Southern States
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Tamil Nadu-Chennai
Painting the town maroon
THREE WEEKS. Seven Indian cities. And one Maroon Town.
The multi-racial (Afro-Caribbean Asian) multi- speciality (break-beat, ska, dub, rap'n reggae) multi-member (ten of them including the sound engineer) band from Brixton concluded the last leg of its India tour in Chennai city, as it discovered the Caribbean side of the city.
Caribbean, not in terms of climate or colour, but in terms of spirit. For the band itself is all about the spirit of the fiercely-independent Jamaican community that escaped enslavement and lived a colourful life - the community it is named after. Maroon Town made the city party. The ban was on discos, not dancing, right?
So the party started at the Other Festival on Friday night. And it continued at the workshop on Vineyard Centre the very next morning, thanks to British Council that brought Maroon town to Chennai city.
But wait, the band is not from Maroon Town. It's just called Maroon Town. We liked the name, the meaning, the history and the spirit behind it. Besides, were about ska, rap and reggae, very Jamaican kind of music. ``And I was born in Jamaica. Very close to Maroon Town,'' smiles Deuan German who started the band with his buddy in London, Rajan Datar.
``Our parents are friends, they are neighbours. So we grew up together. We were kinda playin' together jamming,'' recollects Rajan, whose parents are Indian. They had two bands in '87 and they met Len, formed Maroon Town, hanging with Lenval Brown.
If that sounds like rap, you got it right. For Len was the rapper, one of the oldest of the band members. At 17, he was into street music in New York, rapping, break, hip hop. And he decided to attempt to make lyrics. He was a part of a rap group called Wild Style in London. But no company seemed to like that. ``Later, I came across Maroon Town and ska was what I grew up with. My parents are Jamaican. So, the songs they played were familiar. My style and Maroon town both had something in common. Energy, no matter what the crowd is two people or 100 people,'' Lenval recounts.
And this was the best combination that the band had, once Len brought in vocalists Belinda James and Sandra James. With an experienced Hee Young Choi coming in to play bass, Rajan had to take to keyboards to keep his place in the band after he returned from a break. There was Simon Finch at the trumpet, saxophonist Jamie Anderson also chipping in at the keyboards and Martin Carlin at the drums to complete the line-up.
And Kerry Alfred, the sound engineer who also has quite a few dance dips up his sleeve, but you have to ask him for it. The three-hour workshop session was an idea they first tried at a school Barbados, when the troupe first succeeded in creating an energy around the place. ``I just wrote the idea and we practised our musical presentation. We were nervous. But it worked, the energy around was great,'' Deuan says. With the reggae and the mystique around, playing music is a simple thing for anyone. Music is a team game. You don't have to be a Mozart, Rajan adds.
That was the success of the band's tour to Chennai or India for that matter. They made anybody who knew a bit about music to play reggae, they made people sing, dance and most importantly enjoy the experience.
In Kolkata, musicians played tabla and sitar along with our reggae. And it was an amazing experience, Rajan says, equally impressed with Bangaloreans' progressive culture. Isn't Rahman from here, he asks, adding that working with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rahman was a big name back home.
Len, however, found Chennai cooler (obviously in terms of attitude), laid-back, chilled and with more qualities akin to Carribbeans.
By Sudhish Kamath
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