BUYING JAMAICAN ART DIRECTLY SUPPORTS THE JAMAICAN ECONOMY

 

                                                

Jamaican Art: Richard Hall's "By the Water's Edge"

Jamaica’s ranks among the top ten most culturally influential countries in the world behind the likes of China and Brazil and certainly ahead of the United States of America. Our music, dance, Jamaican Art, and other social expressions are the primary drivers of the island’s culture, albeit without serious economic and social support from government and other social interests at home.

While the country grapples with productivity issues, such as its inability to find competitive space for manufactured goods in the various export markets, it has failed to realize a largely untapped creative industry which requires very little import content yet having the ability to contribute exponentially to the island’s earning capacity via marketing intellectual property. It may come as a surprise to many that Art is in fact an export industry and in 2019 its global value was estimated at $50.1 billion in 2020 with online sales accounting for $12.6 billion. The USA accounts for 40.2 percent of those sales with China and Great Britain each accounting for 20 percent of those sales.

From a business development standpoint, Jamaica’s proximity to the USA makes this a “low-hanging fruit” especially given its ever increasing Diaspora population. The task is in getting Jamaicans in the Diaspora to understand the importance in supporting Jamaican artists by purchasing their work.

Jamaica established the National Cultural Training Centre in 1975/76 which was later renamed the Edna Manley Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts with a vision of broadening the opportunities for artisans and craftsmen and to strengthen the island’s cultural output. To make all this work though, we need to support the work of the island’s creative people. We all need to buy the works of our local artists. Whether you start with original art pieces or giclee prints on canvas, it represents a start. Find an artist or group of artists whose work appeals to you. Talk with them where possible...go to their shows. Most will work out payment arrangements with you to help make it easier to acquire their work. As an artist myself, I certainly do.

For my part I am now offering Jamaican art that I have purchased directly from artists in Jamaica for resale on my website at www.yardabraawd.com. One such artist that I am currently working with is Richard Hall, whose work has seen significant demand growth. I have also been representing an intuitive ceramist Over time I will be adding more Jamaica-based artists, especially artists just leaving the Edna Manley College. I am convinced that by purchasing the products and services of local artists, and artisans we all play a part in reflecting the authenticity of Jamaica’s culture and hence drive tourist interest to the island and our people worldwide. More families in Jamaica (with our support) will be  better able to sustain themselves, while your patronage contributes to expanding the economic landscape in Jamaica.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog, please leave your thoughts in the comment section below, we appreciate your feedback. We also invite you to check Sunday Scoops our Jamaican music streaming and commentary program every Sunday from 2-4pm on yaawdmedia.com feel free to share with your friends.

IT IS WAY PAST TIME FOR A JAMAICA MUSIC HALL OF FAME

Painting: Birth of Legends 

The past eighteen months have been extremely savage on the Jamaica music fraternity, and even more so on the country’s entertainment sector. Separate from the economic savaging brought on by the pandemic, the specter of death has laid its heavy hand on the community, taking out Bob Andy, Toots Hibbert, Millie Small, Ewart “U-Roy” Beckford, Bunny “Striker” Lee, Bunny Wailer, Dobby Dobson, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Purple Man, Derrick Lara (Tamlins), Dolphin “Naggo” Morris (Heptones), and Apple Gabriel (Israel Vibrations) among others. When added to the roster of other contributors over the years, what we are seeing is a dramatic depletion of contributors to the history of our music. What is especially worrisome is the fact that with their passing, most of these contributors have had very little documentation done of the stories that would have authored the input they have made.

As I write this, I can vividly recall the way I felt when the news came that Alton Ellis passed in October 2008. I was in London at the time and despite my best efforts, I could not disentangle the knot that formed in my stomach. It did not help a few years later when news broke that John Kenneth Holt (OD), had passed. I was aware that both had been ill but not that their illness had become so severe. In any event, the passing of both represented a cumulative loss of nearly eighty years of the history of Jamaica’s music and it was this realization that has since driven my interest in Jamaica’s music and in later years propelling the startup of not only the Sunday Scoops program, but also led to the establishment of Yaawd Media Inc and yaawdmedia.com

As a small island with a population of just under three million people, Jamaica punches phenomenally above its weight in the global music sphere. It is an exceptional feat that in the last 73 years we have gifted to the world (courtesy of our artistes) a minimum of six genres of music: Mento, Ska, Nyabinghi, Rock Steady, Reggae, and Dancehall. Our artistes have flown our flag at every curve of the globe. From our best-known son Robert Nesta Marley, James (Jimmy Cliff) Chambers, Millie Small, Desmond Dekker, Toots Hibbert, and the Maytals; Alton Ellis, Dennis Emanuel Brown, Augustus Pablo, the Mighty U Roy; from Shabba Ranks to Damien (Junior Gong) Marley…just to name a few; Jamaicans have over the period pioneered different sounds and at each juncture, established newer and newer directions in the global music sphere.

Musicians and artistes though are mortals and over time they Robert Nesta Marley (and some of the others named) will pass on as we all must. In the circumstances, it is our responsibility as a nation is to be reminded of the exploits of these pioneering men and women and to constantly celebrate their achievements. I believe that the time has come to establish a Museum of Jamaican Music where the exploits of these greats will be celebrated in perpetuity.

I am calling on the Nation; from the Ministry of Culture to the Jamaican Private Sector; from the Jamaica Tourist Board to the Jamaica Federation of Musicians and all other interested parties to come together and give life to such a project.

Jamaica is the home of Reggae music as it is to Ska, Rock Steady, DJ, and Dancehall; and we must use this occasion of the Covid-19 pandemic to immortalize these creations. Many countries only dream about the kind of accomplishments that we have as Jamaicans and make every effort to celebrate the very little that they have. We on the other hand have received many blessings in the form of the legions of great individuals that have helped to shape our music culture, yet we do very little with those gifts.

I believe that a Museum of Jamaican Music would make for a phenomenal tourist attraction, and I believe that such an attraction will provide inspiration for thousands of other Jamaicans as well as provide an excellent source of revenues in addition to providing increased exposure as to the diversity of our people.

The time for its creation has come. 

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog, please leave your thoughts in the comment section below, we appreciate your feedback. We also invite you to check Sunday Scoops our Jamaican music streaming and commentary program every Sunday from 2-4pm on yaawdmedia.com feel free to share with your friends.

THE DAWG PAW RESPONSE EXPOSES JAMAICA'S HYPOCRISY

 

On Monday of this week news broke that reputed gang leader Christopher Linton, known otherwise as Dawg Paw had been shot and killed following a confrontation with police.  Linton who had been tagged with multiple murder and shooting charges was in 2013 sentenced to 15 years for gun possession and shooting with intent at the police. Six years later, Linton and his co-accused were freed by the Court of Appeal as the Justices found that the identification evidence was unreliable. It appeared that once freed, Dawg-Paw returned to his old habits, resuming a reign of terror within the Papine, Kintyre, and Elletson Flats communities.

Interestingly, Dawg-Paw had been moving in and amongst the up-town “brown-skinned” Jamaican community for quite some time to the extent that he sired a child with Leah Tavares- Finson in 2010. Such contact had more than provided him with multiple opportunities for self-development and him being parent to a child with the Tavares-Finsons offspring may have been the catalyst for the volume of responses. It is little wonder then that the news of his death lit up social media like a beacon with multiple apologists attempting to canonize him.  For openers, Councillor for the Papine Division in Eastern St Andrew, Venesha Phillips, stated in a Nationwide interview that “the life of crime that was led by slain gangster Christopher ‘Dawg Paw’ Linton, highlights the need for better rehabilitation programs for convicted criminals.”

The same media house heard views from founder of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), Diana McCaulay who contended that the wider society failed Linton during his formative years. According to McCaulay, she knew Linton as a promising child in the 1990s when he was still a student at St Hugh’s Prep in St Andrew. “He was a lovely young man with plenty potential, so I think the outcome is very sad. You know, I can’t speak to the crimes he committed—I have no knowledge of those—but as a youngster, he was lovely. I think we failed him; a long list of us and I include myself in that, failed him,” she said.
Diane Jobson, the lawyer who represented reputed gangster Christopher ‘Dog Paw’ Linton from he was a teenager, is quoted in a Gleaner Repost report the “she found him to be charismatic and a natural-born leader.” According to the report, she said that it is “a pity that the society didn’t make good use of those characteristics … rather than treat him like a fugitive from justice, or a man that should be feared or gunned down like an animal.”

One commentator in giving his take on the saga wrote on his Facebook page that the Dawg Paw saga requires a Case Study. Under the heading – “Becoming Dawg Paw” he wrote on Thursday of this week “I would love to get an understanding of 'Dog Paw's' backstory from his childhood to up to two days ago when he died. I want to know, not because I want to be voyeuristic, but to understand the contributory factors leading to the formation of species of Jamaicans similar to him.”

The fact is that there are myriads of studies that have already been conducted and scholarly articles written and published by numerous social scientists and other professionals in Jamaica about murderers and other members of Jamaica’s criminal class. All this commentator needs to do is to perform an academic search.  

It is difficult to argue against the fact that aspects of our social structure help in breeding our criminal culture. For starters, our secondary school system provides as central warehousing of candidates for the criminal class as more than a half of the population of secondary school graduates depart schools annually without a subject pass and with nowhere to go. That notwithstanding, only a handful embraces any kind of criminal lifestyle. Dawg Paw’s story is no different from that of scores of other Jamaicans who chose to walk the criminal path including Vincent “Ivanhoe” Martin (1924–9 September 1948) and whose exploits spawned the Perry Henzel cult classic film “The Harder They Come.” Others in the lineup included Dennis “Copper” Barth (whose character was central to my own written work “Top Rankings-A Chronicle of The Origins of Jamaican Badness”), Claudius Massop, Anthony “Starkey” Tingle, among so many others. Not only do we know these men became killers but owing to the research work of the likes of Dr. Fred Hickling, Herbert Gayle, Geoffrey Walcott, and many others, we already know what to do.

If the intention of the discourse surrounding “Dawg Paw’s” demise is to force the powers that be into rescuing our youth from similar outcomes, then it is one that is indeed welcome, and I hope the effort is taken all the way.  If, however, the intent is merely to sanitize surviving relationships for the supposedly well-heeled class, then we are all just common hypocrites as no one speaks for the surviving family members of the victims of this man’s alleged murderous rampage.

 

 

 

 

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE STATIC WE REMAIN

It was the late great Marcus Mosiah Garvey who once said, “a people that is without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” His statement has become an almost self-fulfilling prophecy for Jamaicans, for today, far too many
of us are clueless about our origins. Far too many have allowed themselves to become pawns in a chess game where they are sacrificed to those who want to become social and political kings.

It is my belief that this state-of-affairs was never an accident but a calculated risk that has bred a level of divisiveness within segments of our population replete with the associated selfishness that is manifested by the staggering levels of criminality. It is this criminal culture above all else that has undermined Jamaica’s social and economic development for the past six decades. In addition, it has served to create the environment from which successive Jamaican political administrations have been unable to salvage the country.

Most of these problems began in the lead-up to the Independence elections of 1962. For starters, this was the first time that gunplay became part of our political experience when gun activities in Western Kingston led to the closure of a major polling division in that constituency and the disqualification of more than 1700 votes. Seaga would win the Seat by 483 votes. Immediately after that in 1963, the victorious JLP administration saw to the completion of the Wilton Gardens housing scheme in a section of Trench Pen that was renamed, Rema. The then Minister of Development Hon., Edward Seaga presided over the completion of this scheme and the handing over of these high-rise homes to “hand-picked” individuals, essaying the practice of “benefits politics” that would again be repeated with the creation of Tivoli Gardens. The PNP would unfurl its’ own approaches in the 1970s with the creation of Arnett Gardens, among others. The gestures created a level of hostility that turned into violence between people from Trench Town and Rema, Denham Town and Tivoli Gardens, etc., from which we are yet to recover. In time, sections of those communities would channel acerbic levels of violence throughout the Kingston & St. Andrew area which would spread to Spanish Town and other areas in the island.

In the last 20 years, there has been a noticeable separation of sorts between the politician and the gunman, albeit not totally. It is this very fact that makes it impossible to talk about crime solutions without addressing the role that our practice of politics plays in shepherding the agents of this scourge. We saw in the early years of the 1960s and 1970s where the political hand-outs were houses and jobs for a select few. We saw the political garrisons that this created, all of which stand today. In 2021, it has become a bun at Easter or a bag of groceries. In the last 30 years, the level of graft and basic corruption has become stratospheric in every sector of society. Politicians have become fat and their associates who are close enough to the trough similarly bloated while the value of the voter has shrunk significantly.

Despite the lack of amenities within communities the constituents believe even more that the politician is working for them. After all, he or she has given them a $500.00 Easter bun...or a bag with a couple pounds of flour, rice, sugar, cornmeal, tin mackerel, and some salted butter. This is the measure of the voters' value by the current crop of politicians. Give them a belly-full periodically and you do not have to provide any long-term solutions to the problems that handcuff them to this demeaning demonstration of the politicians' generosity.

It is unquestionable that the level of criminal activity on the island was birthed by our political process. That notwithstanding, certain segments of our political class have taken to attaching the blame for our criminal tsunami to the creators of Jamaican music. Let me be clear that I find these attempts to hang the causes of our criminality on the creators of our music as cheap and irresponsible political theater. For more than 60 years, Jamaican music creators have done what writers do…they write about events on the ground. They write and sing about what is happening around them. In these communities, crime is the flavor of the day and therefore the subject matter for recording.

The fact is that successive administrations have failed to address our crime problem because they have never provided the budgetary resources required for transforming “at-risk” communities. Instead, they provide more firepower and armored vehicles, etc., to the police, a strategy that was and never will be the solution to our problems. Blaming music creators for this is again, a bird that will never fly. In the meantime, many of these communities have been converted by criminals into their personal havens. Go figure…

Check out my website at: YAAWD MEDIA INC | SUNDAY SCOOPS for a trove of information on Jamaican music.

WHEEL AND COME AGAIN DR. DAWES

Dr. Alfred Dawes is a general, laparoscopic, and weight loss surgeon, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and a former senior medical officer of the Sav-la-Mar Public Hospital in Westmoreland, and former president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors of Jamaica. Dr. Dawes has earned his stripes as a physician and a public servant. In fact, I will credit the good doctor further for using his social status as a step-ladder within the Jamaican media landscape and to provide commentary on a myriad of social issues from time to time. However, his current broadside in the Gleaner of April 9, 2021, entitled “The day the music died” in which he expressed his disgust with the state of Jamaican music is one of those articles to which I take exception. And yes, I am aware that these are his opinions, but his is an opinion that carries weight. Further, these opinions as expressed are devoid of the facts.

In the late 1970s to early 1980s, Jamaica held the reputation for being among the most prolific producer of recorded works in the world, turning out more than 500 new records per week. In the current environment with the wider proliferation of record-producing facilities, I am certain that the numbers are greater, and with the current liberalized distribution environment and the easy access to online marketing platforms, the ubiquitous nature of communication brings this material directly in front of all audiences.

Dr. Dawes stated in his article that the music and the message have changed, which is true. It is no less true that in the first twenty years of Jamaica’s music development (1955-1975) the music rocketed through six genres: Mento, Rhythm and Blues, Jazz, Ska, Rock Steady and Reggae. In the course of that period 98 percent of this music was produced by Jamaicans on the fringes of the country’s social landscape, the majority of whom wrote and sang about the oppression and the victimization that they were experiencing.

A feature of human existence, Dr. Dawes is that people and their influences do change. That Jamaican music experienced the kind of dramatic change (and still do) is a factor of technological and other developmental change.

For much of its development period, segments of Jamaican society decried the music being produced, especially, the people who were producing this music. Despite the fact that Coxsone, Duke Reid, Lindon Pottinger, and Prince Buster were Black Jamaicans laying the foundations of the industry we have today, Buster and Duke Reid was classified as undesirables. Prince Buster would become the target of much pillorying by the security forces in the 1960s. Yet he was a major catalyst in getting Jamaican music into the British and American markets.

In the1960s, Alton Ellis sang about the “Dance Crasher”, Marley said “Simmer Down”, Desmond Dekker “007” The Clarendonians said “What a Bam Bam” while Prince Buster and Derrick Morgan threw out hefty sentences to Rude Boys as “Judge Dread.” These were the lyrics of the day and these were but a smidgen of the artistes who were active. These were the lyrics of the period, played by the sound systems of the day and during which time the public was up in arms about anti-social behavior. The sound system was the music’s main marketing organ- sound systems such as the Mighty Waldron, Cosxone’s Downbeat, Trojan Sounds, Merritone, Tom the Great Sebastian, etc.

As we progressed through the years the sound system landscape only got thicker, creating the platform on which the phenomenon we now recognize as the modern dancehall. The vast majority of its infrastructure was built by ordinary Jamaicans as they created a complete sub-culture out of the modified "dance-hall," initially seen as an extension of the Reggae genre but now standing on its own. King Tubbys, Arrows International, Youthman Promotions, Jack Rubys, Jack Scorpio, and the great King Jammys continued to change the music with their innovations and penchant for experimentation with sound.

What is missing from Dr. Dawes’ argument is the fact that throughout the sixty years of our music development, there was never any serious effort on the part of our political and social developers at investing in developing the throng of unattached youth, or providing resources aimed at harnessing the talent that existed on our society’s fringes. Instead, our politics embraced violence as a method of control and the ubiquitous gunman became a part of that landscape. As this developed, the writers and singers of songs threaded that development into the lyrics that they wrote. All this time, these individuals were the constant in the music, the individuals who were crowding the studio precincts with their slivers of paper or memories loaded with sets of lyrics borne out of their own day-to-day experiences in their individual communities. This was always how music was made in Jamaica, all the way back to the 1950s and the 1960s.

That we do not have enough Koffee’s, Chronixes, and Kabaka Pyramids’ in our music is not surprising. It was no different back in the day. What Dr. Dawes and others of his ilk are doing is to measure the current era using the yardstick of hindsight with the 1960s and 70s as the comparison but they are not taking into consideration the status quo that existed at that time. The Marleys, Mighty Diamonds, Burning Spears, and Cultures of that era represented less than 5 percent of the artistes who were turning up at the studios at the time. In fact, no less than what currently operates, a majority of artistes in the early period made their money doing specials and dubplates for sound systems then. Most of that music was never elevated into the regular listening space, a factor that still operates today.

There is no arguing against the fact that there are undesirables (gunmen and murderers) involved in our music space, no less than they are embedded in other spheres of Jamaican life; in business, and in politics. That, simply, is an everyday reality.

What Dr. Dawes may want to do with his “bully pulpit” is to call out the authorities for its deliberate disinvestment in Jamaicans generally and specifically in inner-city and at-risk communities. It is easy for his commentary to be read as an approbation of the current claim that the music is partially responsible for the current levels of Jamaican criminality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jamaica has been killing its nationals at a rate in excess of 1,300 Jamaicans murdered per year for the last 25-30 years, making the island the most murderous country in the world for decades. How we solve that is our real challenge. I am submitting that not trying to understand the total contribution of Jamaican music to the economy and the ability to provide economic opportunities to a broader swath of Jamaicans is merely continuing our investment in deepening our social decadence.

Wheel and come again Dr. Alfred Dawes. Visit my website at YAAWD MEDIA INC | SUNDAY SCOOPS for a wide variety of audio/video presentations on various Jamaican music topics.

A REAL CHANCE FOR FLORIDA’S CARIBBEAN VOTERS TO BE REPRESENTED IN THE US CONGRESS

A few years ago, the state of Florida with its nearly 21.5 million residents leap-frogged New York to become the third most populous state in the Union. With such a population size and its potential for continued rapid growth, Florida is expected to see an increase in Federal funding and certainly see a matching increase in its political clout as it is now in line to realize an increase in its US House delegation moving from 27 to 29 members coming out of the 2020 Census. The development also slightly increases Florida’s chances of picking up a third new congressional seat, according to the Virginia-based political consulting firm Election Data Services, known as EDS. Politically, Democrats in Florida have been pushed against the ropes as the Republicans now control the State having won the two Senate seats, control of the Governorship and with the death on April 6thof this year of Florida Congressman Rep Alcee Hastings, the ability to weaken Nancy Pelosi’s leadership in the House of Representatives.

Already Governor Desantis has shown his hand as Federal election rules defer to states the procedure to fill vacant seats in the House. While some states have their own rules about how and when vacant seats should be filled, Florida does not, and DeSantis who was under no deadline to set a date for the election certainly took his time in setting the poll dates. Florida law allows the governor to pick special election dates, and DeSantis decided to keep the seat vacant for more than nine months after Hastings’ death — far longer than Florida congressional vacancies are normally unfilled. Such a move has been interpreted by many Democrats as the Republican governor setting the timetable for his own political reasons. It is no secret that DeSantis is positioning himself for a 2024 presidential candidacy and the delay would prevent a new Democratic member of Congress from going to Washington, D.C., and providing support for house Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Congressman Alcee Hastings’ death has nonetheless set the political galleries in Florida alight as pretenders from all sides seek to make their own defining statements as they seek to stake their individual claims on the Florida political landscape. So far, 18 people have declared themselves candidates for the vacancy. The official field of candidates for the Broward-Palm Beach County 20th Congressional District will be finalized on August10, 2021, and by this date, the field could either become larger or smaller, but this is the deadline to qualify for candidates who want to get on the ballot for the November 2, 2021, special primary election, and January 11, 2022, has been announced for the special general election. To get on the ballot, a candidate will have to submit 1,168valid petition signatures by 5 p.m. Aug. 3 or pay a qualifying fee by noon Aug.10. Candidates running as Democrats, Republicans, or Libertarians must pay a$10,440 qualifying fee. Someone who wants to run in the general election as a no-party affiliation/independent candidate must pay $6,960.Under Florida’s resign-to-run law, people who are currently in elected office must submit irrevocable resignations from their current jobs to qualify to get on the ballot for a new elected office. The deadline for those resignations is July 30 although the effective date of the resignations can be in January when the new member of Congress’ term would start. These resignations are irrevocable and would apply to at least five announced candidates: Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief, state Representatives Bobby DuBose and Omari Hardy, and state Senator Perry Thurston. The intent of the law is clear as “It seeks to prevent persons who are running for a position to have the ‘safe haven’ of a current position to which the candidate can retreat in the event the candidate is unsuccessful. ”One of the unintended consequences of this race is the opportunity that it provides to have a member of the Caribbean Community herein South Florida seated in the US House of Representatives. In the last 10 years, the number of Americans of Caribbean extraction who have ventured into Florida politics has increased considerably. It means that there is no longer a shortage of proven political talent within this group, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by other political groups.

The special election for Alcee Hastings' seat provides a unique opportunity for someone who is not only cognizant of the issues impacting the Florida Caribbean community but someone who is also a member of that community to sit in the US House of Representatives and to push for programs that will benefit the Caribbean constituents. In addition, the vacancies that will be created by the resignations from the Broward County Commission provide opportunities for the elevation of candidates from various South Florida commissions to advance to the County while opening up other vacancies at the lower levels in Florida politics.

Caribbean-American voters, especially from the English and Haitian communities would be well advised to make a study of the way in which embattled Florida District Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie has been targeted for removal from his position. It serves to expose the fact that at a certain level, the welcome mat is not extended to Floridians of Caribbean Island extraction, and that they will stop at nothing to scuttle the candidacies of our community members seeking to make that advancement. I am mindful of an article on the front page of the Caribbean Voice free newspaper dated May-June 2021 attacking elected Caribbean leaders. Its intent was as clear as the message it attempted to deliver- muddy up the water and to paint certain aspirants in a negative light. The question that ought to be asked is “whose interest is being served by the promotion of such thinking. I believe that the time has come for the Caribbean community to operate with a single voice and vote the platform that places one of our own in the US House of Representatives. We need to take a long hard look at the slate of aspirants and to select the candidate who has demonstrated their commitment to defending the best interests of the Caribbean community members here in South Florida. While we are at it, we should all keep in mind how they came after Runcie.

Richard Hugh Blackford

Visit our websites at: www.yardabraawd.com and at www.yardabraawd.com

HOW TO START AN ART COLLECTION ON A BUDGET

 STARTING AN ART COLLECTION ON A BUDGET

Art by Richard Hall

For people who live in the Diaspora, having memorabilia from their original homes provide significant physical linkages to their homeland and helps with the psychological readjustment that comes with migration. If you had Art pieces before migrating, taking those pieces with you would have been an important part of your move. Art is an important communicating medium of a person’s existence as it tells the stories of who we are and from where we have come.

Caribbean Art generally and Jamaican Art specifically, has been slowly finding representation in the art collection as the it gains more significant traction here in North America. This is being ably fed by a growing list of Jamaican and Caribbean artists who now make their home here in the Diaspora. As a member of that grouping, my focus is on telling our Jamaican and Caribbean stories through this medium while at the same time doing my best at making my work affordable to the average person developing an art interest. In addition, I am committed to providing opportunities for other known and unknown artists for displaying and marketing their within the Diaspora community.

I am innately aware that there are art lovers out there who would like to secure original work but may have limited budgets or have no idea how to navigate the art world. My advice is simple. Fi As you start the process of building your art collection around work that you like, start with an artist who is easy to identify with and make ‘bite-sized’ purchases. Some artists will allow you to pay for a piece over time (I certainly do that) and in other instances, purchasing a print is just as great a start as a print on canvas will last as long as an original but comes at 15-20 percent of the price of the original work.

WHY INVEST IN ART

According to recent research by University of London professor Semir Zeki, viewing art can increase dopamine in the brain. The experience even gives a feeling similar to being in love. Art stimulates conversation, and based on the type of art collected, dictates a certain lifestyle. Of course, with value appreciation, smart buying and careful timing yields financial benefits if an artist becomes more valuable. An art collector is an investor in the genre [or multiple genres]— an intellectual investor, an economic investor, and an investor in the culture—who will do due diligence, and, before even buying the first piece, having a conversation with the artist is a great way to begin. It is important to visit art exhibitions as you start to build your art collection, with a collector’s mindset. However, you do not have to be a collector or have unlimited cash to start acquiring pieces that you love. Be deliberate but trust your instincts and buy what you like. Set a realistic budget and as you learn about the people who created the work, this moves you from someone who wants ‘a little thing’ on your wall to someone who is collecting art.

Check out some great starting out options at:

Acrylic Paintings | Yardabraawd Gallery and Collectibles

Featured Art: "Resplendent" Richard Hall's Acrylic on canvas

Jamaica's Music fingered as part-cause of local Violence

 

Richard Hugh Blackford’s "Black River, St Elizabeth" | Yardabraawd Gallery and Collectibles

A few months ago Jamaicans were greeted with the utterances from its Prime Minister concerning the nexus between the island's popular music and its nexus with criminality. Many Jamaicans were aghast with the Prime Minister's utterances and some even attempted to posit that he may have been looking for a scapegoat on which to pin the failure of his Administration to stem the island's blood-letting. While I disagreed with the generalized positions expressed by the Prime Minister, I am satisfied that his arguments were not without merit. In fact, I did make the connection between our music and criminality, this after tracing the early social conditions in Jamaica and the economic and geopolitical linkages.

The early 1960s saw the opening of the gates of self-awareness of Jamaica as a Nation-State and the charging of those with responsibility for governance to chart a course/direction for our developmental path as a people. It is clear that the Jamaica that emerged from the Independence process never involved everyday Jamaicans and those who piloted the process had very little connection with the social psyche of Jamaica that existed beyond Drumblair/St. Andrew and downtown now identified as the two Jamaicas.

For there was a Jamaica in which the governing class resided and a separate Jamaica in which the governed lived. Nowhere else reflected this disparity as did Western Kingston and from a political standpoint, nowhere else had the number of votes as did Western Kingston. In my book

“ Top Rankings-A Chronicle of the Origins of Jamaican Badness” I have delineated the birth and development of the “local bad-man” and the immersion of a huge swath of our people into acceptance of these states of affairs. For it is impossible to expect that having fertilized the development of a kind of negative-culture over the years and expect it not to eventually produce its real impact, a point made by Toots Hibbert in his classic 1969 hit “Pressure Drop” an anthem that said to the country "... we are all responsible."

The management and control of communities became commonplace as a political tool between 1963 and 1976 thanks courtesy of Edward Seaga and his antithesis Michael Manley. During this period the practice of “Benefits Politics” became normative and a key component of its maintenance was the local “Don” or “Top Ranking.” Again, the area of the greatest impact was Western Kingston and those caught up in the tornado produced by this debacle were ordinary Jamaicans who resided in these communities whose only desire was to make a living and to find a place where they could raise their families. John Holt captured these sentiments beautifully in his epic “Tribal War” (circa 1976 Channel One) as did Junior Murvin in the Anthem “Police and Thief”. Reggae music was therefore birthed as a vehicle to express the resentment felt by a huge swath of Jamaicans who the “system/ shit-stem” did not represent. Again mainstream or uptown Jamaica chose to ignore these voices through the refusal of radio stations to play this music. Consequently, the music developed its own outlet, thanks to the Dance Hall and the sound system movement finding oceans of space in a Jamaica fast developing an underground economy as ganja cultivation and export brought in bundles of US dollars that needed to find a way into the regular economy. Enter the modern stage show/dance-hall promoter and that too is another story....

The Dance Hall and the sound system had been around for decades where places like Bournemouth Social Club and Glass Bucket were the spaces where the big bands such as Byron Lee entertained upper and middle-class Jamaicans. Downtown developed its dance halls as well, and Forresters Hall, Chocomo Lawn where Coxsone’s Downbeat and Tom the Great Sebastain entertained the down-towners playing the music that would never receive airplay.

By the mid -1970s, the music had changed; the songsters were more prolific and the lyrical content more potent. Junior Byles’ Curly Locks and Beat Down Babylon; Bob Marley’s Concrete Jungle and Trench Town Rock challenged the system and called for a recognition of the everyday people but nothing changed. The music turned inwards and its faster beat reflected the anguish boiling within. Sound systems became the music outlets via regular dances…The great Oswald Ruddock (an engineer) built the formidable King Tubby’s High Fidelity sound system and as a new record producer burnt acetates for artists and made versions for himself to play on his own sound, some of which he offloaded to other sounds to use at sound clashes.

King Tubbys gave birth to Ewart Beckford (U-Roy) who 'niced' up the dances with his fast-talking over the versions and the modern DJ was born as did many more sound systems. Thus too was born the ghetto entertainment channel where weed and later cocaine became an integral element of the "feeling nice" culture. To protect these market channels, the guns normally engaged by the politicians became part of that “protective” landscape and the mechanics to provide cover for the ubiquitous “Promoter” giving further relevance (or) for want of a better expression a quasi-legitimization of the local “bad man.” Some of these promoters with their "New Money" became record producers and pointed/dictated (to the lesser-known more easily influenced artistes) the type of songs to be recorded and released. Much of this music was for the local dance halls and was never destined for "air-play" demonstrating the principle of "He who pays the piper, calls the tune."

By 1979/80 the music had again begun to change and the conscious lyrics of the enlightened singers had become too tame and sterile for the younger, fun-seeking crowd. Bob Marley had become an Icon and his message music had become global. Ghetto youth while revering Marley and the Dennis Browns’ wanted more. That was on the way…

More anon.

Painting : Black River, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. See more at: https://yardabraawd.com/ Thanks for taking the time to read our blog, please leave your thoughts in the comment section below, we appreciate your feedback. We also invite you to check Sunday Scoops our Jamaican music streaming and commentary program every Sunday from 2-4pm on yaawdmedia.com feel free to share with your friends.