tunes that would be canonized in hardcore punk’s songbook. “Pay to Cum,” “Sailin’ On,” and the aptly named “Banned in D.C.” were complemented by irie reggae offerings like “I Love I Jah” and “Leav- ing Babylon.” In addition to their long-standing relationship with PMA, Bad Brains would soon synthesize lessons from Hill’s book with the tenets of Rastafarianism, accounting for the band’s increas- ingly dense spiritual identities. “PMA—that was big on us,” says Jenifer. “That would keep us cool in the hood. And then, guess what PMA was? It was Rasta. It’s like an advancement of a concept about making money being pushed into, ‘Okay, now there’s a Black Jesus,’ so to speak—something I can identify with in terms of spirituality.” 5 Through Rastafarianism, Bob Marley, and reggae-punk offerings by the Clash, the Bad Brains would form a lifelong fascination with reggae, dedicating entire tracks on subsequent albums to the Carib- bean art form. “I always felt rather guilty,” said Bad Brains’ former manager and reggae mentor, Nick English, who introduced the group to reggae after moving to D.C. from the U.K. in the ’70s. “I was able to intro- duce these guys to reggae music. They had open ears—it was won- derful. When I came, I had probably one hundred 45s and twenty albums, and nobody here knew a single thing about [reggae]. But these guys, they just ate it up. They wanted to know, they wanted to learn, and H.R. was right at the forefront.” Although reggae music, and the individual member’s varying propensity to play it, would be- come a divisive factor within the band, much of the mentality of Ja- maican music stuck with the group and bolstered their do-it-yourself ethos. “Reggae informed a lot of early punk in London,” continued
and he was like, ‘Dude, you got to fuckin’ see this band.’ I was like, ‘Cool, all right, I’ll go check it out.’ He was like, ‘No, no—you don’t understand.’ He looked like he’d just seen twenty people get gunned down by a fuckin’ terrorist or something. He was blown the fuck away. So I went upstairs, and the motherfuckers clicked off a song, and I was just like—get the fuck out of here.” 4 But the capital city was becoming, in increasing capacity, inhos- pitable to the incendiary quartet. “We played at this club in Logan Circle with yuppies, jocks, and people having their beer,” Jenifer says. “It was the Bad Brains, Teen Idles, and SOA. We went up in there, and people are getting uptight because the punkers are com- ing in with their boots on. To make a long story short, we slammed the place up, jumping up and down on the floor, knocking [things] over, and the [owner] wasn’t having that. But we really blew the dude’s mind because we were Black. So my man said, ‘I ain’t hav- ing no more punk shows. All y’all get the fuck out of here!’ So we were leaving, and he says, ‘You be sure I ain’t having no more punk shows, and definitely no Black punk shows!’ ” In 1979, the band would pack up and move to New York City, where they self-released a 45, “Pay to Cum” b/w “Stay Close to Me,” the former track being picked up by Alternative Tentacles’ infamous 1981 compilation Let Them Eat Jellybeans . In 1982, Bad Brains released their eponymous demo tape on ROIR Records. The cover art, a lightning bolt crashing through the Capitol building, echoed the band’s collective sentiment regarding their hometown, yet it still became an instant classic in D.C., as well as their newly adopted New York City. The cassette included
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