and then pure dubplate the rest of the night - vintage Twinkle Brothers, Pablo, Johnny Clarke, King Tubbys, Scientist etc. I was standing a few feet away from his ampcase and was transfixed by “the little shortman” bobbing up and down in the air, eyes rolling like a man possessed as his speakers literally shook the walls to their foundations and the sirens and syndrums cut through your ears like piano wire. I was also amazed to see his deck vibrating up and down several inches yet not jumping on a track once; such are the tricks of soundmen. After each tune he played the crowd just stood in silent admiration - awe, even. To this day I still regret not having carried my tape machine in there. Four hours later, the dance finished and I was a confirmed Shaka follower. As a final footnote, my ears didn’t stop ringing for three days afterwards.

Click here now to listen to Shaka

Jah Shaka is a dub extremist, taking the music beyond the limits of excess. Concentrating on the stomach churning frequencies of bass and ear piercing tops, he hammered dubs home with a vengeance and added his own extra dimensions of sonic madness with the sirens, syndrums and chants which were fed through a pair of H&H tape echos and bent into splinters of aural excess reverberating throughout the dance. I consider him to be the most important figure on the dub scene today,
not only in the UK but also internationally, for without him the scene would have died a death many years ago. Every single person without exception who has produced dub music or started a roots sound system in the past 10 years has been directly or indirectly influenced to do so by Shaka, and his dances have become a phenomenon, attracting a large, diverse and multi cultural audience, taking in venues which would previously have been considered unthinkable to host a reggae sound system. 

 
 
 
  The story of Jah Shaka really started in the mid 1970’s. Here are some reminiscences on that period as related to me by a former member of his sound crew in that era:

 “Shaka used to get his dubs from the producer Winston Edwards. He had an arrangement where any good tune being made in Jamaica, he was the first to get it, long before it was released. He also got more cuts than anyone else and better cuts then anyone else. That’s how he made his name…  At one time he used to sign on with 12 cuts of Kill Nebuchanezzar by Fred Locks when he was playing with another sound. There was no way that anyone could match it, so that was that, he’d
finished the other sound off before the dance had even begun…. Eventually he’d worked his way round every sound in the country and dealt with all of them… except one, Sir Coxsone. Coxsone was regarded as the number one then and they’d heard about Shaka and they’d been avoiding playing him until finally a dance was arranged and they played together for the first time. It was in Croydon in 1976. Well Shaka went for it that night and half way through the dance, Lloyd Coxsone took
the mic and said “Stop the dance, stop the dance! In all my years in sound system I’ve never heard a sound like Jah Shaka.” And that was it, that was the night Shaka took the crown as number one in England and from then on nobody could touch him for years………..”

 
 
 
  Throughout the late 1970’s & early 1980’s the self-styled “Zulu Warrior” could be seen regularly in London at venues like Club Noreik in Tottenham, Studio 200 in Balham, Cubies in Dalston & most famously in the basement at the legendary Phoebes in Stoke Newington, a former
drinking club owned by east end gangsters the Kray twins, where he had a Friday night residency for several years. When Shaka gave a lecture at Stamford Hill Library in the mid 80’s, the place was full of soundmen & assorted dreads, one of whom summed up the Phoebes sessions by saying, “I received my spiritual education there – Phoebes was my church and Shaka was my preacher”.

Shaka also travelled the length and breadth of West Indian Britain, from Huddersfield to Bristol to teach the ‘country’ sounds how it was done. In 1980 he featured in a brief but memorable sequence in the film “Babylon”, sirens blazing through Johnny Clarke’s title tune. In an NME feature on sound systems the same year, Shaka was amongst those interviewed, stating, “The National Front and me would have a lot in common. We want to go back to Africa and they want to send us there…”

 
 
 
  There are many legendary stories surrounding Shaka; like the night in Northampton when Coxsone’s mcs were mouthing off about a Lee Perry dub they had and Shaka silenced them by just looking over, shaking his head, and putting a finger to his lips; the night at Acton Town Hall when Soferno B announced that they were the only sound in the world to have Ijahman’s “Moulding” and Shaka responded to their 2 average cuts by playing 15 killer cuts of his own; the night at Southall just after King Tubbys death when Joey Jay tried to do a tribute to King Tubbys with a minutes silence and Shaka repeatedly interrupted him by saying “No man, Tubbys was my bredren and he never liked silence, he always had music playing…run a music.” Joey Jay tried his silent tribute again and failed and was forced to play a King Tubbys  plastic before Shaka hammered the message home with a murderous Tubbys dubplate; The night in Phoebes when a dread walked in wearing a dress and carrying a broom handle with a doll tied to the end and spent the entire session standing in the middle of the dancefloor twirling the long handle round and round his head; the night when singer Errol Dunkley is reputed to have thrown bottles at Shaka for, according to different versions of the story, either playing too many cuts of a riddim, or refusing to play an Errol Dunkley tune, and Shaka responded by…… but that’s another story. 
 
 
 
 


Edited by Tekasis - 01 November 2007 at 10:29pm
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