The University of Calgary’s student-run radio station, CJSW 90.9 FM, carries an awesome show every Saturday from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. called Caribbean Link-up, which plays some of the most amazing and upbeat reggae music around. I have an enormous amount of respect for the DJ who hosts it, Leo Cripps, as his show has been incredibly influential in developing my taste for reggae, hip-hop and even drum and bass. The incredibly wide array of music played on Caribbean Link-up has given me a better appreciation for exactly how much modern music owes to its reggae roots and the ongoing impact of that still-quite-alive genre of music.

It was about half way through ReggaeFest 5, the Calgary reggae community’s annual day-long festival held August 16th in Shaw Millennium Park, that I realized, to my sheer delight-though-not surprise, that Mr. Cripps was one of the main founding influences. You can tell: the Calgary International Reggae Festival is a fantastic local event that really has exploded in the last few years, owing to the facts that it not only has amazing international talent but also an incredibly-dedicated and hard-working group of volunteers who genuinely love the music. 

The event is an all-ages family event, though there is a beer gardens for the alcohol-inclined. Smoking isn’t allowed despite it being outdoors, meaning that any joints consumed were off the premises (Exiting and re-entry is a breeze). I was comfortable enough to bring my straightedge physician father to it, with whom I disagree on nearly all things but musical taste. While he tends more towards classic rock and I listen to far more electronic music, we both have a huge thing for reggae. Maybe it’s the bass, which we both play and typically gets the backseat in rock music but is front and center in carribbean music. Perhaps it’s the fact that reggae is perhaps one of the most uplifting and socially-positive genres in music today—compare the violent posturing of gangsta rap with the self-conscious awareness and emphasis on community in reggae. Juno Award-winner and ReggaeFest performer Mikey Dangerous’ hit song, “Don’t Go Pretending,” (Performing in Montreal via link) talks about being true to your self and making the world a better place. While this year’s theme, “Red, White, and Dread,” leaves a lot up to the imagination, one couldn’t help but feel an underlying sense of unity to it all. What does “community” mean, in a city as spread out and disconnected from itself as Calgary?

Let’s get it out of the way. Here you have a genre of music that is predominantly produced by black people in a city that is predominantly white. Calgary isn’t generally known as a cultural mosaic like Vancouver or Toronto and an arguably-unconscious ghettoization process by the city has made it so you can spend an entire day in some parts of Calgary and not see a single person who isn’t white. I know people who can’t remember there being any minorities in Calgary a decade ago.

At ReggaeFest, you notice that there actually are minorities in Calgary, and they’re doing some really cool shit. There is fantastic caribbean cuisine lining the enclosed park where the event is held and you see a presence by several local cultural communities. While much of the talent at the festival came from places as disparate as Jamaica and Toronto, some of it was local and of quality great enough to easily share a stage with bigger acts such as Culture Brown, LJX and Maxi Priest. Edmonton’s Souljah Fyah are putting that ugly, cold city on the reggae map, as surely as artists like Aktivate and Lynn Olagundoye are putting this one there. And it is likely Mr. Cripps we have to thank for the North American debut of La Comuna, a Mexican reggae group that has to be heard to be believed—go ahead and check out their MySpace, I’ll wait.

And then, after enjoying the music in the beautiful August sunshine (Despite sunscreen, both myself and my photographer burned within several hours), you notice something else completely different: you stop seeing “minorities” and you start seeing “people.” 

Perhaps the theme “Red, White and Dread” is a statement that we are all Canadians, regardless of race, political preference or music taste. It’s a statement worth echoing as we move into a new election, with our country’s fate as uncertain as that of our southern neighbours. One of the most beautiful scenes occurred during the afternoon—as Culture Brown was putting on an amazing set, a soldier from the city armoury located behind the stage peeked out a window. It seemed to say: hey, we might disagree on a whole variety of things, but come on, we're all really enjoying this; let's work together to reach a better understanding.

Or maybe "Red, White and Dread" is just a statement that Canadian reggae kicks ass. At any rate, they’re doing something right if a very uptight and conservative doctor and a young, progressive pot-smoking hippie can both leave energized and feeling the reggae vibes for weeks afterwards.