Rough Riding: Tanya Stephens and the Power of Music to Transform Society (Sound Culture Series)

About the Author
Adwoa Ntozake Onuora lectures in the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. She is the author of Anansesem: Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies.
Anna Kasafi Perkins is Senior Programme Officer, Quality Assurance Unit, Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies, the University of the West Indies, Vice Chancellery, Regional Headquarters, Jamaica. Her publications include Justice as Equality: Michael Manley’s Caribbean Theory of Justice and Justice and Peace in a Renewed Caribbean: Contemporary Catholic Reflections (co-edited with Donald Chambers and Jacqueline Porter).
Ajamu Nangwaya is a former lecturer in the Institute of Caribbean Studies, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. He is co-editor (with Michael Truscello) of Why Don’t the People Rise Up? Organizing the Twenty-First Century Resistance and (with Kali Akuno) of Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi.
Rough Riding: Tanya Stephens and the Power of Music to Transform Society is a groundbreaking collection of articles that explore the contribution of the cultural worker, feminist organic intellectual, and controversial reggae and dancehall artiste Tanya Stephens. An accomplished lyricist on par with the genre’s celebrated male performers, Stephens has been producing socially conscious and transformative music that is associated with revolutionary reggae music of the 1970s and 1980s. The contributors to this anthology – a diverse group of scholars, activists and reggae professionals – explore the range of ideas and issues raised in Stephens’s extensive body of work and examine the important role cultural workers play in inspiring shifts in consciousness and, ultimately, the social order.
Contributors: Tanya Batson-Savage, Elsa Calliard-Burton, Karen Carpenter, Melville Cooke, Ajamu Nangwaya, Adwoa Ntozake Onuora, Alpha Obika, Anna Kasafi Perkins, Nicole Plummer, Chazelle Rhoden, Sara Suliman
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Preface
Be Bold for Change: On Violence against Women and Girls*
V I V I E N N E ( TA N YA S T E PH E N S) S T E PH E N S O N
BEING BOLD MEANS BEING WILLING TO TAKE A RISK , a willingness to exceed set limits, even the limits which were set by us. This boldness can be a big action, challenging us to step outside of our own personal space, and enter the space of others. One example from US history is a black woman who brazenly sat at the front of the bus in a time of racial segregation. A more recent example closer to home was demonstrated by a “spunky woman” who impulsively used a tambourine to impact an unapologetic “alleged” sex offender, giving the Tambourine Army its name.
Most of us would not even dream of being that bold! That’s okay. We don’t all have to be bold in the same way. Those acts are necessary catalysts in every revolution. But of equal importance is the bold action which needs to follow. For some of us being bold will mean allowing others to be bold without our interference or even simply acknowledging and appreciating the potency of our sisters’ works. On that note, let me pause to acknowledge a sister who last year pioneered this spot from which I speak and has made her position very clear in this revolution. I extend my gratitude and appreciation to my sister Imani Duncan-Price. Women like her, Latoya Nugent, Nadeen Spence and Taitu Heron inspire and motivate me every day to push harder, to breach boundaries, to get up out of retirement and pick up back weapon because this is war. And, if dem
*Speech delivered at the Women’s Empowerment for Change Ltd (WE-Change) annual #HerLegacy International Women’s Day event in March 2017. The event was hosted as part of the Tambourine Army’s activism in support of victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. want war, you know wi a go deal wid di case c