Dube was strongly influenced by Jamaican reggae legend Peter Tosh. He blended the sounds of roots reggae and pop but maintained the strong interest in social justice that Tosh and Bob Marley brought to the genre. "During his lifetime South African reggae star Lucky Dube was a man on a mission to make the world a better place," reported BBC News, a news agency not given to hyperbole. "And his determination paid off," added a BBC writer, "for in the thousands upon thousands of tributes that were paid to Dube after his shooting on Thursday, it is his message that people remember."
[Monday: The Guardian has a first-class obituary up today on its website.]
Lucky Dube was drawn to reggae, in fact, because he admired the way Peter Tosh and others used the music to fight against oppressors, "down-pressors" in the Jamaican patois they used. (Ironically, he died the day before Tosh's birthday. Tosh also was shot to death in a robbery, in 1987.) He also admired the classic reggae sound. "His phrasing and everything was like Peter's, bringing new slant and African melodies to it," Jamaican musician Brian Jobson told The Observer in Kingstown.
In a way, Lucky Dube was a crossover musician. His roots were in mbaqanga, described in The Times of London's obituary as "a style of South African dance music with its roots in a fusion of jazz and rural Zulu styles." And when he turned to reggae, he added a strong element of good commercial pop music. Dobson, the bass player in Jamaica, said:
"... he was a cool guy, really unassuming and modest, and he introduced a whole new audience to reggae music. A lot of people who didn't get it in its purest form, bringing in the African influence which he had, which was really subtle, but still it provided a good bridge between hardcore reggae and African music."In class Monday we'll watch the BBC's initial report on Dube's murder and a couple of videos.
The first is of a live performance of "War and Crime," one of Lucky Dube's songs of social commentary. In it he asks: "... so / Why don' t we / Bury down apartheid / Fight down war and crime." If you want to follow the lyrics, they're online.
We'll also screen a Gallo Record Co. promotional video for "Feel Irie." It's a video about making a video about feeling happy or righteous. That's what "irie" means in Rasta or Jamaican patois. How cool can that be? But Lucky Dube was dead serious, as the lyrics make clear:
No matter how hard we try,And music, says Lucky Dube, can show us the way.
Trouble will find us one way or another.
People had troubles since the pope
Was an altar boy ...
Listen to those guitars skankingFinally, a clip that I think is especially appropriate now. It shows Lucky Dube singing "Peace, Perfect Peace" Only Jah or "Jah Rasta Fari" as the Rastafarians call God, can give us peace as we "cry for love in this neighbourhood / Let me tell you no water can put out this fire." Over the weekend we lost a musician who dedicated his art to trying to put out the fire that, in the end, consumed him.
Yeah... Put a smile on your face
Don't let the troubles get you down
Shoop shoop doo doo
Put a smile on your face
Don't let the troubles get you down.
An irie footnote for fellow geeks. According to one biography of Lucky Dube, he first learned about reggae as a student assistant working in his school library in the Transvaal district of South Africa, where he read articles on Rastfarian religion and music in an encyclopedia. "His interest grew the more he read and found out, and soon he was working and earning enough money to buy Peter Tosh albums (which were the only Reggae albums available in South Africa at the time)." Good news, and a role model, I think, for geeks and bookworms everywhere!
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