By Jane White

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery,/ None but ourselves can free our minds”, sang Bob Marley. Reggae is changing and adapting to the times. The roots of calypso and reggae reach back into slavery, where social criticism and satire could be expressed only in song. Slave masters then (like their modern equivalents) were incapable of feeling the message, and often never even tried to understand.

We had a sign of this at the Maritime Museum in Fremantle on February 5, when a Celebration of the Life and Music of a Legend: Bob Marley Time Will Tell brought together a diverse crowd of students, musicians, dancers, smokers and talkers, for a night of reggae and unity.

During that evening Reggae, Dance and Movement (RDM) performed a dance evocative of resistance to oppression and joy at emancipation and triumph over adversity. Watching the dance, it was impossible not to feel the resistance to slavery that runs through reggae music; as Bob Marley said, “I don't have to suffer to be aware of suffering”.

Marley, born in 1945, the abandoned son of a white father and a black mother, ran away at 13 or 14 from rural Jamaica to live in the streets of Trenchtown (Kingston's slums). He and his mates played homemade instruments, and at 17 Marley was taken up by Jimmy Cliff and introduced to Leslie Kong, record producer.

Young street musicians were easily exploited by the entrepreneurs, and the Wailers disbanded in 1966, having made no gain. Marley worked in a factory in the US but left again for Jamaica and the Rastafari. The Wailers, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston went solo in '75, and Marley toured Africa, Europe and the Americas with the I-Threes, Rita Marley among them. The high point of their lives was the concert for Zimbabwe independence.

Marley was courted by both Michael Manley on the left and by Edward Seaga, the CIA-supported anthropologist and record producer, who became Jamaica's president in 1980.

Marley died in 1981, but groups such as RDM keep the flame of resistance burning. Says Sam, one of the two dancers: “RDM represent a unity of all cultures through dance. With dance comes a certain freeing of the spirit. Resistance to all types of slavery is achievable and RDM hope to inspire just that thought.”

RDM can be seen on Thursday nights at Caribbean Club, 298 Hay Street, Subiaco. Classes are held on Wednesday nights at 7.30, at 33 Pakenham St, Freo. Call Julie or Sam on 331 2937.

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