Is Eddy Grant a radical in his own way?

In the global reggae music scene, the most highlighted radical figure is unarguably Bob Marley, while British UB 40 capitalized on popular reggae until their disbandment in 2012.  Marley became the icon of many politically motivated youths whereas UB 40 attracted the entertainment oriented, fun loving reggae teens.  Jimmy Cliff falls in between in a particular spiritual make up. So, where does Eddy Grant belong in this whole spectrum of root reggae and popular soft reggae? Both style wise and meaning wise, Eddy is different from the two main stream categories of both root and soft reggae. He has actually invented a genre of his own, known as ‘electronic reggae’ which earned most of his popularity in the 1980s. His major hits such as ‘I donna want to dance’, Do you feel my love?’, ‘Electric Avenue’, ‘Joanna’ or ‘War Party’ became top hits in leading charts during his heydays. After so many genres and artists coming and going in popular electronic media in the last three decades, especially in the radio airplay and in the virtual, his popularity remains unchallenged to this date mainly because of the universal application and characteristics of his unique songs. Emerging from an African background, precisely from Guiana, and with English education after his parents migrated to UK, Eddy could find his own identity in world reggae as well as in radical music. Also, true enough to say that he could ‘electrify’ reggae music in his time.

It is important to study to what extent Eddy’s songs carry political themes to distinguish him from others and invent a place for him in contemporary popular music. First thing to mention here is, may be because of his uprootment from Africa in a very young age, his songs are naïve and nostalgic, retroactively projecting his own ‘missing element’ (and a life-long ‘guilt’ to leave it like that) to this God forsaken continent to which he sometimes re-visits to ‘conduct’ his shows.  Hence, his songs are imaginary revisits (very much like the failed ‘flying back’ in Tony Morrison’s Song of Solomon) to what he abandoned years back. This feature is never evident in Marley’s music which sticks to its undefined spiritual journey whatever it might be. 

Eddy’s ‘Electric Avenue’ starts with a universal address to all the young ones (‘boy’) about the violence that prevails in the streets corrupted by the underground that is always a by-product of Capitalism. Systemic and organized violence, pauperization and underground as evidenced in Opera Wonyosi by Soyinka are the symptoms of post-colonial independent nations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Apart from  the failure in their nation building project after independence from their colonial masters, even the advanced industrial nations are affected by the underground resulted from constant economic inequality and social injustice.   Hence Eddy notices that ‘a lot of work to be done’ to bring justice back to these marginalized people. He takes a particular example to show the aggravated nature of their helplessness in the line ‘no place to hang out our washing’. So, we have to voice it out by coming to the street and even we have to take it to a higher level of universal freedom for all the proletariats.   Other than the electric neon lights fixed in the streets, which actually cannot pierce the true darkness of the individuals as said in ‘Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel, the workers and the educated crowd have to ‘electrify’ streets with a real spirit to materialize the revolution towards an ultimate freedom.   

boy...

boy...

Now in the street there is violence
And - and a lots of work to be done
No place to hang out our washing
And - and I can't blame all on the sun

Ref:
Oh no we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
and then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
and then we'll take it higher

Workin' so hard like a soldier
Can't afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart I am warrior
Can't get food for them kid.

The paradoxical nature of being employed as a soldier is that the little salary he earns by serving the bourgeois (perhaps to kill another fellow human being) is insufficient to buy a single thing that is fetishly displayed in the television scene.  The fetish objects that are promoted in the electronic media are always about not necessity but more than necessity to satisfy your ‘unconscious lack’. Similarly, he is a good warrior but that is not enough to feed your kids, and may be, he has to turn to underground to get the ‘exploited portion of his salary’ as compensation. 

Who is to blame in one country
Never can get to the one
Dealin' in multiplication
And they still can't feed everyone.

Always the real culprits are invisible in this system (according to Zizek, after Wiki leaks, they are much more visible today than ever before). At a superficial level, we all blame the corrupted officials, bankers and administrators but as an economic system, Capitalism is a destined failure. What is hidden by the superficial ‘recognition’ of corrupt officers is the true culprit of the system, Capitalism itself. Whatever methods they come out with every year (multiplications), they cannot feed the public who starve. What we need is a systemic change not reformation, and Eddy, unfortunately, does not go that far in his song. But we have to agree with Eddy when he repetitively demands us to carry the fight to a higher level to topple the entire system down and rebuild a conducive one for every one.    

Out in the street
Out in the street
Out in the playground
In the dark side of town

The real radical nature of Eddy’s song irrupts with the mention of ‘the dark side of the town’ (Soyinka’s setting of Opera Wonyosi) is where the dark side of the Capitalist economy takes place in the form of prostitution, child labour, drug trafficking, illegal dealings, black money etc. Eddy moves from a bourgeoisie setting to the street where a collective struggle can eliminate the true enemy of the public and materialize emancipator potential of a mega social change.

Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
and then we'll take it higher
Oh, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
and then we'll take it higher

Out in the street
Out in the street
Out in the playground
In the dark side of town

It is agreeable again that we need to reach ‘the dark side of the town’ to see the ‘truth’ produced by the inequality and injustice. For international conferences and delegations, the Third World beautifies the streets by chasing away the ‘dirt’; the beggars, prostitutes and street children. The ‘chased away’ (or the externalized aspect) element is the Lacanian Real of modern Capitalism and this segment, according Soyinka, can be organized to challenge the ‘beautification’ of the town.  

His next song is ‘Jo’anna’, the shortened, personified city of Johannesburg is a popular anti-apartheid hit in 1980s. She treats her own brothers differently but the pressure, hopefully, would enlighten her to see everybody as one.  Eddy notes how she makes ‘few people happy’ while keeping the rest in servitude. Apartheid, like Nazism, is an endemic evil of developing Capitalism and, as Eddy expects, she cannot just give hope if there is not major change in the entire economic body.  For an example, the re-structuralization process in South Africa also could not produce universal results as notably cited in Coetzee’s Disgrace.  Hence, the measures that the post-independent nations have taken ended up in serious failures. So, the evils that Eddy lists up in the next two verses remain just common observations and the quick ‘hope’ that Eddy dreams of ‘before the morning comes’ also stays at the contours of his own dream. However, the futuristic optimism that Eddy tries to articulate here is not negated whatsoever.

Well Jo'anna she runs a country
She runs in Durban and the Transvaal
She makes a few of her people happy, oh
She don't care about the rest at all
She's got a system they call apartheid
It keeps a brother in a subjection
But maybe pressure will make Jo'anna see
How everybody could a live as one.

The segregation and maltreatment for a group of people while keeping the rest happy is made obvious in the line ‘she makes few of her people happy, and don’t care about the rest at all’. Apartheid is directly mentioned and subjection is also made uncovered in the next few lines. Eddy does not hesitate to mentions the injustice and does not aestheticize the naked truth.  The de-aestheticism is another radical measure in his songs and if he ventured to say in an indirect manner, he could have avoided the possible banning of this song in the then apartheid South Africa. However, the rest of the songs lists up some issues and socio-political conditions of the country. He criticizes the role of media who actually hide the real culprits and their vulnerability towards manipulation.  

(Chorus:)
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope, Jo'anna
Hope before the morning come

I hear she makes all the golden money
To buy new weapons, any shape of guns
While every mother in black Soweto fears
The killing of another son
Sneakin' across all the neighbours' borders
Now and again having little fun
She doesn't care if the fun and games she play
Is dang'rous to ev'ryone

(Chorus:)
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope before the morning come

She got supporters in high up places
Who turn their heads to the city sun
Jo'anna give them the fancy money
Oh to tempt anyone who'd come
She even knows how to swing opinion
In every magazine and the journals
For every bad move that this Jo'anna makes
They got a good explanation

(Chorus:)
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope before the morning come

Even the preacher who works for Jesus
The Archbishop who's a peaceful man
Together say that the freedom fighters
Will overcome the very strong
I wanna know if you're blind Jo'anna
If you wanna hear the sound of drum
Can't you see that the tide is turning
Oh don't make me wait till the morning come

(Chorus:)
Do give hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope before the morning come

Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope before the morning come.

It is true that we cannot any longer wait to topple down the corrupted system but the impatience here ‘before the morning comes’ and ‘don’t make me wait till the morning comes’ can be misleading from a revolutionary point of view. According to Zizek, the symptom of neurotic psychosis is that such subject lacks the patience to meet the object of desire (see Interrogating the Real) and may try to overtake himself.  Though not exactly relevant to what Eddy says here, the role of a true revolutionary today is to wait ‘not till the right moment comes’ but patiently participating in the act of change in his own way until the ‘opportune moment’ arrives. As a song writer and a performer, Eddy has shown some eagerness in social change which has currently been absorbed by the bourgeois music industry for accumulation of profit. But his lyrics effectively show some character and spirit towards a certain social change.