It's Very Simple, Really: An Ongoing Discussion on Reggae and Dub

Carlton Livingston - 100 Weight of Collie Weed

Reggae gets the worst rap. And it’s easy to understand why: white people ruined that shit.

Seriously, I don’t mean to veer near that whole blame white people / white people are the worst territory, because that’s a hugely stupid position to take. But you probably don’t like, or may even hate, reggae because of coffeeshops, college towns and trustafarian drum circles in the park.

Don’t be like that. Like any other genre, there’s good…and there’s bad. You’ve most likely heard the bad, or not necessarily the bad but the saccharine, watered down commercial and clean stuff. It’s the same with lots of African music, and the whole “world music” genre (a terrible term, and lumping of wildly divergent musics and traditions all lazily categorized into a “I really can’t be bothered” type of classification; not even sure if that’s still an accepted nomenclature).

This makes me long for hot dimly lit nights outside, cold beer sweating in my palm, loud rumble of bass bellowing beneath my feet, up my legs and into my brain, while a mass of bodies sway all around me…

Like what what’s going on here? Bombs away in the comments!

Not into this song? Stick around for the next one, it may be what you didn’t know you needed! Remember, there are only two genres of music here at SERMONS!: good and bad, and I have too much to do to waste time on bad music.