Posted on April 11, 2008Dave Stelfox on White Reggae in the Guardian Gwaan Dave! The problem with white reggae has always been that reggae depends for its force on its context: the rich rock insider’s take on I Shot the Sheriff can never really capture the intensity of a song about struggling for freedom and killing a policeman. Then there’s the perpetually thorny issue of white performers co-opting the culture of a historically oppressed minority. All of which makes it surprising that there is a new crop of white reggae performers, eschewing the melanin-deficient basslines and embarrassing attempts at patois that have caught out their predecessors. These artists even market themselves not to the crossover market but to hardcore reggae fans – including those in Jamaica. Maybe, finally, there is white reggae that is more than a pale imitation of the real thing.
