Riddim nation

U-Roy’s Stur-Gav presides over the Reggae
Fest’s Soundsystem Night

THAT’S THE NICENESS: U-Roy

by ERIN MACLEOD

U-Roy wants people to know exactly what he’s bringing to this year’s edition of the Montreal Reggae Fest, happening June 24–26. “This is not a band that is going to play, this is not a stage show,” he explains over the phone from his home in Kingston, Jamaica. “This is a soundsystem where people will hear different songs, different singers. They’ll hear the riddim track, and deejays will be on these tracks, saying what they have to say. And we hope everybody will enjoy themselves. We are coming to do what we know how to do—and this is what we do best.”

The Originator, as he is also called, is describing the soundsystem he founded in the early 1970s—Stur-Gav Hi Fi. More like a hip hop DJ, with a speakers, microphone and MC set-up, the soundsystem has been the standard way to experience music in Jamaica from as far back as the 1950s and ’60s, and U-Roy is bringing this experience to Montreal.

“Soundsystem was just a poor people’s thing—people go to dances to have fun, because they can’t go to the clubs and buy these big drinks and stuff like that and pay entrance fee,” says U-Roy. “It really started with the people in the ghetto, it’s our enjoyment. That’s how it came about. And trust me, I had no idea that soundsystem would ever get so big.”

He’s right. There are soundsystems playing every night of the week from Jamrock to Japan. But these sounds are quite different from those of U-Roy’s era, when deejays, the performers who would chat on the mic, would work alongside specific soundsystems like Stur-Gav. “Most deejays in my time come from the soundsystem. They have to be. It was just like that. Deejays would come to the dance. I would be saying something on the mic, and before a song would end, I would say ‘A wha yuh say, Charlie Chaplin? A wha yuh say Josey?’ And one of them would come and sing his part on the same riddim. That’s the niceness of it.”

U-Roy, alongside Charlie Chaplin, Josey Wales and Brigadier Jerry, will be keeping the lyrics nice in Montreal. “I speak about reality things like how people need food, homes, money. Kids need to be educated—stuff like that,” he describes. “Those are my type of lyrics. It makes sense. People don’t want to hear you talking about ‘gyal’ and ‘bitches.’ I have my daughters, my sisters, my mother is still alive. I don’t want to hear talking about ‘bitches’! I make certain I don’t do that. The dance needs more consciousness. The youth have to see that what they do, whether it is wrong or right, they have to find their own way to correct themselves. Not everything they do I appreciate, but they are some versatile kids and they come with their own ideas. This is not about fighting them or putting them down or stuff like that. This is about letting them know that hey, maybe you could fix this. If they want to hear you, they hear you. It’s up to them.”

On Friday night, Stur-Gav will take Montreal to school, keeping it conscious, creative and, more than anything, a whole lot of fun. “There will be a lot of improvisation happening—making up lyrics right on the spot there. It is a lot of fun. A lot of fun for us! Trust me, you don’t know the fun that we have with this soundsystem thing!”