THE ZINC FENCE MILLENIUM COUNTDOWN

Record of 1991, selected by Steve Barrow

 

HALF IDIOT
Cutty Ranks & Marcia Griffiths
Penthouse 7"

1991 was definitely a very good year for the Penthouse label and its astute producer Donovan Germain, aided by his then right-hand man, musician/engineer Dave Kelly, Germain was busily consolidating what would rapidly become a dominant position in the Jamaican dancehall with crisp, up-to-the-minute recuts of vintage rhythms, usually made by Steelie & Clevie. He had been successful in reinventing the careers of veteran singers like Beres Hammond and Marcia Griffiths, as well as bringing many newer talents to the fore. During the winter of 1990/1 he enjoyed a huge hit with Beres Hammond's Tempted To Touch based on the Love I Can Feel rhythm. It was soon
followed by hit dj versions from Tony Rebel with Fresh Vegetable and Cutty Ranks with Love Me Have Fe Get.

For the follow-up rhythm to these hit versions, the producer was a little more inventive. Rather than merely recutting a Studio One original, Germain & Kelly got Steelie & Clevie and keyboard player Robert Lyn to combine two Bob Andy songs in one. Over the rhythm to Andy's Studio One classic Feeling Soul, Marcia Griffiths voiced the lyric and melody to another superb Andy song, Fire Burning, originally done by its writer for Lloyd Charmers in 1974. Marcia's version became one of the biggest hits of 1991 and spawned a whole album on the rhythm, as well as a further massive hit with Buju Banton's Love Mi Browning, one of the tunes that brought him to the front rank of deejays.

Bob Andy - always one of the most perceptive songwriters in modern Jamaican popular music - had crafted a lyric that was a devastating critique of Jamaican social conditions when it was written in the early seventies. The dreams of a better life fostered in the wake of independence were by then
proving impossible to sustain. In 1972 Michael Manley's People's National Party had been elected in a landslide victory, promising deliverance from the conservative Jamaica Labour Party policies that had perpetuated the glaring inequalities of British rule in a local form. Manley promised to right the wrongs of the 1960s through a non-aligned Jamaican version of 'power to the people'. But the world was ravaged by hyper-inflation and Jamaica was at the economic mercy of the metropolitan powers. Manley's policies - land nationalisation and control of the bauxite economy in particular - frightened the the local bourgoisie, who began to evacuate themselves and their capital to 'foreign' , usually the USA. In this climate of political instability, the hopes built up by Manley's government soon foundered; disillusion with 'politrics' became widespread. Andy's lyric - in common with other songs of the period by Max Romeo and Leonard Dillon - directly addresses the politicians as well as describing 'conditions a yard'. Implicitly it is a call for principled leadership, one that will not ignore the masses, and warns quite clearly of the consequences of betraying their post-colonial aspirations.


Seventeen years later, nothing much had changed. After Manley's government had been destabilised in the political 'war' that raged through the late 1970s, and had left office, Edward Seaga had come to power in an uncontested election and maintained it throughout the 1980s. Things were, if anything, worse. The inequalities in society were even more blatant - mass
unemployment and often desperate living conditions, exactly as described in Fire Burning, were still the lot of the majority. Marcia Griffiths' new version of her former partner Bob's song thus retained all its original political meaning. This was in turn reinforced by voicing the song on the
rhythm that had propelled "Feeling Soul", a superior love ballad distinguished by its complete sincerity.

When the Jamaican government further devalued the Jamaican dollar in the Spring of 1991, this forced a round of vicious price rises in basic foodstuffs that proved nearly insupportable; it is this situation that Cutty Ranks addresses in his lyric. The deejay was more qualified than most to comment on this situation - his work before music had been in the food trade, as cutter and boner-out in the Kingston meat market just above Crossroads. Cutty's upbringing had been no bed of roses either - abandoned as an infant, he had been brought up by a kind older woman who had no children of her own and who became like a mother to him. He had not known his parents until
he met his real mother when already a teenager and his father when he was in his twenties. Over these circumstances he had triumphed to become one of the most formidable deejays of modern times, reknowned for tough lyrics delivered in an awesomely strong, resolutely rockstone voice. Gun tunes, sound boy boasts, harsh reality lyrics and praises to Jah -all were fired out like bullets from Cutty's seemingly inexhaustible vocal armoury.

Half Idiot was deservedly another big hit. Cutty transforms the critical observations of Fire Burning into a call for action right from the beginning, a magnificently energising performance that is a tour-de-force of Jamaican deejay artistry. I can do no better in conclusion than to let those
lyrics speak for themselves:

[Marcia's part is in brackets]

So unnu nah wan open up unnu eye?
So unnu wan' me open it fi unnu?
I notice: dem say that what due to Caesar, give to Caesar
But what Caesar doin' for me an' you?
Nutting!
Eeeeh?

[I was drawn into myself]
Myself!
[Observing all this time
From every angle that I see
My people, you're meeting hell]
Marcia dem a feel it!
[So brothers have turned to crime
So they die from time to time]
Dem no stop die.
[We'd like to ask you leaders
What have you got in mind?]

The people dem a fool, an' dem a half idiot
Dem no see the food prices wan' boycott
Dem a fool, an' dem a half idiot
Dem no wan' fi demonstrate, an' mek the food price drop
Dem a fool, an' dem a half idiot
Some a dem a pose up, a gwan like dem a big shot
Dem a fool, an' dem a half idiot
Tell all the big bwoy seh, dey better turn back, 'cause:

[Fire fire f-f-fire, fire fire fire, fire burning
Another thing I saw in vision
Right in front these eyes] my eyes!
[Sisters prostituting, selling away their lives]
Nuthin' nah gwan fi dem
[They get but very little pay, the ones who clean the mess]
'undred dollar
[Minority who sits on top raise themselves the best]
Uh-mm
[But I see the fire spreading, it's getting hotter and hot] red hot!
[The haves will want to be
In the shoes of the have not]
Dem a tun fat cat!
[If the sign is on your door then you will be safe for sure
But if you are in pretence you're on the wrong side of the fence]

Me seh:
The youth dem nowadays a dead fi hungry
Dem can't find no job, lawd, fi earn no money
Dem can't find no food fi mind dem pickney
But lissen Cutty Rank a fling down reality
Dem mus' be fool, dem mus' be half idiot
Dem no see the food prices wan' boycott
Dem mus' be fool, dem mus' be half idiot
The people fi hold the Man strict, an' mek the food price drop
Dem mus' be fool, dem mus' be half idiot
Tell all the politician dem better tun back
Reality, yes, me a fling down reality,
Follow me now, massive an' crew
Reality, yes, me a fling down reality,
The youth dem a dead fi hungry
When mi come, say you know me welcome
When me come, a me an' Marcia come, cho!
When mi come seh you know say me welcome
You know seh Cutty Rank 'im jus' a blossom

[Another thing I saw in vision
Right in front these eyes] front my eyes!
[Sisters prostituting, selling away their lives]
Beca' dem nah earn nuttin'
[They get but very little pay, the ones who cleans the mess]
'undred dollar
[Minority who sits on top just raise themselves the best]
[But I see the fire spreading, it's getting hotter and hot] red hot!
[The haves will want to be
In the shoes of the have nots]
Selassie I know
[If the sign is on your door then you will be safe for sure] eeheh!
[But if you are in pretence you're on the wrong side of the fence]
Too much liberty,
Dem wan' fi tek away
Too much liberty
Dem no have no pity
Too much liberty
Dem wan' fi tek away
Too much liberty
We no earn no money
Unnu mus be fool, unnu mus' be half idiot
You no see the food prices wan' boycott
Unnu mus' be fool,unnu mus' be half idiot
Unnu no wan' demonstrate an' mek the food price drop.

[fade out]

order of merit to the foundation of the music..

 

Steve Barrow / 31-10-99

 

HOME PAGE

REVIEWS

FEATURES

BULLETIN BOARD