Tonight, I will visit what I am sure will be a memorable site for me. It will be outside Cuddyz in New Kingston, where David Rodigan and Barry G will be clashing in an affair called 'London Calling'.
I have never been to a Barry G/Rodigan clash, but they are, of course, the stuff of legend and did a lot to make the trans-oceanic leap for Jamaican music.I have been on quite a few websites of ardent reggae fans, who have said that their introduction to Jamaican music was through David Rodigan's show on British radio. But the clashing with Barry G was what made us realise that not only the music, but how it was played, was making the leap.
Toe-to-toe
For here was this white guy going toe-to-toe with the voice of a generation ? more than one generation, actually. Not only was Rodigan stepping up to the clash, but he was more than holding his own, too.
Sound clashes are, these days, sadly few and far between. And when they do come up, like the Death Before Dishonour affair in Montego Bay earlier this year, the strength of language is not, shall we say, quite the stuff that would go down well everywhere. And, many times, the emphasis is on a hot new tune.
That is not what I expect with Rodigan and Barry G. I expect to hear some vintage dubs, as well as some more recent cuts, of course, well presented, with tons of historical information that is simply priceless.
I only hope that the crowds turn out for the affair.
Some years ago, GT Taylor and Rodigan had a go of it in St. Ann's Bay, at Windsor Lawn, but it just did not generate the aura that the Barry G/Rodigan combination does.
And since Stone Love is advertised, I expect that they will be playing on a very good sound system.
There are some sessions that got away from us who started going to dances at the end of the 1980s and this is one of them. What would be very good now is if King Jammy's could string up again with the crew of Admiral Bailey and company. Or Black Scorpio would get Trees back deejaying live on a regular basis.
Stur-Gav seems to be doing it with Chaplin and Josey, along with the Godfather U-Roy.
It is high time that this gap in sessions be closed, especially for a new generation of reggae fans, for the history of the music does not lie in the books and the magazines, but in drum and bass rumbling out of a sound system.
Like tonight outside Cuddyz.
