Caribbean Popular Culture

1. Sugar Cane Alley

2. Language, 3. Dub poetry

4. Music: Bob Marley & Fugees as Examples

Popular Culture & Racial Consciousness Voodoo or other African folk beliefs Pre-Emancipation: riot, petit marronage

( 小走私 ) in francophone islands-leaving home to meet girl friends, or for a forbidden church meeting. * Maroons ( 孤立的黑奴遺族 )– Music: Work Song, Abeng

Post-Emancipation: Violent riot 20th Century:

– dub poetry and its Conscious Use of Creole

– Carnival,

– Music: Calypso, Reggae

The Caribbean Islands and their migrants

Canada The U.S.

““Children of the Sea”; FugeesChildren of the Sea”; Fugees

Annie John M. Cliff, B. Marley

Wide Sargasso Sea Sugar Cane Alley

England France

• Setting: Martinique in the 1930s; Black Shack Alley, Port-de-France

1. Slums of the Empire

2. Emancipation as the false door to freedom;

Toils on the sugar cane plantations:

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Toils on the sugar cane plantations:

Season: right after X’mas to August.1. Working hours: 10-11 hrs a day, six

days a week.2. The traditional planting method: hoe

(instead of plough); dung basket (instead of cart)

3. Cutting: in a dry season, sent to the factory right away. Bend down to cut at the bottom, and then stand up to strip trash or dry leaves.

e.g. “[Cutting cane] has given me a house and helped me raise six children, . . . but [cutting cane] can take everything out of you.

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Sugar Cane Alley: background (2) film production: (1985, Euzhan Palcy); from the novel

Joseph Zobel, Black Shack Alley worried about the white creole elites’

responses– use French, but not Creole French– first shown in Martinique but not in

France; several awards in Venice film fest and French Cesar

Sugar Cane Alley: Major Themes Exploitation of the black laborers and their ways

of resistance (examples of Caribbean folk culture)

Cultural identities -- different senses of black/creole/white identities.– What contrasts or oppositions are portrayed in the film?

Education --Who gets educated and by whom?

Sugar Cane Alley: Major Themes Exploitation of the black laborers and their

ways resistance (examples of Caribbean folk culture)

-- the laborers: Ti Coco, Twelve-Toe, Medouze

-- the colonizers and overseers: Mr. de Thoral, Mr. Whitley, Carmen’s mistress.

-- in-group exploitation: Mme. Leonce

Sugar Cane Alley: Exploitation

Exploitation of Labourers before and after Emancipation – the workers -- their songs; their ways of

rebellion; Ti CoCo's wage; – Medouze – the overseers -- e.g. Whitley

Seen from the children’s perspective– the broken bowl episode – the rum-drinking episode child

laborers

Sugar Cane Alley: Cultural/Gender IdentityWho else (besides Jose) gets education or

“liberated”?Self-Hatred (or Black Skin, White Mask): M. FloraCross-Cultural Gender relations:

a. Black women’s position: Leopold’s mother

b. Carmen Jose’s friends,

Sugar Cane Alley: Education Education of Jose the grandmother’s role; Medouze’s influence: respect for nature, “Africa” the two teachers Major turning points in the film:

– Rum– Medouze’s death– Mme. Leonce moving to the town– Being chosen to Port-de-France– Being suspected of cheating.

Getting full scholarship

Sugar Cane Alley: Education

How do you read the line at the end--"Take my Black Shack Alley with me"?

Does Jose's "success" suggest that things are changing? That there will be justice? Or is he simply an exception?

Sugar Cane Alley: Filmic Techniques

1. Structure: the post card views at the opening

2. Colors: the use of different color tones for different

settings (Black Shack Alley—dark and sepia, Leopold’s house & Port-de-France--bright)

3. Shots: no scenery shots Many close-ups

The people’s resistance to colonialism: some examples of Caribbean Popular Culture Ways of rebelllion:

– with music, dance, religion (voodon), or simply their different way of living;

– pretend sickness, steal, or even poison their masters.

– Dub poetry: forerunner of hip-hop– Calypso: originated in the songs of

African slaves who worked in the plantation fields of Trinidad. Forbidden to talk to each other, they used calypso to communicate feelings and information.

Bob Marley(1944-1981) & Jamaica: his efforts in promoting peace

Formed the Wailing Wailers in 1963. Attempted assassination: before the PNP-

sponsored "Smile Jamaica" concert in 1976. the One Love Peace Concert in 1978. Received the Third World Peace Medal by

all the African delegations at the United Nations.

Rastafarianism Cf. Bob Marley site

Origin in Africa: the Nile Valley (including both Egypt and Ethiopia) ; Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a pure form of Christianity that kept its connection with its Judaic and Egyptian pasts, all elements within Rastafarianism.

Major Belief: the blending of the purest forms of both Judaism and Christianity; rejects the Babylonian hypocrisy of the modern church. (Babylon can also refer to the Western colonial culture in general.)

Rastafarianism (2) practice: the herb "ganja" (marijuana) was

regarded as "wisdomweed for a religious rite; a life of asceticism and artistry; the difference between rastas and hippies.

Jah: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, arrived in Jamaica in 1966

the 1930s in Jamaica: were years of social upheaval and labor strikes --perfect timing for the rise of Rastafarianism, a religion of the dispossessed. (Different from hippie culture)

Bob Marley’s major messages:

Peace, love & Anti-colonialism & self-liberation

e.g. Redemption Song (first part, about slavery)

“ Old pirates yes they rob I

Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I

From the bottomless pit

But my hand was made strong

By the hand of the almighty

We forward in this generation

Triumphantly

All I ever had, is songs of freedom

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom

Cause all I ever had, redemption songs

Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds ...

Bob Marley’s song: another example “Buffalo Soldier” from Legend-A gritty

ballad that tells the cruelly ironic story of black men being conscripted into the ranks of the Union Army to kill indians.

Fugees: The Score “No Woman, No Cry”I remember when we used to sit in the

government yard in Brooklyn. Observing the crookedness as it mingled with

the good people we meet. Good friends we had,Good friends we've lost along the way.In this great future you can't forget your past,

So dry your tearsI say And to my peers who passed away,No woman, no cry, no woman no cry, say say

say.

Fugees: a “Hopeful” Image about the refugee A Hip-Hop band from Haiti Hip-Hop style: re-assemble a lot of music

and styles by the Black singers in the past; the themes: refugees; colonialism/sexism;

their escape and tendencies to commit crimes in the host city

these themes are treated with sympathy for the refugees and/or uplifting messages.

Killing Me SoftlyStrumming dub plates

with our fingers,Eliminate sounds with

our song,Killing a sound boy with

this sound,Killing a sound boy with

this sound,Taking sound boys' lives

with this dub, Killing him softly with

this sound.

Strumming my pain with his fingers,

Singing my life with his words,

Killing me softly with his song,

killing me softly with his song,

Telling my whole life with his words,

Killing me softly with his song.

Carnival by Wyclef Jean

Carnival: the setting is a court trial, in which Wyclef tries hard to excuse himself. e.g. Guantanamera: disclose the beauty myth about the

Caribbean woman,

who is actually a prostitute.

Carnival by Wyclef Jean Closing Arguments

In closing, ladies and gentlemen of the jury

I'm not gonna sit here and bore you with a long, drawn out story or excuse, of why I think Wyclef is guilty I'm gonna stand by the exhibits as well as the tapes And songs such as Jeopardy, Til Novemeber, All the Girls, and Bubblegoose, which stand side by side with my allegations I rest my case

Carnival by Wyclef Jean. . . Your honor see, this, this is exactly

what I'm talkin about

I mean I've been meaning to ask this the whole time Who the hell is Bishop?

Eh?

And and why the hell hasn't he been brought on the stand?

Bishop, bishop, not true, false, bishop

Ohh, bullshit!

Map: traveling of people & cultures

Canada The U.S.

““Children of the Sea”; FugeesChildren of the Sea”; Fugees

Annie John M. Cliff, B. Marley

Wide Sargasso Sea Sugar Cane Alley

Derek Walcott Austin Clarke

Neil Bissoondath

England France India

American Imperialism in the Caribbean Area (Cf. Bob Marley site http://www.bobmarley.com/)

Economic – the area becomes the tourists’ heaven and a

cheap labor factory (capital, technology and management shipped to the area to use the labor power without leaving the profits there.)

military:– take over the military bases of several islands, – "Caribbean Basin Initiative “a bribe to induce

Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean to accredit the armed confrontation in Grenada.”