Reggae… I used to think this stuff was garbage. The first reggae album I ever listened to was the ever so popular “Legend,” a compilation of Bob Marley tunes that everyone around me could hum and my middle aged parents knew all the words to. I was not a big fan. Being a teenager to me means two things: one, having at least a little resentment towards the world, and two; having a certain level of energy that will slowly decrease and fade away as you get older and begin to turn that volume knob on your stereo down. I found the passive, laid-back Marley tracks a little too lacking of energy. Lyrics like “I wanna love you every day and every night”(from Is This Love) and “Rise up this morning/ Smiled with the risin’ sun”(from Three Little Birds) added to the peace-loving, ganja-smoking, happy world perception I had of reggae.

Gangsta rap had the energy and shock-value I was looking for, and became my music of preference for the next few months. Violent and racy lyrics of artists like Wu-Tang Clan and NWA fed my ears, and although I liked them, I began to realize that I was the prime example of a parent’s worst nightmare of “the child being plagued with pop culture violence and sex.” I refused to feel guilty about the music I chose to listen to, but I did begin to realize that a balance of anger and peace-loving happiness in my music choices might not be a bad thing.

Recently, while at a friend’s house I heard another reggae album called “The Harder They Come,” a soundtrack to the eponymous movie. The CD was a compilation of different reggae musicians, and produced by reggae-soul-ska great Jimmy Cliff. When I heard a track on this album, I decided to give reggae another shot, and asked my friend if I could borrow the CD. I listened to the album one time through on the way to school and, from that moment on, could not take it out of my CD player for two months.

Every stereotype I had tacked on to the reggae music genre crumbled to the ground. Lyrics on this CD were nothing like “Legend.” In the midst of beautiful harmonies and happy major chords were violent and shocking lyrics. On the track “Shanty Town,” Desmond Dekker sings, “And now rudeboys have a go wail/ cause them out of jail/ rudeboys cannot fail/ ‘cause them must get bail,” and “Dem a loot, dem a shoot, dem a wail/ A shanty town/ dem a rudeboys get a probation/ A shanty town/ and rudeboy bomb up the town.” “Johnny Too Bad,” by the Slickers, has lyrics of a similar vein: “Johnny you’re too bad/ You’re just robbin’ and you’re stabbin’/ and you’re lootin’ and you’re shootin’/ You’re too bad.”

Many of the songs were two to three minute bursts of energy and the lyrics were comparable to the gangsta rap in their subject matter –– life, poverty and violence in the shanty towns of Jamaica and projects of New York. Although the songs on “The Harder They Come” seemed to be the rap of yester-year, their melodic and happy sounding music was the perfect juxtaposition to their edgy lyrics, a perfect blend of anger and pleasure.

If you’re ever at a friend’s house and hear him (or her) playing reggae, ask him what it is, and if he says, “Why, it’s Jimmy Cliff’s ‘The Harder They Come,’” you look your buddy dead in the eye and say: “Can I borrow it?” It will make you a happy man.