THE BEAT
Volume 23 No. 6 2004

DUB TRINITY
(Dub Trinity, 2004)

Last summer at the International Dub Poetry Festival in Toronto (profiled in The Beat. Vol. 23 #5), the house band w as Dub Trinity. Not only did they provide solid backing for the various dub poets that performed to lean on. but their music offered an elasticity that allowed each one to also lean into the riddims which the band laid down. Quite a combination! And when they took their own turn in the spotlight at the week's final concert, they delivered a set that was both fiery and thought-provoking at the same time.

Dub Trinity's music combines dub (of which there are two wicked ex- amples on this cd) and roots-rock- reggae with improvised drum and bass and conscious lyrics that are strictly truth and rights. The band, originally the brainchild of bassist Beau Dixon and drummer Gregory Roy, includes Rob Wilkes on guitar and lead singer/ lyricist Chet Singh. The Jamaican- born Singh has always mixed music and community activism in his performances. This approach, originally honed with the "old school" Canadian reggae group One Mind in the early '80s, has continued to evolve over time. Dub Trinity is his latest collaborative effort and is likewise steeped in the politics of social change. According to Singh, "We realize the power of music as one means of communicating the revolutionary potential of organizing for equality and social justice." Singh and fellow bandmember Roy each have put their proverbial "money where their mouth is" too in that they are founders of a grassroots anti-racist/anti-oppression coalition in Peterborough. Ontario, the college town which is their home base.

Unlike filmmaker Michael Moore's view of Canada as a rosy socialist paradise. Dub Trinity offers a trenchant critique of Canada's privileged position in the American Empire and its tendency to emphasize its supposed role as international peacemaker while downplaying the need for justice at home. In a sense. Moore's romanticization of Canada just plays into Canadian complacency, and, now more than ever, self-satisfied Canadians are able to favorably compare their country to the increasingly gulag-like environment of Fortress America.

In "Counter Attack." Dub Trinity cleverly exposes Canadian hypocrisy in this regard by means of a mid-song send-up of the Canadian national anthem. By simply changing the lyrics. "Oh Canada, our home and native land," to "Oh Canada, our home on native land." the colonial origins of Canada itself are sharply linked to such unthinking lyrical racism in relation to the European conquest of indigenous peoples. Where I now live in British Columbia, for example, much of the province is unceded territory with no treaty ever signed and no deed filed. In BC. ongoing Native occupations at Suliklah and Sun Peaks in opposition to clearcutling and ski resort gentrification are evidence of the continuing relevance of First Nations' sovereignty claims.

Presently, at the center of many of these land rights struggles are corporate greed and/or the ruinous privatization policies of the neoliberal state. both of which adversely affect non- Native Canadians as well. Accordingly. one of the album's pivotal songs suggests. "Let's take back the government/from the corporate mafia/If they try to hold us back/this is a counter- attack." Yet to Dub Trinity, fighting back against corporate control is not simply based on an "us and dem" mentality. One of the most interesting things about this cd is how often we are challenged to examine our own involvement in perpetuating oppressive situations. In "Counter Attack." the downpressors "have we on the payroll/want we to sell our soul." In "Just Another Statistic." we are introduced to "Joe Complicity." Joe, like those he oppresses in the name of "spreading global democracy." is himself an Eichman-like cog in the bureaucratic wheel of global capitalism. Yet, instead of simply dismissing him as the enemy, we are asked to see ourselves in him in order to understand the complicated nature of our own complicity. In so doing, we are allowed to understand the process of complicity at an even deeper level.

In this regard. "Another Statistic" asks us to contemplate our own role in the system. As Singh declares. "It's you and me are the system/it's you and me are the criminal." Similarly, in "Angels of Mercy." a song about the on- going Israeli/Palestinian horrorshow. Singh wonders not only "how oppressed become oppressors." but about the role of SUV-driving North American taxpayers in this oppression. As he puts it, "It funny how history has no shame/crimes committed in our name."

And, sometimes because of a lack of political consciousness, we collude with those oppressive forces committing crimes in our name, and then find that they are enacted at our own ex- pense. In "System Fraud," we meet Jane and Joe Simplicity. Identifying with his oppressors by voting contrary to his working class interests, Joe casts his ballot for the Conservative Party, and ends up getting downsized for his trouble. Jane, who has moved to the country in a classic case of white flight to save her family from the stereotypical bad influence of "niggers" and "Pakis" in Toronto, has a rude awakening when she finds out her son is now smoking crack in what she thought was the safety of suburbia.

Dub Trinity's music is not about guilt-tripping. Clearly the victimizers are themselves victimized by their own delusions. These songs are not mere sloganizing, but rather explorations of the complex dynamics of this cycle of victimization, which lead Singh to exclaim, "The shitstem is a fraud." While they are certainly manipulated by the powers that be, the people he sings about here are not blameless because they, however reluctantly, chose to participate in this fraudulent system. Yet, neither are they members of the power elite at the upper echelons of corporate and state institutions. Over a loping riddim in "Why," Singh poses the question, "Why that rich man him smilin'/and we just survivin?" Within this context, he uses the word "we" in a broadly inelusive way so thai it seems to encompass all those who have to sell their labor in order to survive.

For Singh, pan of the orchestrated confusion that masks systemic fraud is traceable to the corporate media environment in which we live and love. The protagonist of "Alienation Love" is "tryin" to see through the billboards/ didn't know my desire was a neon sign." Singing about how advertisements for a life of consumption zero in on male sexual insecurities. Singh paraphrases Bob Marley to say "every need got an ego to feed/though in the end/we all bleed." Though he may be privileged in a patriarchal society. the song's protagonist is internally wounded. He can only give up his male privilege by understanding how the masculine role has alienated him from himself. Singh's lyrics convey his personal struggle here. "Had enough of this alien nation love/ thought 1 knew you/but I didn't know me." and he concludes. "It must be rebellion time."

Similarly, with the tune "Dread Ina Babylon." we see how the pervasive "war on terrorism" propaganda machine panders to our worst fears through the absurdity of such Big Brotherisms as "sellin' more guns to save we/buildin' more bombs to save we/droppin" more bombs to save we." Then. addressing the murderous policies of Bush, Blair, Hussein, Bin Laden and Sharon by explicitly naming their authors, he confronts them with the verse. "Everything you do/ gonna come back to you." In the end, he predicts the house of cards upon which the system of politricks rests will collapse. However, if our dreams of revolution are to be fully realized, he announces, "love" must prevail because, just as is the case with the powerful. "everything ire do is gonna come back to we." In these dreader than dread times. Dub Trinity dares to hope that another world is still possible, and creates a music aimed at sparking the flames of resistance w ith a "one love" reggae vibration.

—Ron Sakolslcy