So what happens when 30-year-old Rastafarian singer-songwriter, Tarrus Riley, anchored by the Jamaican saxophone virtuoso Dean Fraser, grips the crowd with his Reggae numbers? The answer is a rather sophisticated ballroom in a Montego Bay coast resort gets transformed into a rocking and sweaty dance party. The occasion was not just any other performance.  It was the release of his third album, “Contagious” by VP Records, which captures the ethnicity of the genre to the fullest. The richness of the reggae music, which to some sound as the monotony of the rhythm, got redefined in Riley's numbers, who played a pun on the word ‘Contagious' regarding it ‘much better than a swine flu'.  

Being hailed in the same category as some of the reggae veterans including Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs and Beres Hammond, Riley is believed to be doing a tremendous job by the way of taking the traditional and indigenous Jamaican music form to a new high. His music has a rustic feel that exudes a unique blend of wisdom and maturity and is directed towards helping the traditional reggae music take a center stage. Riley's music would surely bounce back reggae on the American Airwaves, thus making it a part of the marketable categories, as it once used to be, before the present day popular forms took over.

What leaves the audience spellbound is the overtly expressive voice of Riley, which gels amazingly well with his lyrics that emphatically capture the spirit of love and life. He makes use of simple words interspersed with a lot of meaning that makes an ultimate impact on the minds of his listeners. Even engaging are his jokes and remarks that are beaded throughout his performance. Carrying the legacy of his father, Jimmy Riley, and taking it to new high, Jr. Riley strikes a direct connect with his audience through his conversational style, which virtually makes all those present a part of the stage itself.

Reggae comes to Riley naturally, something that is evident in the free flowing style with which he conducts himself on the stage and almost gets lost in the music. Admirer of dancehall stars like Shabba Ranks and Buju Banton, Riley started his career as a DJ. When most kids of his age are still struggling to decide on a career for themselves, Riley was already living reggae. Born in the Bronx and raised between Florida and Jamaica , he recorded his debut single, “Nowadays,” at 15. And after that there was no looking back.

Be it love, relationships, nature, sex or social messaging (all intrinsic themes of reggae music) Riley continued to churn melodies, which reinstated the craze of this music form amongst its fans. Riley took the challenge of popularizing reggae music with his compositions. Undeterred by any kind of hindrances and underlining the universality of his music, Riley in an interview stated, “I'm a man who accepts challenges. We are here to make all different type of music for all different kind of people. I don't care if you're a Rasta or you're a Christian. I don't care if you're white, black, Asian. Because at the end of the day the sun shine on everyone, and the rain fall on everyone, and people are people.”

The Upsetter: The Life & Music Of Lee Scratch Perry takes the cult of this legendary producer to the big screen with interesting if not entirely satisfactory results. Written and directed by Adam Bhala Lough and Ethan Higbee, it presents a one-sided, truncated version of the story told in David Katz’s biography People Funny Boy - through a collage of archive footage, vintage music, and some surprisingly poignant moments as the now sober and harmlessly eccentric Scratch looks back on his eventful life.

Perry enjoys considerable (some would say disproportionate) acclaim outside Jamaica compared to most of classic reggae’s key players. However, like Toots Hibbert, he still lives in the shadow of Bob Marley in terms of mainstream renown. There is a palpable desire in The Upsetter... to put Scratch on a par with Marley; rightly pointing out his role in what many would agree is the Wailers’ most vital and groundbreaking work. In one of the film’s more candid segments Perry admits to selling the group’s songs to Trojan without permission, before swiftly adding that without this unethical act they would never have enjoyed such popularity abroad.

Lough and Higbee are keen to market Perry to the kids of today. As well as the power behind Bob’s throne, he is credited as the inventor of reggae (possibly true) and father of hip hop (probably not). Predictably – as in Winstan Whitter’s Four Aces documentary Legacy In The Dust - the impact of punk gets more screen time than it deserves, although given the applause in the cinema when Perry ends one of his stream-of-consciousness monologues with “I am a punk”, it’s easy to see why. Likewise, less use could have been made of the overly earnest narration, ambient-by-numbers original score and subtitles. And, inevitably, there’s the odd minor error such as the Scratch produced cut of Natural Mystic being mis-dated to 1977.

On the plus side, it’s impossible to watch without being impressed by Perry’s records. We hear sprightly early 70s productions like People Funny Boy, crisp and percussive roots work with The Gatherers and, of course, his later sub-aquatic sound with Junior Delgado and The Congos. As his decline and exile play out, the focus shifts from the music to intimate, disquieting scenes shot in the wreckage of his Black Ark studio, and some very telling interviews where Lee blatantly turns on the nonsense to avoid personal disclosure, suggesting his “madness” is not all it seems.

And therein lies the film’s major flaw: across 90 minutes the notoriously guarded Perry gives the only insider’s viewpoint we hear. Had he been interspersed with recollections from musical contemporaries, enemies, family or friends, a more rounded portrait might have taken shape. That said, an official Perry doc was never going to give an even-handed account, and bringing the fascinating story of his rise, depression, and curious existence trading off his own legend to a wider audience can only be a good thing. The Upsetter… may suffer from the modern documentary’s tendency to overstate and simplify, but even a less than definitive look at this once great talent and enigmatic human being is worthy of your time.