Groundation (Harrisson Stafford): "In my dream world I would build a hospital for the reggae elders!"

Groundation is high up on the bill of Reggae Sundance (13 August) and already graced us with a wonderful concert in OLT Rivierenhof in July. It was the first European show since 2019, the group came straight from Brazil.
"I have to give thanks to European and South-American audiences," says Harrisson Stafford: "otherwise we couldn't do what we do. If it were just for the American audience... I know our music is very challenging, with solos, polyrhythms, different chords and strange lyrics... And that's a lot to deal with for Americans who love their three-minute songs and their beats."

That's why Groundation's new album, 'One Rock', was released on the French Baco label, and in America on the equally small and independent Easy Star Records. But that doesn't diminish the quality of the album, both vintage Groundation and groundbreaking (which may be typical Groundation as well). "Everything is possible," says Stafford: "We always want to expand our music."

Harrison Stafford: "I'm very proud of this record. It's classic Groundation but it's different even still. There's so much new arrangements, and we have violins for the first time. That was Matt Jenson's idea, our keyboard player and also a professor at Berkely College of Music. So we have two professors in the band now. Matt has always wanted to write a string trio for reggae. I know the Twinkle Brothers have done some work with a couple of Polish violists, but I'd never heard a string trio. "Ok, try it," I said, and the first song Matt sent me was Greed. We did some editing of the arrangement later but I thought it was awesome from the first time I heard it."

I especially loved the way the violins are mixed with the horns and the vocals. Talking about classical music...
Harrison Stafford: "All Matt's work. He also arranged 'Human Race', or should I say elevated it. We were going into the studio in the spring of 2020 to record all these beautiful songs but then COVID-19 struck. Tours were cancelled and suddenly we had a lot of time on our hands to work on the album. And it really changed. We planned to do a whole different album, more positive, more upbeat, with some young artists featuring. But seeing all the Elders, struggling to stay alive, being confronted with the system, politics, injustice, business, we made 'One Rock', which holds a very serious message. Groundation always has done that but under the circumstances it has become very heavy, very deep, by what we have been experiencing."

'Greed' also has a very peculiar beat, not really reggae, although it becomes one drop later in the song.
Harrison Stafford: "We were jamming or doing a soundcheck and I came up with this bassline. The organ came in, doing a six over of four polyrhythm which creates the classical reggae sound. On the festivals I want to play the song to exactly create that wow feeling you describe. I've never heard a song like that before neither. But maybe that goes for all Groundation songs…"

You are now playing with a whole new outfit of musicians, compared to the beginning. Did it take a long time to get the same creative vibe in the band?
Harrison Stafford: "Actually, it did. As it did when we started Groundation. For this group of jazz musicians, it also took a long time to learn reggae. But the songs on the albums 'Young Tree', 'Each One Teach One' , 'Hebron Gate', 'We Are Free', 'Here I Am'… they were mostly my compositions. Now, we have a much more creative collective space where everyone feels free to have his or her opinions, to change the course of a song, work on the arrangements… I want the best music possible, so let's try. If we don't like it, we can still turn it back. It's been a natural progression. Everybody of the new generation is more comfortable with the sound now. And they feel the power of Zack Morillo, our amazing drummer, to name just him."

'Original Riddim', my favourite song on the album, features Israel Vibration and The Abyssinians. The title track has The Congos. So many other Elders have left us recently…
Harrison Stafford: "It was a horrible time. Toots, U-Roy, Bunny Wailer… So many people left us. Dalton Brownie was a good friend; we did all the Professor stuff together (Stafford's solo project, red.). He had a massive heart attack. And in the beginning of the pandemic, we lost Apple Gabriel and Sam Clayton Junior, our sound engineer and road manager for a long time."

His father, Brother Sam Clayton (Mystic Revelation of Rastafari), died in poverty and solitude. It still amazes me how little respect these Elders get in Jamaica and elsewhere.
Harrison Stafford: "Oh man, in my dream world, if we were a popular band and played for tens of thousands of people, I would build a hospital for the Elders. Bernard Colllins, the lead singer of The Abyssinians, is also not well, he has Parkinson's, and nobody's taking care of him. People don't even know him! When I asked him to do 'Original Riddim' with us, he said he was afraid of what was gonna happen, that he was gonna forget his lyrics or get lost in the studio. I said: "No Satta, you know who I am. I would never put something out that is not up to the standard." As I'm sitting there in Kingston, reasoning with Satta, a preacher passes by. He gives Satta his blessings and I ask him if he knows who he's talking to. "No…" Then he saw some 45"s. "Oh, you do music? You're a producer or something?" Satta is in a different space, he's not responding. "Let me tell you who this man is," I said, and I started to sing: "There is a land far far away…" The preacher jumped out of his skin. He couldn't believe this was the man who originally sang that song. So I'm very happy 'One Rock' turned out so well, Israel Vibration and The Abyssinians singing together so beautiful."

Are there any artists left you would like to work with?
Harrison Stafford: "Burning Spear. I talked to him a long time ago, but it never worked out and later he stepped away from the music scene for a while. Maybe now is the time to have another try, now Spear is back recording and touring."

You have always worked with Jamaican artists from way back. Do you feel connected in any way to the Jamaican music of today?
Harrison Stafford: "I want to. I still buy new records. There are some great singers around, especially female, but I love roots, I love musicians. And you see that Jamaica is turning away from reggae and going to hip-hop. There was this whole outcry about SOJA winning the reggae Grammy but that's absurd. Like Julian Marley said: "If you create something that is beautiful but you don't love it and don't pay it any mind, somebody's gonna come and take it away from you. That's exactly what happened with roots reggae music. I had an interview with The Observer years ago. They asked me what advice I had for Jamaican artists to stick to their roots. I said: "The roots is there. You can go to Horsemouth and he'll tell you about the one drop, the signature beat of reggae. Not beating beat one, that is, like hip-hop, funk, jazz… Reggae is special because of that." But now even these young so called Rasta musicians use the same backbeat. Some of them have no one drop songs at all. It's a different music. If you take the singer out of it, you don't hear reggae. If there's a drummer, he plays to pre-recorded and click tracks. What are we doing? That's why the lyrics of 'Original Riddim' are so important: the heartbeat and the human voice. The original riddim was done by humans coming together. No computer, just those around us. For thousands of thousands of years that's how music was being made. And now we're leaving that. Of course, you can make a mistake in front of 10.000 people but that's what people do. We have to walk that tight rope, be who we are, or else you're not performing live. You can't create something in the moment for the people. You literally have to stay on track. As a purist, I don't really find that a change for the better. Burning Spear, Pablo Moses, Ijahman… those guys originally sang their songs, they wrote lyrics. Only afterwards musicians came in and built a riddim, arrangements and so on. Don't let the Jamaican riddim culture blind you for that. These songs are so strong and timeless because they originate from within the person, and the melody came from who knows where. That's a whole different thing than going into the studio with some riddims and see what comes out of it."

Going back to the Grammy's… There's been a lot of talking about cultural appropriation. Can a white man play reggae music or even wear dreadlocks, or are those black privileges?
Harrison Stafford: "These questions have always been there, from the start of Groundation. But reggae music has always been something special and something the whole world loves. Once you feel the spirit and you start your musical journey, that's it. Miles Davis never said that only black musicians could play jazz, on the contrary. Maybe music originated in Africa, does that mean that only Africans can play music? We are all part of it and it begins with a heartbeat."

Still, reggae remains underground music, especially in the United States. Will that ever change?
Harrison Stafford: "No, unless they abandon their principles. Bands like Rebelution have massive success but they will never become mainstream. Do something that the powers that be don't want to hear, talking about one love and equality, and they will go for gangster rap, or some music that they can sell a product with. Reggae music traditionally is the voice of the oppressed, trying to lift people up and focus on reality, on the rocky road of humanity's path. Especially now that we have some setbacks and young people seem to care only about partying and forget about everything. It's our duty to continue the struggle for freedom that our fore parents fought. It can be frustrating from time to time - why is nobody listening? - but it only intensifies my conviction."