“Chase Sound Boys Out of Earth”: The Aura of Dubplate Specials in International Reggae Sound System Culture

Abstract

This study seeks to expand our understanding of how dubplate specials are produced, circulated, and culturally valued in the international reggae sound system culture of the dub diaspora by analysing the production and performance of "Chase the Devil" (2005), a dubplate special commissioned by the Finnish MPV sound system from Jamaican reggae singer Max Romeo. A dubplate special is a unique recording where, typically, a reggae artist re-records the vocals to one of his or her popular songs with new lyrics that praise the sound system that commissioned the recording. Scholars have previously theorized dubplates using Walter Benjamin's concept of aura, thereby drawing attention to the exclusivity and uniqueness of these traditionally analog recordings. However, since the advent of digital technologies in both recording and sound system performance, what Benjamin calls the "cult value" of producing and performing dubplates has become increasingly complex and multi-layered, as digital dubplates now remediate prior aesthetic forms of the analog. By turning to ethnographic accounts from the sound system's DJ selectors, I investigate how digital dubplates are still culturally valued for their aura, even as the very concept of aura falls into question when applied to the recording and performance of digital dubplates.

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“…Finland is known for heavy metal and the national romantic composer Sibelius but the country has a rich, diverse, and lively music scene including, for example, Finnish-medium rap and tango. Our study adds to the growing body of research on Finnish popular music (e.g., Aho & Kärjä 2007;Doesburg 2021;DuBois 1997;Jaakkola & Toivonen 2005;Jalkanen & Kurkela 2003;Kallioniemi & Kärki 2009;Karjalainen & Kärki 2020;Kärjä 2017;Kärki 2015;Lahtinen & Lehtimäki 2007;Mäkelä 2008Mäkelä , 2009Mäkelä , 2011Neilson 2015;Ramstedt 2015;Tervo 2014;Tolvanen 2006).…”

Soul rebels and dubby conquerors. Reggae and dancehall music in Germany in the 1990s and early 2000s

“…Additionally, German sound systems recorded dubplates with Jamaican artists. Dubplates are unique records of a certain sound system with artists singing, rapping or speaking (‘voicing’) over a riddim mostly with lyrics that praise that particular sound system (Ramstedt 2015). Dubplates are like trump cards in ritualised ‘clashes’ between different systems where the audience decides, through the sheer volume of their acclamation, which of the competing systems is ‘better’, i.e.…”