August 5, 1999
I'll be honest - I'm distracted while writing this one. I just got back from seeing The Blair Witch Project, and I can think of little else. That film has thoroughly infected my head, and freaked me out so completely that I hoped to ease myself out of this paranoiac daze by listening to some supremely happy music. But to be honest, lilting ska after that mind-bender has the same effect as Shakespeare's comical doorman scene after a grisly murder in Macbeth - it only emphasizes the horror.
Still, Dekker's angelic tenor might just be enough to offset the panic in my head. For anyone who's only brush with ska is the deformed third generation stepchild No Doubt or others of their ilk, you owe it to yourself to check this out. All these genre-defining singles were released in the 60's, before ska got sped up and lost its swing. Ska is to Reggae what Skiffle is to the British Invasion - a unheralded precursor that is often more fun and certainly less self conscious than its progeny. Give me Bob Marley's early ska "Put It On" over his cannabis-damaged, slick "Three Little Birds" any day.
Unlike Marley, Dekker stuck to ska exclusively, God bless him. The bouncing horns and ass-shaking backbeat of "This Woman", the syncopated, ringing guitar of "007 (Shanty Town)" - later appropriated brilliantly into a hip-hop context by Special Ed - and the basso profundo harmonies of the anti-slavery parable "Israelites" are just enough to put the slide back in my glide. Like reggae, ska slides its subversive politics underneath some irresistible grooves; it'll take you a few listens to realize the mellow shimmy and ethereal vocal of "Rude Boy Train" hides some serious social commentary on ghetto violence while the guitar line points toward the dub experimentation of Lee "Scratch" Perry. Not so shabby for ostensibly disposable pop island music.
- Jared O'Connor
Angelically-voiced ska