Copy N Paste

Having spent months creating our own dancehall zine, we wanted to look back and ask others whod done the same about their experiences writing about dancehall. Canadian dancehall lover Beth Lesser is the ultimate reggae writer: having penned two of the best Jamaican music books out there King Jammys and Dancehall: the Story of Jamaican Dancehall Culture, not to mention founding and running Reggae Quarterly from 82-7. Her amazing photographs of the emergence of dancehall can be found on the cover of many a sleeve, like this and this.  She even married her husband at a Youth Promotion dance at Sugar Minotts house. I tried to fit in as many questions I could into half an hour.

You went out to Jamaica in the early 80s with the purpose of researching reggae how did you manage to get in with the scene?

We had some help. we knew somebody up here who had some contacts with Jamaican people and some producers. There were a lot of records being produced in both places, so when we first went down to Jamaica he gave us some errands to do, like go see Tuff Gong, and he also introduced us to somebody who worked with Augustus Pablo, who was married to a woman who lived in Toronto. So we met with them before we went down. Originally we [Beth and her husband, Dave] went down there with the intention of doing some kind of fan club for Augustus Pablo. That was the springboard, not only did we really apprecaite his music, but we knew sombeody, so there was actually a possibility of going down there and meeting him, and starting a fan club or whatever, something to publicise him, his artists and his productions.

At what point did you realise that it was going to turn into something else?

Well we got down there and we realised right away. Youre in Toronto or England or New York and you have this white persons image that reggae was dub. At the end of the 70s, it was all King Tubbys and heavy dub and Jah Stitch out here, and then you go there and thats not whats going on at all, it was all this dancehall stuff. It was Brigadier and Gemini sound, it was something totally different, you couldnt miss it, it hit you in the face as soon as you got there.

So what was really going on musically in Jamaica at that point was being misrepresented in other parts of the world?

At that point, yes, totally. It was toally different in other countries than what was actually going on. I think that was because it was really new in Jamaica, the rest of the world hadnt really caught up. Obviously some poeple had, but it hadnt filtered its way into the outside. That stuff did not reach white record stores where they sold rock and alternative music. In Toronto it was very much a divide: the Jamaican community kept their stuff within the Jamaican community and it didnt really cross over that much.

Did that misrepresentation make you eager to get that sound back to Canada?

Yeah, it was the most unexpected but wonderful thing we had ever encountered. We fell in love with dancehall immediately. There was something so wonderful about the spontaneity of the dances, the excitement, and so we absolutely wanted to share that and interview as many people as we could. We still loved Pablo and we still interviewed his artists and brought some Ricky Grant records back to try and sell for Pablo, but wed caught the dancehall bug and wanted to investigate it more and more. We brought back records to sell, we couldnt carry a lot, but we had a couple things of Clancy Eccles, we brought Freddie Mckays Paulette back to distribute to places. Later we pressed 1000 of Horace Fergusons Sensi Addict, sold it locally, designed a new cover for it. So it also made us want to find out what was going on in Toronto, because it was opening our eyes to something that was here but we had never seen before.

Do you remember the first dance you went to when you thought oh my god what is this?

I remember going to a Louie Lepke dance in Toronto, in maybe 1980. We went early, there was nobody there, it said the doors opened at 9, but we had no idea nobody would show up until like 1 in the morning, so we sat around and started chatting to people and became friends. It was just amazing to see Louie Lepke live in front of you, that blew us away, we were dancehall fans for life after that.

Did you have a favourite place to be or a memory of a particularly stand-out moment from your trips to Jamaica?

One of the very first memories from our first trip was going to King Tubbys studio with Augustus Pablo and watching him record there. It was a moment you cant even believe happened, it was so magical. As for favourite place, we ended up hanging out with Youth Promotion a lot, people who werent even artists, just people who lived there or worked there or were part of Sugars [Minott] extended family, and we got really comfortable there and it really became our second home in Jamaica.\

Is that how you ended up taking photographs of the Youth Promotion gang and everyone else?

It was more that people were bored. we didnt know how to drive, so we couldnt rent a car, we had to take buses and taxis and we werent in any hurry, we didnt even know who we were gonna interview for the next magazine, so we were just like oh, lets go up and see whos at Jammys today, wed take the bus, we would just hang around and everybody was bored, people had nothing else to do so if you pulled out a camera, everybody would just start posing , as something to do, to break up a long day waiting for your time in the studio.

So at that point, were you aware that you were capturing a moment not only in terms of music, but also in style?

I had no idea, neither of us did, because at the time, nobody wanted to hear about this stuff, dancehall was not acceptable, it was not respected, it wasnt played on the radio if they could avoid it. Obviously some songs were hits and they couldnt avoid it, like Yellowman, but nobody wanted to hear this stuff, nobody wanted to meet us or talk to us, even for the magazine. People in the studios took us seriously, like at Channel One, or Winston Riley at Techniques, and the people who were actually doing the work, they took us seriously, but even people at like Tuff Gong, it seemed like they were more official, they were doing rasta business and he we were with this dancehall crap that they thought was exploiting the youth and turning people into criminals. I honestly never thought it would amount to anything.

So at that point, dancehall was getting a bad rep in Jamaica itself?

it was considered to be garbage music, the lowest of the low, on the radio they played country, soul, disco and middle of the road foreign stuff. They had no respect for Jamaican artists.

How did things change as time went on, when you were visiting?

It got more acceptable in the late 80s when it started crossing over into hip hop. When that started happening and people in other countries started to accept it, then people in Jamaica started to accept it. When I say people I mean the media, cos the people had always liked it.

How were you inspired to make a zine?

We just loved the music. We were totally captivated. Especially by the fact that there was so much of it. My husband used to do a radio show and we would go down to dynamic and theyd be like take one copy of everything and wed come out of hundreds of 45s. for people like me and my husband, it was a fix we got when we went to Jamaica, it was endless, and exciting.

Who else was buying records then, were Jamaicans buying many?

Local Jamaicans were buying 45s, but most of it was really for export. Jamaicans didnt really buy albums, and they certainly didnt buy 12, those were mostly pressed in England.

So at this point, when you started Reggae Quarterly, were you already a writer? Was creating your own magazine the only option, was there no other platform available for you to write about Jamaican music?

I wasnt really a writer, or a photographer, I wasnt really anything at that point. I was young, Id just finished university, spent a few years working in this restaurant and that restaurant, and in fact the first time I went to Jamaica I didnt even take a good camera. It was only the second time, when i was serious about doing the magazine that I brought a good Nikon with me. Nobody was really interested in it anyway, people were interested in Bob Marley. I couldnt have paid somebody to take an article about dancehall. It would have meant nothing to them. You had to do it yourself. And I didnt want to compromise, if I had written an article, it would have been so compromised, it would have meant nothing. And the idea of anybody paying for anything was just so foreign. i mean, when i tried to sell people ads, people hardly gave away ads, nobody was interested.

Do you have a favourite person you interviewed for reggae quarterly?

It was just all so much fun. Unfortunately the issue with Dennis Brown is sold out, i love that issue, there were other people in it too, like Little John and Toyan. I wish i could have done it better now, and got more information but to have that opportunity to interviewi was glad that I had that chance.

Most of the artists you interviewed were male, but you do mention in the Dancehall book a bit about female deejays. Did you develop any specific relationship with other women while you were out there, and did you feel in any way that your gender affected your experience there?

At times it was very difficult, sometimes I would ask someone a question and they would turn around and answer it to my husband, like I was invisible. For the most part, people who were actually making the music had no problem with me, they were used to women being strong and working because thats the way it is there, theyre self reliant, they carry the burden of the family most of the time. There were some real role models, like Sonia Pottinger, who was a very powerful, strong woman. But i couldnt actually leave by myself and go anywhere without Dave, i wasnt really safe by myself, but the two of us together made a good team and I never felt I wasnt taken seriously. As for the female deejays, we really developed a good relationship with Sister Nancy, I love her, I think shes a great person and I adore her as a deejay, and I was always happy when there were women to talk to but it was relatively rare back then, and Im glad to see its more common now, there are more women out there.

Do you still have a relationship with people in the book?

I still talk to some of the Youth Promotion people, and Prince Jazzbo, U Brown, Jah Stitch, other than that some of the people who were in Toronto, like Sassafras.

Didnt a bunch of JA artists move to Toronto?

They moved to England first and then there was a prime minister here in the 60s who really opened it up, a lot of people came then, like Jackie Mittoo, Jammy was here for a bit, then a lot of people now from the 80s dancehall scene Selector Archie and Anthony Malvo.

Then you took a long break from reggae for family reasons how did the publishing stuff come about?

A publishing company called ECW offered to put out a new version of my Jammys book, so I jumped at that, helped them work on that. In this time I had continued to sell photos for CD covers, so I often had people contact me about them, and Stuart Baker at Soul Jazz had asked to see some photographs and really liked them, so he came up with the idea of a book to showcase the photographs but also have the supporting text.

Do you have any archives that you think are still untapped?

We have a serious back catalogue of 45s, especially from sonic sounds.dance cassettes were my thing, I collected them for a long time.

Do you have a huge record collection?

[laughs]

How many have you got?

Ermits pretty massive. Were not record collectors so its not a deliberate thing where weve tried to get this record or that, its just whatever weve ended up with, and theres some weird stuff from the 80s that nobody wanted to hear, or probably ever will, and then theres some really classic stuff . Weve got them all in the basement, there are boxes and boxes and boxes of 45s. Were not collectors, we just have more records than normal people.

What future do you think reggae and dancehall might have in print?

Well, all of print publications are ont he way out. Publishing houses in Canada are closing. Things change though, who knows whats next. Look at what happened with music, people didnt make money through the reproduction of their music, people used to have to be troubadours and walk around and play their music. Records are relatively new in history, but were back to that format where people actually have to perform live to make money in music.

Do you have any advice for young writers who are interested in the Caribbean music scene?

All I can say is go there. If you want to find about it you just have to go there, and then everything will fall into place. You cant investigate it from outside of Jamaica cos when you get there you suddenly really understand, but you have to have that perspective from there. Its not something you can really get unless youre there but once youre there you totally get it.

Get saving!

Beth since contacted me saying she forgot to mention that shes just finished the biography of Sugar Minott and Youth Promotion, which is currently being printed by Small Axe. Watch her website for more info.

Photographs courtesy of Beth Lesser.
1) Wayne Smith, Echo Minott, Tenor Saw & friend
2) Beth and her husband with Sugar Minott and the Youth Promotion crew
3) Joe Lickshot with Prince Jazzbo & his son
4) Nitty Gritty in Jammys yard
5) Beth and her husband with Stitch