Black History Music Pt. 8

In celebration of Black History Month, the Ear Candy Update intends to celebrate landmark recordings by black artists that have shaped the collective consciousness, mentality, and sense of cool the world over. Next, Bob Marley and The Wailers' "Catch a Fire."

Enter the legend of Bob Marley and The Wailers. Let's get past the posters and pot smoke of college dorm rooms and get down to the heavy, because this was heavy shit. "Catch a Fire" was the band's major label debut, and with it they had the privilege of introducing Jamaica's indigenous music to the world.  

This is rebel music for the soulful and implacably politically minded musicians. Just a few years later, Joe Strummer, founder of The Clash and a huge Marley fan said of his favorite music, “It’s got to be original. It’s got to be sincere.” By that measure, “Catch a Fire” sits atop the mountain. The laid back vibes of the music itself belie the politics of socially-conscious Wailers.

Yes, one can certainly enjoy a cold beverage in tropical paradise with this, perhaps with a spliff like Bob does on the cover, and no one will begrudge you. Songs like “Baby We’ve Got a Date” and the lovely “Stir it Up” will be marvelous companions on your journey.

That said, Marley and Peter Tosh bring everyman empathy to the forefront on their fifth album. Marley connects past injustices with the present in “Slave Driver,” which still rings true 47 years later.

“I remember on the slave ship
How they brutalize the very souls
Today they say that we are free
Only to be chained in poverty”

He sets his eyes on urban poverty with the haunting opener “Concrete Jungle.”

“Concrete jungle (la la-la!)
Man you got to do your (la la-la!) best.
Wo-ooh, yeah No chains around my feet,
But I'm not free, oh-ooh!
I know I am bound here in captivity.”

Tosh arrives with a pair of fully-realized songs in the form “400 Years” and the staple “Stop that Train.”

The contradictions run deeply in this island music. The songs are never angry in a visceral sense. Instead, they simmer with poetic meditations on inequality and the destitute conditions of the shantytowns throughout the Jamaican slums – the places the Wailers called home. With "Catch a Fire" Marley and the Wailers showed us that instruments and the voice of the people can be our best allies against injustice everywhere.