ENTITY · PERSON (ARTIST, SELECTOR, PRODUCER…)
Max Romeo
Well supported
Max Romeo is a Jamaican singer whose "Sipple Out Deh", released in the UK as "War inna Babylon" and produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, is a landmark of mid-1970s political reggae: its title, Jamaican patois for slippery or dangerous, set the tone for protest songs on government corruption, ghetto gun violence and police heavy-handedness.
He followed it with the directly anti-government "No Joshua No" and "One Step Forward". Despite the "War inna Babylon" album's critical standing, Romeo has said he was paid only 2,500 Jamaican dollars for it. Romeo wrote it himself, and it was turned down for recording by John Holt, Derrick Morgan, Roy Shirley and Slim Smith before producer Bunny Lee persuaded Romeo to voice it himself; it became a UK pop hit despite the BBC's broadcast ban.
At a glance
- Confidence
- Well supported
- Sources
- Lloyd Bradley, Bass Culture (2000/2013), chapter 19.
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What people argued about this record — two documented positions each time, kept apart from verified fact. Browse every argument in the archive →
'Wet Dream' and the BBC ban: protecting decency or prudish overreach?
One side
Protecting broadcast decency
The other
Prudish censorship of a Jamaican innuendo tradition
Two documented positions on the 1969 BBC ban of Max Romeo's hit: the broadcaster framed it as protecting decency over an overtly suggestive lyric, while critics called it prudish overreach that ignored a Jamaican tradition of innuendo, and the record charted regardless. Neutral framing; no verdict.
Read the argument →Manley's 1972 bandwagon: reggae as the sufferers' voice or a politician's prop?
One side
Reggae as authentic mobilizing voice of the poor
The other
Political co-optation of Rasta and roots symbolism
Michael Manley's PNP built its 1972 campaign around reggae, adopting Delroy Wilson's 'Better Must Come' as its theme, touring a 'bandwagon' of artists including Max Romeo and the Wailers, and pairing the music with the 'Rod of Correction' Manley said he received from Haile Selassie. Observers have argued this fused reggae's voice-of-the-sufferer authenticity with a genuine political movement for the poor; others read it as co-optation — parties harvesting Rasta symbols and roots songs (Romeo's 'Let the Power Fall', Byles's 'Beat Down Babylon') for electoral advantage while leaving the ghettos' conditions unchanged. Grounded in the Zapruder World essay on reggae and the 1972 election and Jamaica Observer's 'That Manley bandwagon.'.
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