Robin’s Bay, St. Mary Parish, Jamaica
I arrived at Kingston’s Edna Manley College the next day around 12:30 p.m., which gave me enough time to meet my contact, Derrick Johnston, before making my way to nearby Anchor Studios for a 2:00 appointment with Bongos Herman. Derrick is the cousin of a colleague of mine in New York, and I figured that his experience as the college’s Senior Library Assistant would provide me with the resources I needed to better understand the conditions from which Reggae emerged. The literature he gave me included industry publications, government surveys and music genealogy texts, and they all pointed in one direction: Mento.
The topic of this little-known traditional Jamaican music came up several times during my conversation with artist/producer Robert Ffrench the previous evening. After he stressed that Rastafarians like himself viewed Reggae as the world’s most highly “evolved” form of music, I asked him what role previous genres like Mento had played in this evolution. The response I got was that each was a necessary, divinely ordained step towards the creation of a musical force that would spread around the world to deliver its message of revolutionary self-empowerment.
In other words, Mento, the product of a mixed Afro-European heritage, evolved (or was guided) into Ska, which evolved into Rocksteady and Dancehall, which then gave rise to Reggae. My academic research could do little to corroborate this spiritual perspective, but it did reaffirm Ffrench’s assertions about the common roots of Jamaican, and therefore Caribbean, music. Much like Tambrin in Tobago, Bomba & Plena in Puerto Rico and Antigua’s Benna Music, Mento is a unique product of the region’s unpredictable mix of slavery and cultural diffusion, oppression and social awakening. And although its impact on later musical generations is similar to the others, Mento is one of the planet’s only forms of traditional music that has continued its influence into modern popular culture.
I learned that many European and American filmmakers had come to Kingston in search of a greater understanding of Reggae, found what they were looking for and then forgot all the people who helped them once their projects were complete. With this seed firmly planted, Ffrench made it clear that setting up the in-studio jam & film session I wanted would not be free—“You will have to pay,” he said over and over again. I told him that I would be happy to pay for everyone’s transportation and refreshments. To ease his worries, I also said we could all negotiate a reasonable stake for them in any money that my project made. After he nodded his agreement to this in principle, I asked Ffrench what he thought a good ballpark figure would be—more so I would not offend anyone with an insultingly low opening offer. He refused to entertain the question both times I asked it, saying only “You will have to talk to Herman.” This struck me as a little bit strange, but after his passionate elucidation on the lesser-known aspects of Reggae’s metaphysical mission, I was willing to overlook the oddness in my pursuit of this story. It was therefore with great alarm that I arrived in the studio parking lot and listened to Bongos Herman tell me it would cost US $3000 for one hour of recording time with Anchor’s house band, and a couple of interviews after the fact.
His approach was classic high-pressure salesmanship; I had to decide on the spot, I could only pay with cash, and I could only deal with him. When I balked at his price, Herman dropped the figure in a hurry. He thought I was playing hardball, when in reality it was just an attempt to leave an uncomfortable situation without causing a scene. I would have been perfectly happy to tell the man off, but out of respect for Ffrench, who arranged the meeting for me, I held my tongue and looked for a polite way out. Herman came down to about $800 after only two minutes of my demurrals, having just told me that I was getting the price of a lifetime. I said that I would have to talk to my “handlers back in New York” about such a large expenditure, and this at last ended his unsolicited stream of counter offers.
As we walked towards the front gate, I offered to pay his cab fare, mindful of the fact that he came to meet me at his own expense. He demanded 5,000 Jamaican dollars (around $65 US), and it was about this time I realized that this whole thing had been a well-choreographed setup. After snowballing me with talk about brotherhood and redemption, Ffrench and Herman were now trying to extort me through a combination of guilt and awe. I didn’t want to be like previous documentarians that had left only bad vibes behind, and I was almost desperate to meet and jam with some of Reggae’s rising stars. These motivating factors, along with the fact that I came from New York apparently spelled “jackpot” to them, and the temptation to go for a big score was just too strong.
Earlier in our conversation, Bongos told me that he lived in Spanish Town, which sits less than five miles from where we stood, so I offered him 1,500 Jamaican Dollars for the cab ride instead. He feigned offense at this until I took out my phone’s calculator and showed him how 1,500 was more than he’d pay for a ride to his neighborhood from the airport. In my life, I have paid only three bribes to foreign policemen and government officials, and the end of this encounter felt just like those previous shakedowns. “Let me see what you have,” Herman said to me as I held out my roll of small bills. He took it in disgust, and as I turned back out towards the street, he shouted after me, “Call me tomorrow; let me know!” I’ve never had a problem telling lies of convenience to people whose moral fiber I have reason to doubt, so I told him OK, no problem.
This encounter had thrown me for a loop, though; it was not like Bongos was the first greedy musician I ever met, but his lack of restraint startled me. He was a successful, national celebrity and a globe-touring musician. He had been on stage the only time Bob Marley and Michael Jackson performed together, and was among the headliners at a major Reggae festival in St. Mary Parish. If a man who had “made it,” who achieved the dream of supporting himself just through playing and touring, was coming as me like this, what did it say about the state of his business in general? For the first time since leaving New York five weeks earlier, I began to suspect that the answers I sought might have to come by me leaving the island music scene behind for a while.
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