6 December 2008, 2:48 pm
Part One
Part Two
Mervin Morkel, a classmate, introduced me to reggae at some point during the long months that we were out on national school boycotts in 1980. Deep in winter, and bored with the ‘alternative education’ programme – listening to speeches, singing ‘freedom songs’ that were mostly old spirituals or hymns – or wary that police action may be imminent, we stayed home. Mervin would visit, carrying his sought-after army knapsack brimming with vinyl records: Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Forces of Victory, Peter Tosh’s Equal Rights, Jimmy Cliff’s Follow my Mind, “Remake the world” from the latter featuring as a freedom song sung at ‘mass meetings’ at school:
Too many people are suffering
Too many people are sad
Too little people got everything
While too many people got nothing
Remake the world
With love and happiness
Remake the world
Put your conscience to the test…
Bob Marley in there also, of course. Kaya, Natty Dread, Rastaman Vibration, Zimbabwe, later Uprising. Read the rest of this entry »
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Politics and Culture, Prose | Tagged: 1976, 1980, Alex Haley, Amstelhof, Another brick in the wall, apartheid, apartheid legacy, Athlone, Babylon, Berg River, blaxploitation, Bob Marley, Cape Town, Charleston Hill, Chicago, colonial society, colonialism, Dagga, Elridge Estate, Equal Rights, Follow My Mind, Forces of Victory, Franschhoek, Ganja, Groote Schuur, Group Areas Act, Hewat Training College, Hugo River, Jamaica, Jimmy Cliff, Kaya, Klein Nederburg, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Magnolia Flats, Marijuana, national school boycott, Natty Dread, New Orleans, New World slavery, New York, Noorder Paarl, Paarl, Paulus Joubert, Peter Tosh, Pink Floyd, Rasta, Rastafarianism, Rastaman Vibration, reggae, Remake the world, Roots, SADF Coloured Corp, Sergeant Pepper’s, Slavery, South Africa, The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Trenchtown, Uprising, Victor Verster Prison, Wellington, Wemmershoek, Zimbabwe | 
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Posted by RK
12 July 2006, 11:52 am
Syd Barrett, 1946-2006.
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Leave a Comment » | RIP | Tagged: music, obituary, Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett | Permalink
Posted by RK
Groundwork 