Mate, you're dissing 100% Dynamite! What stupid thing to do when there are a

million and one better targets out there!

OK I see your argument -- classic black music repackaged for white people

who didn't buy it first time round and don't buy modern reggae -- but I

think that's a weak line to take. First off, there's nothing wrong with

white people enjoying classic reggae. Secondly, maybe they don't just buy

old stuff but buy new stuff as well -- maybe even they buy a few JA 7" pre's

as well -- hell, maybe they even make it down to a roots night as well. If

they live in London, Birmingham or Leicester anyway. Reggae has survived

partly on the basis of white audiences a foreign for decades so this is the

latest in a long and honourable line of re-releasing it for white audiences

so that the originators can eat.

And this last point is an important one. I think dissing 100% / Soul Jazz is

politically suspect on two levels. First off, they make sure people get

paid. As much as they can do, and maybe the original deal wasn't brilliant,

but so far as fairness can be achieved, Soul Jazz try to achieve it. This is

important -- real people in the real world, many of whom have been fucked

over for their art before, benefit from Soul Jazz and 100%.

Secondly, the implication of dissing the 100% series (you call it "truly

awful", and it can't be because of the music... you aren't really so lacking

in taste you think the MUSIC is awful? Surely not, you're smarter than

that!) is that it's not AUTHENTIC. And the corrollary of that is that it

should stay stuck in the ghetto, crumbling and ignored, the people who made

it (even more) in poverty. Sorry but I don't see no other way of

extrapolating from your position. And that, I think you'll agree, is pretty

poor.

'Cos, this throw away, intellectualised spite directed against what is

really just a pretty cool little label that happens to re-release some of

the greatest music ever made and deals fairly with people, is a cheap shot

and nasty in impact. Soul Jazz don't deserve it.

paul.meme