Reels & Riddims
Welcome to Reels & Riddims!
Mikelah and Kerry-Ann, two friends and culture enthusiasts, give their eclectic mix of commentary and reviews in world of TV, Film, and Concerts. From dissecting storylines in TV and film that feature Caribbean characters, to the irresistible 'riddims' of the concerts, Reels and Riddims got you covered.
Reels & Riddims
'Small Axe': The Lovers' Rock Episode
This episode is a deep dive into the Lovers' Rock episode in Small Axe, the British Anthology Series. Join us to understand how an entire generation of diaspora children in the UK stamped their cultural presence in the echoes of house parties and the reverberating bass of sound systems. We'll pay homage to the women who crafted this scene and the unifying force of Janet Kay's "Silly Games," a tune that transcends time and remains a beacon of the genre's influence.
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On this episode of Reels and Ritims. We are getting into part two of my Small Act series that originally appeared on Stylin' Vibes podcast. Hello everyone, we are back with part two with Miss Rachel Osborn of Julie Mango TV Today. As promised we are talking about I'm going to go out and eliminate our favorite episodes in the Small Act series called Lovers Rock.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure you guys are familiar with the musical genre but Lovers Rock is very significant to the identity of Black music in the UK so this was one entire episode that really focused around a love story. So you know there weren't that many Black British pop stars at that time and I think what was important to just understand about the genre? It was heavily influenced by Scott Reggae R&B and it kind of sparked its own cultural movement and identity through, you know, diaspora children in the UK, you know, forming their own sound systems, creating their own music, doing a lot of covers, and it's very different than Jamaican Lovers Rock. I must say like there are definitely unique sounds and I think a lot of some of the artists that you know, often borrowed from the UK, sound like, you know, sugarmina, gregory Isaacs, ken Booth, alton Ellis.
Speaker 1:Those are like, when I think of that time era and Lovers Rock. Those are some of the people that I really think about. But what was unique is really the sound that came out of the UK and it was more of a bluesy sound with a reggae dance sound presentation, if you will. So this episode really had so much going on that I had to have Rachel back to kind of just dissect all of it, because we couldn't do it in the last episode. But for me this was I was just smiling the whole time. I don't know about you, but like the whole entire time I'm like looking at the and there was so much nostalgia in that episode. Let me know your initial thoughts when you watched Lovers Rock.
Speaker 2:It felt good. It felt like a really nice not music video, but like almost a musical, if you want to call it that. I mean, I know we're going to talk about this, but like the silly games just set the tone at the beginning, in the middle and then and I feel like the love story wasn't just about Franklin and Martha the love that I was feeling was just like for the music, like even the part after that rape scene where the music kind of changed and it was more the guys on the. I was like, oh, this is different. I haven't seen that. So I was just like really just soaking in how the actors were moving, like all the movement. It felt really good to watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for me right.
Speaker 1:So right off the bat you talk about Janet K's silly games. So for those of you who don't know, janet K is probably one of the most renowned Lovers Rock singers and she was really young when she came out with silly games and that kind of gave her that pop stardom very similar to like I would liken that song. I think it has that like mini ripperton-esque kind of airiness and it kind of like that style of and there's a lot of women who are kind of, you know, at the focal point of Lovers Rock in the UK because there are a lot of versions and covers that are done and it has a lot of them have that airy. And you talk about silly games. I mean there's a scene at the very beginning where you know they're preparing for was it Cynthia's birthday, 17th birthday, if I'm not mistaken, and just the idea of you know there weren't access to clubs really in that at that time. So house parties were very normal and although she's a teenager, you think 17, but 17 then and 17 now I think maturity-wise is completely different. Additionally, we have a cultural norm of turning children's parties into adult parties. So you know, like I literally like they were rolling up the carpet, moving all the furniture into one room, like all the jackets were, you know, in a room.
Speaker 1:I remember as a kid, you know my mom having house parties and we had this big one one year and we could not come downstairs. Like I had to watch the whole thing from the top of the staircase and then M'Kyaw see everything, wagwam because the lights step, dock. M'kyaw go downstairs. Then bring me more food. M'kyaw go downstairs. So we're like, with the music and the bass, the bass line, like just the setup of the sound system, like those are things that were super, super nostalgic to my childhood because, like I didn't live in the UK but I'm just the scene was very different but it felt very similar at the same time.
Speaker 1:So you know just that whole setup scene of you know the women in the kitchen cooking. They had their signs, or, yeah, they're like, yeah, make sure, make up business if you live. Yeah, yeah, I'm for Pia Like to come in. You know they were talking to the neighbor. They're like oh, we're gonna see you tonight and you know, make sure. Then they had the drinks for like $2 and a dollar and you know, look, a soft drinks. And they had the outside and the inside. You know it was just like super. It's like some of those things. I don't see them happening as much anymore, especially just because you know noise and neighbors and you know at that time your neighbors, this is the gentrification, it's a part of it.
Speaker 1:The neighbors was a part of the party, but now, with you know, gentrification, that's not really happening as much as everybody's just calling the cops to come shut it down.
Speaker 2:So Exactly I love that they had a doorman.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that I think you kind of need you know especially if you're having a house party, you get the biggest friend where you know. If a man didn't do it, I'll make sure it said people are coming with no foolishness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was very sweet, like when the girls came in, martha and her friend, martha and Patty, he was like, oh, look, put together, come in. You know, charge Me and Patty yeah.
Speaker 1:And then he turns to the guys and like $10. Exactly Way of money, yeah, so he had to charge them. So I thought that that was interesting too, and we'll kind of walk through certain parts of the episode itself. But even the scene at the beginning where the women are dancing at the beginning of the party, like in the middle and the guys are kind of like.
Speaker 1:Standing around, standing around scoping out their options, like, have you ever had like an experience like that? Or what was? What were your thoughts when you kind of first saw that scene? Because that's really the beginning of this exciting party and that's where Patty and Cynthia have their first interaction. And Cynthia's becs, because, because, because of the more foolish Martha's like Martha come in with our PR, our purple dress and our church shoes and I come, try, pulls off, like it's like, oh, this girl, I fit my birthday party, and she just come in front of DJ, in front of me, like it was just that dynamic. And then Martha's just like I'm just here to have a good time.
Speaker 2:Exactly Martha's like come through fighting, that's it. Yeah, I mean, to me that was kind of reminiscent of a club, because I didn't do that whole thing that Martha did. I never snuck out and went to parties. I never went to house parties when I was in high school because I grew up in like here in Canada, in a town called Milton. That was when I moved there. It was a white town, right.
Speaker 1:I'm not doing anything on this podcast because my mom listens, ok.
Speaker 2:In high school I didn't do none of that. She probably already knows, and you, yeah, you think she doesn't know, she know, yeah. So because of that, like I never actually started like going out going out until I was old enough 19, because you drink, you're able to drink when you're 19 and go to clubs here. So that's the age. So at that time I was with somebody, so I didn't really have that experience of like going out with my girls at that age, like at a young in a teen sense, and being in the club.
Speaker 2:But when I did start going to clubs with my friends, it kind of is similar to that, where it's just like there are multiple levels. You see men on the periphery and women in the center, unless it's a dancer, and then when a reggae song come on, they know all the dance moves and stuff like that, but typically men would be close to the bar buying themselves or a girl a juice. So that's kind of what I thought about. I'm like, oh, look at them scoping out exactly what you thought is what I thought. So I'm like they're sizing up who they're going to go after later. And then of course, you saw that one guy who was just super aggressive, way too aggressive, and I mean I'm like, yeah, I've had that guy before. I've had to be like back off before you know. So that to me was more reminiscent of my clubbing days, but in, I guess, a house setting, I think that scene in particular.
Speaker 1:I did do some partying at that age but my friends set at that time were very mixed Caribbean, so it's very, a little bit different. But what I did take away, especially growing up. So my mom, she was naturally very outgoing and she would take me and my sister to street dance and festivals and stuff like that and house parties. The only way we would go she was going to house parties as if she brought us because essentially she wasn't leaving them and there's always naturally a room with full of kids and all the kids just kind of supposed to hang out. But we would always catch a glimpse of what was happening.
Speaker 1:And I think for me at that time, and what I didn't realize I was mentally taking in, was the chivalry of how men and women were treated and interacted. So the elbow grabbing ever so gently to kind of direct you, to say that was the signal of hey, I'd like to dance with you. And it's not that they wouldn't ask, but that was a subtle way to kind of get the attention. And I mean now it's kind of like don't touch me, like because of the volume of what you would see, but I think because these parties. They didn't have that many people. That was OK.
Speaker 1:But when you get into a big club scene setting, that interaction is very different, even the idea of buying a drink. I remember talking to my mom. I was like guys never buy me drinks unless I came there with them. And she's just like, really, she's just like we would go to a party and guys would buy us drinks all the time and usually one guy would buy all the crew, so they would never have to pay for drinks. I was like, yeah, that doesn't happen. Yeah, Never.
Speaker 1:I've never experienced that and if I did, I was very surprised. I was very like maybe one off, that's after like a little conversation. But that was the intro you want a drink, darling, those kind of things. In terms of how to interact with the opposite sex, it was Not so much, it wasn't so aggressive. So when I started being in like hip hop clubs, I was very taken aback at what asking was. I didn't dance with anybody because I'm just like this is not what I know to be. You know like you literally need to ask. You can't just accost me because I'm dancing in a particular manner, just pull up behind me like seminar. You're like no, that's wrong. So like for me that scene and it kind of became the first time that I realized, oh well, maybe this is kind of where I got this idea of chivalry, like in a party, in a party setting, specifically like what. That was specifically from my childhood and it allowed me to make that particular connection.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting. I don't. I didn't really have any kind of reference to go on when I started out. Like I said I think I said this in the last episode I saw my parents be very social when we were in Jamaica, but when we came here it kind of changed a bit because we live in the suburbs, right. So it's like there's not really that like tight knit community. And I think in Lovers Rock we saw that you know people. Although not everybody knew each other, people ended up seeing people that they know, because even when Cynthia first saw Martha, she's her friend was like, do you know her? It's like it's weird for somebody to be there that you don't even at least know their parents or know of them. So I thought that was interesting for her to be like.
Speaker 1:I don't know who this girl is, but essentially nobody did and she was automatically led in just because you know she was a female yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that was her first time. I think I have better heard.
Speaker 1:It felt like that, yeah, like that was her first time, like really sneaking out.
Speaker 2:So it was.
Speaker 1:We didn't get to see too much of her friend and, like the, maybe Patty was the outgoing person and got her to come out and Patty was expected to have this amazing night and Martha ended up meeting the love of her life, cause I feel like that was like the beginning of a 50 year marriage Like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, patty left her. I was like yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, she left her friend. She left her friend because she didn't find her mind.
Speaker 2:Cause. That's one thing, though, that I was like my friends would never leave me. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Patty was vexed. Yeah, I was surprised too. Yeah, I was very surprised at that too To me. I think it would have been interesting to see how that played out if she had stayed. Cause essentially she was the wing woman you know to her friend and eventually the guy found some other girl to dance with and he was like you're too rude. Bye, yeah, he's just like I'm just trying to have a good time, you know, at least she didn't get stuck with by me, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like I should have fought him, yeah, yeah. But you know, I think the also also the interesting dynamic to between the variety of personalities, between the women in the episode. For me, so Patty was the friend, martha was this sassy naive, you know, partier, because essentially Cynthia is like she can't even wine, like you know her, the guy that she met kind of introduced her to that style of dancing. And here's Cynthia, you know, celebrating her birthday, not having the best of time, and then all of a sudden being in lust with this older man and all of a sudden getting caught into a situation where the church, the sassy church girl, had to save her Right. And I think the dynamics of the women in that episode also kind of, you know, very indicative to the music itself.
Speaker 1:Like there were so many different varieties of songs so there were so much in that episode to really just dissect. And I love how they took like watching it the second time I did skip through some of this. The music scenes were really really long but they were very important. Like they sang silly games twice in that episode, once in the kitchen and that was kind of the preview, and then the second time with the DJ, and both of those experiences were super different, because essentially they're having a sing-along with each other in the kitchen and then not only do they play the song and you have this heavy bass line and then they just stop the bass line and everyone continues to sing the song and in unison, and you can clearly hear some people are way off key and some people are like they're like got it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. But every single woman in that, and even the guys and I think that that was also what I noticed too, and that happens today too when you have an important Lovers Rock song that you just feel it doesn't matter who you are, that feeling of the music kind of just you could be a bad man. Yes, sing that song there. Yes, sing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you could tell that silly games was that, because when I actually listened to an interview with Ed Bailey, who was a music supervisor, and he was talking about the fact that Lovers Rock was one of the only episodes in the anthology where the music was actually playing in the scene, it wasn't, they were just dancing to whatever, and then it was added after. And when he talked about silly games specifically, no-transcript. That scene was about 10 minutes and they didn't mean to make it go that long. In terms of the acapella part, where the song finished, the song was only four minutes and Steve McQueen was in the background, kind of like hyping it up. And when the song finished and people started singing, I think at the beginning they were supposed to start singing, but when they continued he just looked at it and I think that's why they liked it this chorus and I'm sure there were probably people behind the scenes singing and swaying.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that that was an entire moment in its own behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:That's why Ed said he just left it, steve just let it linger. And some things happened that they didn't really expect and actually an organic moment, like after the music dropped and they started going acapella. It was something where they just let the actors feel what they were feeling. And then you could see there's this one girl in a blue dress. You could tell she was hitting those notes. She was hitting those high, high notes and she was feeling it and the camera kept going on.
Speaker 1:She named Janet K, and another part today.
Speaker 2:So I think that was like for this film. It was the most iconic scene Because of how long it went and just how like really it felt, Because, even before knowing that they let them just continue, let the actors just continue I was like okay, because I was singing. I didn't know silly games really before watching this, but I was singing it.
Speaker 1:By the end I was like yes, and you know what's so funny is I was looking because I wanted to see more about Janet K specifically and I looked on YouTube and I found an older video of her performing it and it literally in the comment section it was lit up with I'm here because I heard this song in small acts. I'm here Like that was literally in, I would say, the first 50 comments that I had seen. So what I do love is like this solidification of her in the music history of the UK, because I think we so easily go to our traditional lovers, rock that we've seen popularized, and essentially she didn't really do as much as she could have done at that time frame because she was very limited in terms of, you know, being having the same level of access as some of you know, some of her pop counterparts, but essentially she's essentially just as big. As you know my boy, lili pop, or you know what I mean like that sort of impact.
Speaker 1:We just don't talk about it often and people will. If you say her name and any music circle, they're like yeah, but like. For us it's not like a name you know, like right off the bat. For our generation it's not immediately a name that you know off the bat, but you've heard the song and you know the vibes but you don't really make that particular connection. And the connection yeah, because even hot time, steamy and yes was good and you saw like they had the sweat coming down the wall on the side. You can tell like it was hot in there.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, they said in that interview that that that was really wasn't them adding the water to it, that was actually the heat coming out of the place. So I think it also introduced for me. It introduced me to, like you said, some because I looked at the playlist that they have in Spotify, like immediately after the episode I was like let me go see the playlist for this. And there is. So there's it's like a 19 song playlist and I know they said they're working on an actual soundtrack album. But it introduced me to some music that I probably didn't necessarily hear before, because it doesn't have like the Freddie McGregor is in the Dennis. I think there might be one song from Dennis Brown on there, so it doesn't necessarily have their other tracks that are not the popular ones. So, like you said, but it felt good. It didn't feel like, oh, what is this? I don't know it, so I don't enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed all the music and like how they chose to to sequence the music in love with her, especially like when she was on the bus and she saw the man with his cross walking and the song was. The song was the money in my pocket and I just can't. You know what I mean. It's such like a juxtaposition to like her. That was Franklin. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think the way that they treated the music in this was really good and I think what was surprising to a lot of people and even to me and you mentioned the change in the music after the rape scene. That didn't the rape, that didn't happen and they came back in and the dub like sound that was really playing. And what really came to mind, especially the second time that I watched it, is this idea. So you know, martha's cousin, who she hadn't seen in a very long time, sees her going into this party and it seems like at one point that they were very close and they had grown distant from one another. And he sees her going into this party and he's like upset that this is maybe like his favorite cousin that he hasn't seen. And here she is partying, like a lot of things, like we run into our napati. So you know the scene with him, particularly because he is essentially still grieving the death of his mom, and it really like he goes into this party and he's on edge. Clearly he's on edge from seeing Martha, her lack of response, and they're looking at him like he's a bit off and a bit crazy. So I love the idea of how they kind of calmed him down but then he felt a sort of liberation around his dancing and for me it was the first time that I had seen this mosh pit like dub dance all scene, because it wasn't something familiar to me growing up and it wasn't until a conversation what messed up, dad? And he was like yeah, that's really from Jashaka.
Speaker 1:And I'm like who's Jashaka? So of course I go down this rabbit hole of just research, just understanding Like that's something that actually did happen with. So it's basically a sound system, so it's kind of like a homage to the sound system that Jashaka had created, and those movements to me were very like African liberation, like it felt, like the. I think for black people we tend to gravitate towards music and feeling good. It feels like it's one of the few times we feel free in a sense, and I think that, underlying, with all the racism that is throughout the entire story, that this was the one where you really felt good and the music felt was the catalyst to making you feel good and feeling in a space that you were free enough to dance on one another, not too much cause, you know you can't get too aggressive, but that freedom and liberation dance it reminded me of like African tribes that you see doing performative dances for like rituals and ceremonies, and that was kind of like our version of that in the UK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he definitely was healing at that moment.
Speaker 2:He was releasing something, yeah, releasing a lot, cause his first movement starts like all right, yes, get it out, get it out, get it out.
Speaker 2:And then he really got into it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I definitely agree with you on the whole like liberation, cause it's kind of like a trance cycle where it's just like you're no longer, you're so present in your body that you're just letting your body move how it wants to move to the beats, and I think that's something that, like, you only see in certain kinds of music, where it's just like you feel free enough and, like you said, there's definitely a safety that comes with that, because in a different setting, when we talk about club versus house party, certain clubs, you're not going to do that right, you're not going to just do any movement, especially if you're alone.
Speaker 2:Cause he was by himself, right, so the kind of like cocooning effect of cause even the way they shot it, like he was central and people were around him, I definitely feel like he felt safe in a way, although he was probably one of the only people who was like a stranger to the party. But he definitely, like you said, released and then went into this, like I don't know, just trance and presence and just letting the body do what the body does.
Speaker 1:I think it was just beautiful to really see and even that scene was pretty long.
Speaker 1:So you know, when you experience not only the disco music that was playing earlier to the lovers, rock to this dub like that to me is very transcending. As you know the types of parties and the music, how we experience music, you have your warm up, you have your early warm, you have your Michelin party and then at the end you kind of just hear it's not rinsing all the. You know the good tunes that you want to hear and then you know the party ends and it's like we hours of the morning that you know Martha is literally going home to get ready. She get as soon as she get to. I bet you get called, come on, that's a church. So you know I loved how that episode just made me feel about the music and it really distinctly we see so many music related scenes. It was just so well developed, it was slow, it was steady, it was romantic, it just exuded all the different aspects of a Caribbean party and it was very different than what you would experience in a street dance versus a club.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This home feeling. That is something that you you know you can't really get elsewhere, but if you're interested, there's also a documentary on Amazon called Lovers Rock. It's really good you like it. Oh yeah, we have it here in Canada. It was one of the suggested.
Speaker 2:Oh, after, after after after small acts.
Speaker 1:So that kind of gives a lot of history as well, and it actually helped me in terms of some of the research that I did for this episode, because it was just, you know, we talk about music all the time and I tend to kind of talk about the things that I know more closely, but it was just an entire industry that was built on creating your own version of a particular genre, like a subgenre, if you will. That was really interesting and I think that it visually gave a lot of intense visuals and musically made you feel very deeply connected to your Caribbean heritage, especially from a diaspora perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's one thing that I thought about to, even in Alex Weedle where he was starting to get into music. It's just like our version of things isn't necessarily always going to be the same. I guess it would be derivative, you would call it. But even in research as realizing that the UK lovers rock artists did have some kind of pushback when they just started from you know, the rock study and Jamaican lovers rock, because it's just like there were less barriers with the Jamaican reggae artists than there were.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. It's just like I think in modern day we see stuff like that too where it's just like because you are not in the country doesn't mean that your art is any less Jamaican than or less gayanese than or less chrnig than. You know what I mean. It's just a different perspective and that's one of the things that, when we look at Julien Mango, really want to get perspectives from diaspora people too. Because when you look at something like Dreaming While Whilst Black from Ajani Summon, he Not right it known. His pilot just got released so he started as a web series. So when you were talking about in our last episode that you want to see people just using what they have, he was one person that he used what he had in 2018. And now, three years later, he has a pilot on BBC for the same show that he did, but he had more support to make it ready for TV right.
Speaker 2:So to me, diaspora content matters too. You know what I mean. That's kind of how I feel about it, because it's like it's a different perspective and it can lend help people outside of that specific country and I understand the experience that Caribbean people have to go through, and that's why I think podcasts like yours and carries matter too, where it's just like you're really looking at the Caribbean American experience and it's just as valid as the Caribbean experience. So I think that's another good thing about just like this whole anthology, where it's just like you really get to feel the education, you're learning something and you're not just saying, oh well, this is Jamaican, this is not Jamaican, this is Caribbean, this is not it's. You're just getting a peak into like the actual lives. And that's one thing that I guess I had written down my notes but I didn't mention in the last episode.
Speaker 2:A lot of the coverage that we saw tried to say the Black Britain experience, but for me it's like no, no, no, no, this is the West Indian experience. Don't take that away from the content, because that matters. The fact that it was a Windrush generation West Indian experience matters to this whole story. And then, especially because music is a thing that travels, that people get to know us based on music. A lot of times, when you think about how non-Caribbean people get to know us and I'm going to say us specifically Jamaican because of Reggae people get to know us based on our music first. So it's very important that we're seeing the different perspectives of like this is how it was in the UK and, like you mentioned the last time, it'd be good to see it in other pockets of heavily populated Caribbean areas too like New York.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, it was definitely a huge learning experience for me, as well as nostalgic at the same time, and it really kind of inspired me to want more and look for more and understand more about how, you know, different diaspora pockets really kind of have grown, you know, and it definitely changes.
Speaker 1:I'm a big, you know, believer that the diaspora continues to be an important part of really just understanding the region. We are, you know, brand ambassadors, unofficially, you know, to whichever country that we are. Because for some people in the US, like their first experience with, you know, caribbean people is the people that they have in close proximity and some of that understanding really comes from interactions that we have through conversation, music, food, like if I'm gonna say, alright, come try this, you know, restaurant, watch this thing, you know, then it won't necessarily happen. So, you know, we definitely pollinate in both aspects and preserve a bit of the culture as we continue to live our lives in different places. So I totally enjoyed this episode. Talking about Lovers Rock, I feel like we could go on forever, but may not keep your panya good good there. So, again, please tell the people where they can find you and what is next for Julie Manglini.
Speaker 2:Alright, so you can find me at juliemanglinitv and what is next? So we are really, just for context, we launched this year 2021 in January, so we're a baby platform and we're really just trying to get different voices on on Julie Manglini to really cover film, talk about film, talk about the culture behind the different Caribbean film, and in September or in the fall we'll be launching our membership. So we'll be doing things like screenings, q&as with filmmakers and other experiences. So that's something that we're working towards. But we got to get our audience up first, so we were really just diving into a lot of different stories and watching films and talking about them so that people know that they're out there.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so keep us posted. We'll definitely share anything that you have coming up. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise in this area. It's always a pleasure talking to you, so we got to do this again, hopefully in the future, but until next time, lea Tamapeeps.
