JEN BLANCO/THE ITHACAN jen blanco/the ithacan KWAME DAWES, a reggae scholar, poet and musician gave a lecture on reggae lyrics in Klingenstein Lounge April 5.

Plu-do-do-doomp-doomp.

Kwame Dawes plucked an air guitar as his voice started on a high note and quickly plunged into bass range. The reggae musician, scholar and poet demonstrated how a member of a reggae group could play only one line in a song, but that that line really worked together with the rest of the music.

“In reggae, everybody is playing something else,” Dawes said.

Dawes gave a lecture, “Reading the Reggae Lyric — Sensuality, Faith, and Radical Politics” in Klingenstein Lounge last Thursday at 7 p.m. as part of the “Reverberations: Music of the African Diaspora” series.

In his talk, Dawes, born in Ghana and raised in Jamaica, discussed the three-fold dynamic of reggae lyrics. Sleeves rolled up and shirt untucked, Dawes fumbled with the stereo and played “Country Boy,” a ’70s reggae tune about boys from farms who go into Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, and commit crimes. A few people bobbed their heads and tapped their toes to the offbeats. Dawes used the song to illustrate the sensuality of reggae.

“Even if you didn’t know what [the song] was saying,” Dawes said, waving his right hand while his left stayed hidden in his pocket, “You’re grooving to it, if you have any groove in you.”

Senior Jane Seymour, who has been to many reggae shows, said she is bothered by that phenomenon.

“I’ll go to a reggae show, and they’ll be singing about all these bad things that happen,” Seymour said, “and the white people will just be standing there dancing and smiling. The words in reggae are the most crucial part, and so many people miss the words because they don’t understand the language.”

She said, however, that Dawes explained the lyrics well because he was Jamaican and could break down the language. Assistant Provost Tanya Saunders, special programs, who helped bring Dawes to the college, said she wanted people to understand that there was more to the music than rhythm.

Dawes also discussed the spirituality of reggae. Throughout the lecture, Dawes translated the Jamaican lyrics, which often contain phrases used in Rastafarianism, a religion practiced by Bob Marley and other reggae artists. “Ja,” which means God, turns up frequently in many reggae lyrics.

“I don’t think there’s any popular music so spiritual,” Dawes said.

Rastafarians believe that God and Jesus were black, and Africa is the Mecca and home to every black. Dawes said many Jamaicans are not Rastafarians, but those beliefs changed how Africa was viewed in Jamaica.

Another commonly used phrased, “I and I,” means “I alone and I in the community,” he said when he spoke to Associate Professor Asma Barlas’ Third World Politics class Thursday afternoon.

In Jamaica, a former colonial country, the language of the working people is not accepted, but reggae has challenged that oppression. Lyrics redefine mythologies that shape the way people think, Dawes said in Barlas’ class.

“In reggae, we hear our space, our landscape,” Dawes said.

Bob Marley and the Wailers played songs with conscious, political lyrics. People were disillusioned by the 1960s, and “here’s a guy who’s the real deal,” Dawes said.

“[Reggae] made us think politically as a conscious community,” Dawes said.

Jamaica has an identity that is part of pop culture, which prior to Bob Marley and reggae it did not, Dawes said.

“It came on its own terms and demanded to be known on its own terms,” Dawes said. “That’s why it’s so popular.”