By Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

I read Ras Cardo's The True Trench Town Story, subtitled 'Scott's Official Story of Reggae', all 243 pages of it, and could not find the story of reggae in it.

Instead, there is the claim, repeated over and over (and over) again that the author invented the word reggae. As he says on page 14 of a book that is, oddly enough, written in a mixture of plain text, italics, bold italics and bold block capitals:

"I gave the word reggae to the world in 1962, Trench Town. I say this authoritatively and with truth. 'No one can produce or make any movie, film and documentary or write any movie script on the origination, foundation, formation of reggae or reggae music without my consultation.'

"They can tell as much lies as they have been doing since learning of Bob Marley. They can steal as much information as they want to, but what I have is the key to unlock the real truths."

And it goes on.

It raises the eyebrows the first time around, but after reading on and on (and on) and not finding anything to support the statement, not even the circumstances under which he invented the word, it gets tiresome. Very tiresome. Very, very tiresome.

murderous stuff

The True Trench Town Story reads like the musings of a man speaking with his brethren who accept his word as gospel and also have known him for some time. In fact, he writes on page 170 that "anyone holding this book of truth will know that like the bible, they can use it to challenge those who come to them with lies, treachery and deceit".

Fair enough, if one takes into consideration that it has taken a significant amount of murder and mayhem to make the bible accepted authority.

Ras Cardo does delve into some murderous stuff, demanding if original Wailers Junior Brathwaite, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh deaths were accidents and stating "their deaths was not the result of random acts of violence, instead it was a clearly contrived and orchestrated plan which does have a pattern to it". Fair enough, except that Marley died from cancer (which can be induced, I believe).

Where The True Trench Town Story does have some value is in its description of Trench Town in the early 1960s ("There were no fences and so we could walk from a First Street yard straight up to Eight Street or clock circle. Most of the kitchen spaces were not fully utilised to the point that the kitchens became the cleanest places for groups to congregate. This was so at the time when Bob Marley came into Trench Town and for a while made one of those kitchen spaces his place to sleep").

Ras Cardo also records the L-shaped layout of a Trench Town yard and the names of notable residents such as Jimmy Tucker, the Coombs brothers, Les Brown, Daniel Father, Henry and David Largie. But just as I was thinking "now we are getting somewhere" I encountered the very short chapter 'How and Why Did Bob Marley Marry'. Aha! Story time, I thought. And read "I know a lot about what really transpired and why it did, but I am not at liberty to disclose it to anyone, not now and maybe never, but let me say this, Bob was never happy with the arrangement".

I officially gave up.