1The transnational character of Jamaican popular music has been well established in academic literature. Even if most people unacquainted with reggae identify it as typically or essentially Jamaican, the music and its culture have been created and disseminated across borders, notably through links with the Jamaican diaspora in the UK, the US and Canada. This complex network of relationships can be termed the reggae or dancehall “transnation,” and it keeps expanding to ever new places around the world.1 Within this network, borders can be understood at the literal and/or metaphorical level, as physical sites of selective social control on the movement of goods and people as well as discursive spaces for the discussion of issues of class, race and gender. Borders are produced in this interplay between geographical, physical lines of demarcation and figurative readings which delineate individual and collective identities.

2In this dialectic movement between literal and metaphorical borders, Jamaican musicians and the cultural artefacts they produce (music, words, visuals, videos) occupy a significant place. Many of them travel very often for professional reasons and their records are sold internationally. In their lyrics, which also circulate around the world, they use the trope of the border to discuss a number of issues within Jamaican society itself but also in the diaspora and in the globalised world more generally. In this sense, reggae musicians and their songs are apt representatives of Afro-Caribbean postcolonial diasporic or transnational identities and frequently cross borders, literally and metaphorically. Having analysed elsewhere the transnational character of reggae music and culture in general terms, this paper seeks to complement this approach with an in-depth study of the representation of borders in reggae lyrics (Bousquet 2020). Following Carolyn Cooper’s notion that borders, or in her case “border clashes” as sites of power struggles, are used in reggae lyrics as a metaphorical matrix to talk about sites of contestation in Jamaican society, I will analyse how the trope of the border is used by artists and fans to discuss distinctions of class, race and gender.2

3A corpus of twelve songs dealing explicitly with the question of borders has been used for the purpose of this study. The songs were identified through the Jah Lyrics website (https://www.jah-lyrics.com/), which compiles thousands of transcripts of reggae song lyrics and features a search engine to scan through the textual content. A relatively narrow search criterion was used, namely that the word “border(s)” had to feature in the title and/or lyrics of the songs. 69 songs featured the word “border(s)” in their title or lyrics at the time of research, but only the most relevant ones in contents and form were selected.3 The twelve songs in question date from 1983 to 2018, revealing that the issue of borders has been a (re)current concern in Jamaican popular music for several decades. The singers and DJs studied are all well-known and aptly represent the various subgenres of Jamaican popular music, from classic roots reggae to hardcore dancehall through the new roots and reggae revival styles.4

4Significantly, the songs range from concrete references to visa and customs issues to more metaphorical perspectives used to discuss social and racial distinctions. This contribution reviews these readings and attempts to demonstrate their currency in today’s world as a discursive tool to conceptualise and critique the notion of border. Before proceeding further with the analysis, it must be stated that, despite what is often thought, popular music and especially song lyrics are a relevant object of study for academic literature. This argument can be made from a general perspective, as song lyrics are textual artefacts that enjoy wide circulation and have a profound influence on listeners and fans but also in public discourse. It is even more crucial to make this point in the context of Jamaican popular music as part of the expressive cultures of the African diaspora. As Gilroy, among others, has shown, music was often the only venue for the artistic and discursive expression of slaves in the plantation economy. Since then, dancehalls have continued to occupy a central space in Jamaican society as a space for collective, participatory meaning-making and the elaboration of discourses on social issues at the local and at the global level.5

5The dancehall itself, as the central place for the consumption and reception of Jamaican popular music, mobilises the concept of border in different ways. It is physically and symbolically separated from other parts of public space to enhance its autonomy from mainstream society, to which it seeks to resist. It is also traversed by borders of class, race, sexuality and gender at the literal level (the sociology of participants) and at the metaphorical level (mostly through the representation of these social distinctions in the lyrics of the songs played and in the verbal interventions of the DJs). This heavily localised practice, emphasising its Jamaicanness but equally and maybe more importantly the dancehall itself as a local space, has become popular almost everywhere around the globe despite its rooting in Afro-Caribbean traditions. Dancehalls can now be found in the UK, the US and Canada (three places hosting important Jamaican communities), but also in Europe, in Africa and in Asia.6 In this sense, Jamaican popular music appears to be a highly relevant case study for a discussion of borders in the contemporary world.

I. Borders and Freedom of Movement for Jamaicans

6Borders are first mentioned from a very concrete standpoint by reggae lyricists, since for instance it is quite difficult for Jamaicans to obtain a visa to cross the US border. Two songs from the corpus specifically deal with this problem. In “Kontraband” (2018), Kabaka Pyramid and Damian Marley narrate how they get stopped and searched for marijuana while travelling on a bus during a tour. Even if the lyrics do not mention the US explicitly, the video features the two singers playing their own role and being searched by two (white) American police officers. The song denounces both the laws on drugs that are consistently used to exert social control over the Jamaican lower classes in Jamaica and in the US (and over black and racialised working-class social groups more generally), and racist immigration policies. In this context, customs and police officers are seen as the agents physically embodying unfair and discriminatory ideologies. The following lines highlight that what is often termed the illegal or underground economy might in fact by an attempt at resisting against these ideologies and cross over borders to restore the circulation of fundamental cultural artefacts (notably marijuana itself, which Rastafarians regard as the holy herb):7

Kontraband
Is it the master plan?
Kontraband
It taking up the farmers land
Kontraband
How it pass the border scan
Kontraban
And end up in your daughter hand
[…]
As they done searching the Pyramid
They turn their attention to the Grammy kid
Dealing with the Rasta like a invalid
Demonstrating how Babylon wicked
Weh dem ask 'bout, illegal substances, if these things we packaging
Hell top a thing, shipping and the handling
These accusations are damaging
Dem say dem heard reggae artists trafficking8

7The situation described in “Kontraband” might be fictional, it is nonetheless quite realistic: Damian Marley’s father, the great Bob Marley himself, was repeatedly arrested by the police for possession of marijuana and had a number of incidents with the customs at various borders during his international tours. This regularly happens to Jamaican musicians when they travel, and they are often refused a visa to enter the US or other countries just like many Jamaicans more generally. Significantly for the purpose of this study, one such incident happened in 2011 when notorious gangsta DJ Vybz Kartel was denied entry in the US to perform at the Best of the Best festival in Miami. Refusing to submit to this unfair measure, Kartel performed literally across the border as his show, played in a club in Kingston, was broadcast live in Miami through digital transmission.

8In a song entitled “Border Patrol” (1991), DJ Eek-A-Mouse describes at some length his complicated journey “to Miami via Vancouver” and his rejection at the US border as his “passport was not in order.”9 He mentions the humiliating administrative procedures he has to undergo and fiercely denounces the discrimination against Jamaicans regarding their freedom of movement and their right to cross borders:

The next day I came back to the embassy
Dong-ding-dong ding-ding-ding
I was an early birdie at 8:30, hmmm
Set the Mouse free let him enter, hmmm
Don't forget immigrants build this country, hmmm
Out of all the people
Me they decided to pull over, hmmm
He said come this way
You look like somebody we a look for, hmmm
Searching my bag, take my shoe
Ran it through the computer
Dong ding-ding ding-ding

9Between 1991 and 2018, it seems the situation of Jamaicans trying to enter the US has not changed much, at least in the perception of reggae singers and DJs, as they continue to be criminalised and discriminated against on ground of their nationality. At the end of the song, Eek-A-Mouse mentions another journey, this time from Tijuana to California, in the company of Mexican migrants. This time, he is able to get through the border to perform in Los Angeles.

II. Borders, Refugees and the New World Order

10Borders, then, are criticised for the concrete consequences they have on Jamaicans themselves. But reggae singers and DJs also situate this issue in the context of global immigration policies, which they fiercely denounce. These policies are perceived as fundamentally classist and racist as they are targeted specifically at poor black (or otherwise racialised) people. This is clearly perceptible in the lyrics of the two aforementioned songs, and the example of Mexican migrants suggests a common pattern of racial discrimination in the “new world order” we currently live in. In the same vein, Bob Marley’s grandson Skip identifies his situation as that of a “refugee” in the eponymous song on his debut album Lions (2017). The video of the song alternates between sequences featuring Skip singing with his band and footage from the recent “refugee crises” in various parts of the world. The song is a call for equal rights and justice for all, but also specifically articulates the fate of refugees to the question of national borders:

I saw her on the fences
Through all the borders
She's been a lot of places
Sharks in the water
[…]
He saw a war was raging
Had to escape
[…]
The walls are breaking
Peace should be in your future

11In “Borders” (2018), Kabaka Pyramid states that “It's about time we break those borders down” since they fundamentally entail a form of social and racial “segregation” and target black working-class people whose “existence [is] denied.” In typical Rastafarian fashion, he declares that “each human being deserves a place to call their own,” that “we’re all a part of one nation” and that the refugees’ universal aspiration for freedom should be acknowledged. In a strikingly similar fashion to Skip Marley’s “Refugee,” the video of “Borders” features images from refugee camps hosting black African people.

12The four songs mentioned so far display a shift from a very concrete understanding of the problem of borders as the inability to leave or enter a country to a denunciation of the reasons behind the limitations on people’s freedom of movement, which are analysed as part of a global (neo)colonial system of social and racial injustice. As Jamaicans themselves, and reggae musicians especially, are regularly confronted to this type of discrimination, they express a strong sympathy with other migrants and/or refugees around the world.

III. Borders, Colonialism and Rootlessness

13But these recent songs on the question of refugees relate to a much older perspective on borders which dates back to slavery and the birth and development of Caribbean societies and cultures. It is illustrated, notably but not exclusively, in the Rastafarian doctrine. In the dub poem from which the title of this article is borrowed, “Whey Mi Belang?” (1983), Mutabaruka explains that Afro-Caribbean people, as descendants of slaves, have always been denied a country:

Nigro?
Nigga?
West Indian?
Den a which country I belang?
Chinese – China
Indian – India
European – Europe
Negro?
Nigga?
West Indian?
Den a which country I belang
Negro – black
But negroland no
Nigga – stupid
But stupid land no
West yes
But I nu Indian
Den a which country I belang?

14In this text as in many others, the question of national borders is related to the history of colonialism and slavery, and the sense of rootlessness of Afro-Caribbean people. This is what Edouard Glissant (1989) has termed the sense of “dispossession” which is the result of the trauma of slavery and the brutal separation from the African motherland. It situates the question of borders in a diasporic context, which by definition problematises the very notion of border. It also accounts for a tendency of reggae artists to identify with refugees of various kinds, and especially black Africans who are currently trying to reach Europe as they are being persecuted and/or displaced and try to flee from very harsh conditions.

15In the same vein, in the song “Systematical Fraud” (1998) by Israel Vibration, the deportation of African slaves is seen as the trespassing of the African/Ethiopian border by Babylonian forces, i.e. slave masters and colonialists:

The system is a fraud
It all started from abroad
Where a bunch of guys
Get themselves together
And call themselves world leaders
Some of dem were 'posters [imposters]
Some of dem were traitors
And some were human slayers
While some came as slave buyers
So they skip across the border
Up inna Ethiopia

16Here the pattern observed in previous texts is reversed, slavery and colonialism are seen as a form of illegitimate border-crossing which brought about the destruction of Africa’s mythical unity. In the eyes of Rastafarians, the integrity of the African continent has to be restored by preventing further trespassing. These lyrics might also implicitly refer to the imposition of artificial borders by European powers during the colonisation of Africa. Based on readings from the Bible and an identification with the Jews of the Old Testament, Rastafarians recognise Ethiopia as their motherland and use the term as synonymous with Africa as a whole. The trespassing of the Ethiopian border thus implies the dislocation of Africa into nation-states and the physical and symbolic destruction of the continent. The same implication can be felt in the last lines of Mutabaruka’s poem, which state:

A rememba a land
Weh man ack [acts] like man
Dem use fe call wi
Nigerian
Ghanaian
Ethiopian

IV. “Rasta burn bridges”

17Yet, it is clearly a symbolic border that is mentioned here more than a physical line of demarcation or a geographical frontier. In the Rastafarian doctrine, borders are seen as a moral frontline representing the confrontation between the forces of good and evil. Characteristically, the border line is then associated with war, as in another song by Israel Vibration precisely entitled “Border Line” (1995):

You have seen the influence of the oppressor,
And the effect it has upon the people, woo
So they fight against each other,
Destroying their sister and their brother
In this time, in this time, you can see war and crime
It happens on the border line, woo
Wicked man in high places, yea
You evil have spread throughout all boundaries

18Borders are then perceived as the mark of the division of mankind, notably between different classes and races, and of moral corruption and war. The same pattern can be found in Sizzla’s “Pray For The World” (1995): “So many borders, people separating / Where is the love and the unity / War destroy the community.” As is common in reggae culture, Rastafarian themes and images are often borrowed by non-Rasta musicians and permeate the reggae intertext (and Jamaican parlance more generally). This is the case of Mavado for instance, a famous gangsta DJ. In “Sadness” (2007), a song dedicated to his deceased father, he declares: “Rasta burn dem bridges, Rasta burn dem dutty [dirty] border.” This is a common trope in Rastafarian discourse, where such expressions as “fyah bun” are used to express the moral condemnation of evildoers and a symbolic purification through fire.

V. Garrisons and Internal Borders

19Notably through the influence of Rastafarian discourse and ideology, borders have come to take on a moral dimension which is combined with a radical criticism of globalisation and the new world order. Here again, a parallel can be drawn between the literal, concrete and/or geographical dimension of the trope of the border and its figurative, abstract and/or moral dimension. But the fight between good and evil does not only take place on external, national borders, it is also related to internal borders within Jamaican society. This is particularly the case of “garrisons” (or “ghettoes”), which are deprived urban areas where the poorest Jamaicans live and that are controlled by gangsters acting on behalf of the two major political parties. Here again, the trope of the border is used to raise questions pertaining to the social and political control over territories and restrictions on the freedom of movement, but this time within Jamaica itself.

20The theme of the garrisons and the struggle between “ghetto youths” and politicians and their armed gangs is often addressed in reggae lyrics. Beenie Man, for instance, paraphrases Bob Marley’s “Wake Up And Live” (1979) in “One Big Road” (1996) when he says: “Life is one big road, with a lot a signs / Youth-man growing up 'pon the borderline / Better you live in love and nah commit no crime.” The borderline here represents the frontier between legality and crime and between morally good and morally bad behaviours at the individual level. But other artists decide to stand up for the other side of the borderline, glorifying the forces of evil embodied by gangsters and gun men. This is the case of Bounty Killer in “Not Another Word” (1993) when he declares: “Bounty Killer 'pon the borderline / Big MAC-11 we no polish nor shine / From we pop it out, people dead same time.”

21In a song called “Gun Man Tune” (1993), whose title is fairly explicit, Pan Head offers a slightly more ambiguous defence of gangsters and dons: “All of the original gun man dem / Weh run centre fort and borderline / We know dem nuh resign.” This points to the fact that the border between legality and illegality might be more blurry than it may seem at first sight: the gunmen also embody traditions of popular, violent resistance to the colonial order and protect black lower-class inhabitants of the ghetto against the police and the government. Even if they advocate moral righteousness, Rastas are also, in a completely different way, an incarnation of these traditions of resistance.10

22An interesting figure in this type of songs, embodying both the frontline that separates the ghetto from mainstream society and the moral border between good and evil, is that of the informer. A very common feature of the reggae imaginary, the informer could be seen as a good citizen that shares information with the police about illegal or criminal activities being carried out in a community. Yet, seen from within the ghetto, the informer appears as someone who betrays the moral pact uniting the community against the police and other figures of authority (Cooper 2004, 13). In Pan Head’s words, “Informer alone keep nuff [many] police friend.” In this context, it is no surprise that both Pan Head and Bounty Killer should call for a symbolic killing of informers in their lyrics. At a deeper level, the figure of the informer reveals the multiple layers of actual and symbolic borders that operate within Jamaican society in general and in dancehall culture more specifically.

VI. Gender Distinctions

23So far, the lyrics studied reveal how borders are critiqued as historical, social and discursive constructs by reggae artists when it comes to distinctions of class and race. Yet the situation is quite different as regards gender issues. Indeed, in reggae lyrics the border between men and women, male and female identities and socially accepted behaviours, but also hetero- and homo-sexuality, is of a much more conservative and essentialistic nature. This has often been identified in the literature on reggae culture and is an unfortunate counterpoint to the music’s revolutionary ethos in other domains. Although the trope of the border is very rarely applied as such to gender relations, reggae lyrics frequently reflect the sexism and homophobia of Jamaican society at large.11

24Even Bob Marley himself argues in favour of a very strict border separating men and women. In “Midnight Ravers,” for instance, he deplores that “you can’t tell the women from the men / ‘cause they’re dressed in the same pollution.” In typical Rastafarian fashion, although this is of course by no means limited to Rastafarianism, gender distinctions are reflected in strict dress codes that make the difference between men and women visible in the social sphere.12 The dilution of this sartorial border, often attributed to colonialism and the West, is seen as a form of moral corruption and degenerate lifestyle that supposedly contradicts core African values. Here again, the views of conscious artists influenced by Rastafarian ideology often converge with those of gangsta or slackness DJs.13 Even if Rasta artists are prompt to denounce bling and gun culture and, conversely, gangsta musicians often reject the sexual conservatism of Rastafarians, they both promote a strict gender hierarchy which places men in a dominant position and promotes a heterocentric view of sexuality.

25Yet, upon closer examination, the representation of gender distinctions in reggae lyrics is more complex and ambiguous than it may seem at first sight. Cooper has shown for example how the lyrics of slackness DJs, despite their emphasis on the graphic description of (male-centred) sex acts, might in fact promote a more equal distribution of sexual roles between men and women than what can be found in Marley’s lyrics (and in Rastafarian representations more generally). The last decades have also seen an increasing number of female artists articulating concerns about gender distinctions in new, more progressive ways, either in conscious lyrics that denounce sexism and male domination in reggae culture and in Jamaican society or in slackness pieces that promote a more active and independent role for women in the sexual sphere (1993, 136–73; 2004, 73–97, 99–123, 125–44).

26Cooper also makes the point that, much like gun lyrics, slackness lyrics are essentially a metaphorical representation of social interactions and that what singers or DJs claim publicly might be widely different to what they actually do in their private life. In this sense, reggae lyrics seem to lag behind new developments in Jamaican society and in dancehall culture. While the aforementioned female artists are increasingly addressing gender issues, a feminist and LGBT movement has been developing in Jamaica and in the diaspora over the last decades and has specifically targeted hate speech against women and homosexuals in reggae lyrics. Under the pressure of these groups, but also of North American and European fans, major reggae and dancehall artists are becoming reluctant to express essentialistic stances on gender in their lyrics while some are even seen to express progressive views that would have been out of the question twenty or thirty years ago.14

Conclusion

27As Cooper suggests, the trope of borders, or of the borderline or border clash, is used in reggae lyrics to discuss a variety of power struggles within Jamaican society itself but also within the globalised new world order. Borders are sometimes envisaged in their most concrete manifestations, as sites of governmental control over the movement of goods and people. This is very often connected with a contestation of the post-industrial capitalistic process of globalisation in which national borders reinforce the marginalisation black working-class people experience in the various countries they live in. In Rastafarian discourse and ideology, internal borders within Jamaican society are given a moral interpretation, either at the level of individual choices between good and bad behaviour or at the level of various social groups with diverging interests, quite typically the corrupt politicians and their gunmen versus the people, the righteous Rastamen or the ghetto youths. External and internal borders are both used to discuss issues pertaining to social and racial hierarchies and discrimination and, more precisely, are de/constructed as sites of power struggles where individual and collective identities of class and race are dis/articulated.

28On the other hand, borders and distinctions pertaining to gender and sexual orientation seem to be of a much more conservative and essentialistic nature. While reggae culture in general advocates a progressive stance in terms of race and class, gender(ed) discourse appears as an unfortunate counterpoint to the otherwise prevalently revolutionary ethos of the music. This reinforces Stolzoff’s point that: “In practice, most dancehall events move back and forth between these poles [domination and resistance] in a complex manner that makes it difficult, and misleading, to impose a single interpretation on these performances” (2000, 5). Nevertheless, the hermeneutic value of reggae lyrics might precisely lie in the fact that they are performed during live events, that they are constantly re/created and reinterpreted in live performance. In this sense, the dancehall can be seen as a “cultural laboratory” (2000, 4) which functions “as a space where the symbolic distinctions and the social divisions of race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and political affiliation in Jamaican society are made, reinforced, and undone” (2000, 6).

29This point is strongly reminiscent of Cooper’s theorising of the border clash mentioned in the introduction of this article. It reminds us that, if reggae lyrics are certainly textual material that has been carefully composed to convey a precise message, they might not be most appropriately explained through traditional modes of literary analysis that regard texts as self-contained entities written by individual authors. Jamaican society and reggae culture are both marked by orality as the dominant mode of cultural transmission. This can be attributed to the African roots of Caribbean cultures, but also to the neo-orality that is a product of the digital age and to which reggae artists massively resort.15 In this context, reggae lyrics should not be seen as immutable discursive artefacts that always say what they say in a repetitive manner, but as texts that are constantly in the making and subject to change when performed live.

30In the dancehall, reggae lyrics are constantly being put to play and challenged by the artists themselves and the audience. The favourite channel for this confrontation of ideas is the sound clash, a musical and lyrical competition during which two or more sound systems and their respective DJs engage in a symbolic battle for the title of best entertainer. Most often, a dancehall event is a platform through which several, often conflicting voices are heard—literally and figuratively. The sound clash also points to the crucial role of the audience in the process of live performance. Not only do the fans show appreciation for particular songs or lyrics, they are also an integral part of the dancehall as a site where meaning is constantly re/produced and re/interpreted. This participatory, dialogic dimension is also evidenced in reggae music and lyrics by the ubiquitous use of antiphony, or call-and-response patterns, the generalised practice of intertextual borrowing and the emphasis on improvisation and versatility in both content and form.16

31It appears, then, that borders in reggae music and culture are constantly being deconstructed and reconstructed. This can be accounted for by the African roots of Jamaican popular culture and is perfectly exemplified in the dancehall event as a democratic platform for the discussion of social and racial distinctions. It can be argued, therefore, that the ultimate point of analysis should not be the meaning of each individual song, which is subject to significant change in live performance, but rather how the meaning of individual lyrics is constantly being reconfigured in new contexts. This must be understood in the context of Jamaican society and the diaspora, but also in a transnational perspective as reggae culture today is a global phenomenon. In this sense, reggae continues to cross new borders, at the literal level by spreading to ever new places and at the metaphorical level as a platform for the production, transmission and reception of a dialogic discourse on social and racial distinctions in the globalised world. Therefore, reggae lyrics can be seen as a useful hermeneutic tool to interpret ever more complex social identities as they are composed, shared and analysed on a global scale by increasingly diverse groups of practitioners and fans.