Praise for This Is Reggae Music
"Jamaican music at last has the book it deserves."--Prince Buster,
from the Foreword"A celebration of a music and a culture from the
grass roots up...written with passion, style, and gusto."--The
Independent on Sunday"An expansive, impassioned history of
reggae...An exciting and thorough sense of reggae's originality and
perseverance in the face of crooked businessmen, thuggish
interlopers, and general apathy from the Jamaican establishment.
This will be the standard reference on the subject."--Kirkus
Reviews (starred review)"With flair, skill, passion and stamina,
Bradley fluidly traces Jamaican music's odyssey from the pure
energy of 1950s Kingston's open-air sound system scene to the
eruption of homegrown ska...insider-expert revelations will delight
reggae's many devotees."--Publishers Weekly"In a witty and engaging
manner, [Bradley] traces the development of the genre from mento to
sound system dances, ska, rock steady, reggae, dub, toasting
(precursor to American rap), and many other offshoots."--Library
Journal (starred review)"A genuine keeper among reggae
books."--Booklist "In Lloyd Bradley's long-awaited history, the
ghettos and the ganja are explored alongside independence and
international relations to produce a definitive account. . . . [An]
informed analysis and intoxicating aural history."--GQ (London)"A
brilliant, comprehensive history of Jamaica's principal
twentieth-century art form . . . Bradley deftly intertwines the key
themes of the Caribbean island's chaotic music industry and its
checkered social history. Essential."--Q Magazine (London)"Should
you want to know how Island Records found and champion of reggae
Chris Blackwell arrived at ghetto music via being stranded on a
reef and passing out before Rasta fishermen rescued him; why Peter
Tosh always referred to Blackwell as Whiteworst; why Bob Marley was
shot in the name of politics; or why the experimental producer and
errant genius Lee 'scratch" Perry was found walking backwards,
striking the ground with a hammer after burning his studio down as
reggae disintegrated into computer-led, bass-free rhythms; Bradley
nails them all. For anyone who has ever shaken a stick at a
skank."--The Herald (Glasgow)"There are as many versions of
Jamaica's music history as there are remixes of this month's hot
tune; reggae books have tended either to perpetuate the old myths
or get it completely wrong. But Bradley has untangled the tall
stories and written a compelling social and musical history . . .
filled to the brim with anecdotes to keep the most hardened
music-head happy."--The Face (London)"The most thorough attempt yet
to tell [reggae's] who story. Although the author, the British
music journalist Lloyd Bradley, wasn't around to witness at first
hand most of the developments he describes, he has spent six years
talking at length to many of the people who made them happen--and
his whole life, by the sound of it, loving every last detail of the
music and memorizing its gloriously rich and expressive slang. . .
. He is as attentive to the island's shifting social and political
scene as he is to the gradual evolution of the music."--The Sunday
Times(London)"An in-depth and comprehensive study of reggae and its
origins . . . that will appeal to the casual reader as well as to
aficionados. From the pioneering sound systems of the 1950s through
to the 'digital present" via ska and dub, Bradley's reverential awe
of the music, and of its practitioners, is apparent. . . . This is
a book many musicians would benefit from reading. . . . The
technological and production aspects of Jamaican music, with its
history of tireless innovation, are also discussed in depth and at
length in the book, with the debt owed by other genres of music
well acknowledged. . . . Dizzying in its scope, yet at the same
time meticulous in its attention to detail."--The Independent on
Sunday (London)"[This Is Reggae Music] attempts--and succeeds--to
chart the history of reggae; Jah, guns, politics an" all. With rare
suss, a sharp critical acuity and an informed sense of where the
music came from and where it's going to, this welcome study is as
positive as it is lively, and as refreshing as it is
definitive."--Time Out (London)'lloyd Bradley's meticulous book
traces not only the growth of an art form, but also explores
Jamaica's struggle to define its own culture. Bradley's anecdotal
stories are excellent, and his love of the music and the culture
that inspired it is evident at every turn."--The Latest (UK)"Every
contemporary music form owes reggae money, or at least a debt of
influence. Lloyd Bradley plots the course of the sounds that have
pulsed from the island; in the days when Jamaican performers copies
the look and sound of US R&B artists, up to modern dancehall,
taking in roots, dub and rocksteady along the way. Bradley
illustrates superbly how the music of the dispossessed, the
'sufferers," became a global force, and how Jamaica forged its
identity through drums and bass. Crucial."--The Big Issue (London)
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