From the moment I saw Steve McQueen's Small Axe: "Lovers Rock" film I have wanted to write something about it. Something about how visceral and beautiful it was for me to experience, about how perfectly he encapsulated a time and place in a way that was both unique (and new for me to learn about) and at the same time as familiar to me as Home.
I have struggled with trying to find the words to explain to anyone who doesn't share my love of that episode the WHY of its potency. For me (and likely others) it isn't just an innovative movie about one night at a house party in the 80's in West London, or even a more sophisticated glimpse into the social experience of a Caribbean community in London at that time. It is a movie where the music -lovers rock reggae - is a central character. The mood throughout is sexy and dangerous and youthful and romantic and intimate.
And this starts to get at why it moved me so dramatically; this was a film that was also about my community, my experience. It reached right into my heart and soul, my youth, and ignited the teenage me in the 80's who went to house parties in West Racine - house parties often with reggae spun by the legendary DJ Crazy D (Dave), who was also my first boyfriend.
Today marks the 6th Anniversary of Dave's death. As I have written before, Dave was my first adolescent love and our relationship was - like Dave - a lot. He was an extraordinary human and together we learned about love, heartbreak, friendship and pain - lessons that are now woven into the fabric of who I am today. The house parties he used to DJ in the 80's were filled with teenagers and 20 somethings, skaters and punks and every brand of beautiful misfit from west Racine to the north side all coming together in loud sweaty community. People would dance and sway, burgeoning DJ's would get behind the tables with Dave to watch him spin, people would hook up, cops would show up - we were young and full of life and felt everything at a level ten volume.
That is what is exceptional about Steve McQueen's "Lovers Rock" - what brings that film and equally exceptional Dave together in perfect loving harmony for me - it captured that moment, that FEELING, that we thought was only ours - and found a way to replicate it, share it, bring us back to it like we are experiencing it again for the first time. And man, was it fucking delicious.
"What happens next constitutes one of the most patient and loving celebrations of music ever captured on film. The DJ stops the music so that the slow-dancing partygoers can sing the entire song a cappella, giving it the sacred quality of a hymn. It is a spontaneous ritual of connection and endurance in a hostile world...In many ways, it was the basis for the entire film. It is about intimacy and desire and asking someone to take off their mask.”
