FLUXEUROPA: JUDGE DREAD

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JUDGE DREAD

For most young people 'Judge Dredd' (spelt D-R-E-D-D) is the futuristic cop portrayed in the film of the same name. Some will be aware of the dystopian strip in the British comic, 2000 AD, on which the film was based, but only a few will be familiar with the British Ska artist, Judge Dread (spelt D-R-E-A-D), aca Alex Hughes, whose musical career predated both comic and film and forced the film's renaming from Dread to Dredd. I was at college in the early 70s and in the pub next to the hall of residence the Judge's songs were a popular jukebox choice amongst my fellow students. A time of youthful rebellion and burgeoning sexual experience, the songs' popularity probably lay more in their x-rated content than in any particular enthusiasm for Ska.

Also known in Britain as Bluebeat, Ska was Jamaican dance music which grew out of Shuffle in the early 60s and developed via Rocksteady into Reggae (Bob Marley), as well as combining with Punk to produce 2Tone (Specials, Selector). Ska gets its distinctively cheeky sound by a rhythmic emphasis on the upbeat. I can't say that I was very interested in Ska when I first heard it, but I later became a great fan of 2Tone groups and Madness.

Alex was a white man who went to school in Brixton. Although a disc-jockey, it was his employment as a bouncer and debt collector which brought him into contact with the Ska label, Trojan, and his break into what had previously been an exclusively black field. Sexist, homophobic and very funny, his unique 'cockney-reggae' owed as much to the humour of white working class 'Sarf' London as it did to Jamaica, and he enjoyed a white skinhead following - a youth cult originally based on Jamaican 'Rude Boys'.

Numbers like the agriculturally-themed 'Up With the Cock' were essentially rugby songs set to a Ska beat. 'Big 6' ("Little Boy Blue come blow up your horn" etc) and 'Deception' wittily adapted nursery rhymes. 'The Winkle Man' ("The Winkle Man comes down our street, and he serves all the ladies...") rudely parallels Benny Hill's 'Ernie'. 'Dread Rock' (I think you can guess that one) echoes the world of saucy seaside postcards.

Although tame by modern standards, he shocked the prim and proper, establishing a proto-punk reputation. Although his double entendres were a little more explicit than Benny Hill's, he belonged essentially to the same tradition of English bawdiness. The West Indian connection, however, ensures that his albums appear in the Reggae rather than the novelty section of record shops.

Rik - 9 January 2002