“More Fire”

Abstract

These incendiary lyrics, however contemporary they may sound, are not the words of Sizzla, Anthony B, Capleton, or any of the “fire bun” Bobo Dreads whose metaphors inflame today’s dancehall consciousness. The rhetoric is vintage Bob Marley: “Revolution,” from the 1974 Natty Dread album. These days it is easy to forget the blood-and-fire, lightning-thunder-and-brimstone Bob Marley. The revolutionary Tuff Gong Rastaman has been commodified and repackaged as our “One Love” apologist for the Jamaican tourist industry. But it is not fair to blame the Jamaica Tourist Board entirely for the metamorphosis. Many factors account for the up-marketing of Marley’s image. First of all, dead men sing no songs. Rereleases, yes, but no new songs. And they cannot protest against the politics of appropriation. If Marley were alive today, he probably would be singing the very same range of songs as he did before he was cut down prematurely—songs chanting down Babylon in its many guises, and songs of love and reconciliation.

So if a fire mek i bun

An if a blood mek i run Rasta deh pon top

Can’t you see?

So you can’t predict the flop

Gotta lightning, thunder, brimstone an fire, fire

Lightning, thunder, brrrr brimstone an fire

Oh ya, fire, oh ya

Kill, cramp an paralyze All weak-heart conception

Wipe dem out of creation, yeah!