Classic Albums - Mikey General & Andrew Paul – Sound bwoy burial

This hilarious cover gives me an excuse to write about an essential part of Jamaican music culture, the sound system.

Back in the 1950s and 60s, music playback equipment was priced way out of reach for many Jamaicans, particularly in the ghetto, and so, listening to records at home wasn't much of an option for many people. Entrepreneurial people who could afford it got themselves a truck, loaded it up with speakers, amps, generators and the necessary playback equipment.

They then drove their truck to some suitable location and set up mobile night clubs, usually outdoors, and played the latest records, charging a small sum for entrance as well as selling food and drinks.

As new sound systems (or "sounds") appeared, the competition stiffened, and it was no longer enough to play the same records that all the other sounds had access to, so some sounds enlisted artists to record their own exclusives to be able to win the crowds.

A lot of big names in reggae and dancehall started out singing or "toasting" (roughly the same as rapping) with one of the many sound systems. The early Hip-Hop scene in New York in the 70s was directly inspired by this sound system culture, as many of the pioneers where in fact immigrants from Jamaica and elsewhere in the West Indies.

Due to the competitive nature of the sound systems, beating the other sounds in sound clashes was essential, not only in an artistic sense, but also commercially.

The crew of rivalling sounds are called soundboys (or soundbwoys), so when Mikey and Andrew, surrounded by some big, homemade speaker cabinets, are laying a soundboy to rest, you can be sure that they've got what it takes.


The Reggae News Agency

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