The Body, Reggae and band shirts
A few months ago I started listening to reggae and dancehall. I like to explore different genres and because NTS radio has a decent selection so when I am at work I can listen to music without scaring my co-workers. Another reason is because Chip from the band The Body wore a Cutty Ranks shirt during their Audiotree live set with Dis Fig.
I have mentioned a lot of bands in that paragraph but the most important one is The Body. The band is about as far from reggae or dancehall as you can get. They are Chip King on guitars and noise and Lee Buford on drums. These two musicians make some of the most groundbreaking and oppressively beautiful and frightening music in the metal scene today.
So when the audiotree interviewer asked Chip about his Cutty Ranks shirt and he replied that he loves Cutty and is not wearing it to be cool I figured I should check him out. So I looked him up and listened to a few songs. This was some good stuff. I am not that familiar with the genres as I was never overly fond of Bob Marley or most of the stuff i'd heard in the past. I had listened to some reggae back in the day, like Peter Tosh and a few of the other Wailers but never found the right sound.
Cutty seems to hit just right. He is dancehall which to my untrained ear seems like a more fun reggae but, he also has a rap style delivery. At the time I was also listening to some hip hop so this was a perfect combination. It felt easy to get into the sound and how to listen to it. Yes you read that right. When you listen to metal and grindcore then vocals are not so much about the lyrical aspect and more like another distorted instrument.
It was a week or so later when the algorithm served up a suggestion that was greatly appreciated. Yellowman appeared in my youtube suggested videos and with a song called 'Zungguzungguguzungguzeng' I could not resist a listen. Yellowman slaps! This is some funky ass reggae. None of that cheesy Bob Marley stuff(sorry to the fans but I really don't rate Bob) that sounds so bland. I was well on my way to finally getting into another genre and adding it to the rotation.
As I said before I enjoy delving into genres outside my usual metal and punk not just as a palette cleanser but also because of the connections they all have. Reggae and dancehall are the precursors to a bunch of electronic stuff that I like such as dub and jungle. Dub has some connections to the early punk scene. The legendary industrial group Godflesh has also released some dub versions of their albums. Lee Buford of The Body has a side project called Manslaughter777 that draws heavily from these genres and their most recent album is very danceable. In fact I recently watched another live video of The Body and I noticed Lee wearing a Yellowman shirt.
I am still enjoying my recent discoveries and slowly but surely digging into more stuff when I can. I hope that I have been able to introduce you to some new sounds and shine a light on how they can inspire outside their genre. From wall of sound distortion to sweaty dancehall bangers it's always great exploring music. Also band shirts are great.