THE GUNMAN SHIFT…A SOH DI TING SET

 

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to engage with former Third World Band member and current lecturer at the Edna Manley School for the Visual and Performing Arts, Mr. Ibo Cooper on my Sunday Scoops streamed program on yaawdmedia.com. In the course of our discussion Ibo made reference to a tune called “Gunman Shift” which he indicated was the rave within the current Dancehall circuit. The lyrics for the tune was penned by new dancehall sensation “Skeng” and apart from providing him with the proverbial “buss-out,” has been dominating the YouTube charts with more than 8 million streams since it was released on August 23, 2021. Gunman Shift has worked its way into the hearts of many, including some who claim to abhor violence reciting the haunting and violent lyrics.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WESTERNS
The criminal use of guns in Jamaica, dates back to 1940s gunman Vincent Martin aka “Rhyging” on whom the 1972 Perry Henzell written and directed film “The Harder They Come” was loosely based. It can easily be argued that the proliferation of Western movies including “Gunfight at the OK Corral” an extremely violent flick by the standards at the time which I saw at the Rialto in Kingston where the crammed-in patrons reveled in the violence and braggadocio of the Claytons as much as they regaled the bravado of the two leading men. Months later, Franco Nero graced the Rialto screen in Sergio Corbucci’s Django, and the patrons went wild in response to the cavalier gunplay. The film would open the floodgates for other western flicks which seared Clint Eastwood into the imaginations of many Jamaicans, including the writers and directors of Jamaica’s epic film “The Harder They Come,’ including a snippet of the Django film in its reels.

The significance of these westerns though, was that it served to elevate the value of having a firearm and to glamorize the raw power that a gun holder wielded. One could make the argument that Jamaicans love affair with guns were developed through the images shown on screen. The Harder They Come’s lead character Rhygin (played by Jimmy Cliff) gave more than a glimpse in those early days, of a larger-than-life criminal who saw himself as a revolutionary. That his character was cut down in a hail of bullets failed to transmit any fear of death to real life wannabe bad men.

DRUG TRAFFICKING
It was around this time that Jamaica begun to change as political ideologies presaged the division of communities supplemented with the raising up of political garrisons. Combinations of adversarial ideological politics, serious economic stagnation, and ganja smuggling created the conditions which mass-produced the ubiquitous gunman. Initially they bore the label of “political gunman” but in time they separated from politics to pay more attention to smuggling weed and later cocaine. As the trafficking expanded so too did the influx of guns into the island, a necessity for the protection of turf.
It did not help that since that time meaningful investment in many of these communities disappeared. Itinerant hustlers, including the vending of drugs birthed the “Area Don” who quickly usurped the traditional community leader. The Don had power and a kind of suborned prestige, and in time, most youth not only aspired to be a Don, but even more so, a significant number of these youths in these inner-city communities romanticized about being able to get their hands on a gun.
Guns protect turf-whether it is protection for drugs or the now ramped up scamming trade. The unattached youths are engaged and armed to run the ‘gunman shift” and provide protection- the message of “Gunman Shift”

In 1997, the Jamaican film “Dancehall Queen” was released in Jamaica to popular public acclaim. Apart from fielding a cast of well-known Jamaican faces, the film capitalized on predominantly local themes of social and economic struggles that flayed the average Jamaican, their desire for social and economic advancement and the dream of making it big through Reggae/Dancehall music. It exposed as well, the underbelly of Jamaica, racked by drug distribution and gun running and it placed the spotlight on our biggest deterrent to curbing criminal activity on the island, the anti-informer culture. This was borne out by lead actor Paul Campbell’s chilling line “Walk and live, talk and b****-claawt dead.”
Unfortunately, the Jimmy Cliffs and Paul Campbell’s of my time have long been replaced by more forceful screen characters, all of whom have migrated from the screen and into the communities and are certainly more powerfully armed.

"GUNMAN SHIFT" IS A SPOTLIGHT
As raw as Gunman Shift is, it is nonetheless a spotlight...a recitation of the unmitigated violence that is omnipresent in most inner-city communities every single day. It is a statement of acceptance by not just DJ Skeng who compiled the lyrics, but most youth who resides in that environment, that “a soh di ting set.” Skeng is doing what artistes within similarly affected communities forty and fifty years earlier, have always done. They write and sing about those experiences and in the same way that we may not pray or wish away the violence, Skeng’s lyrics tacitly accepts the state of affairs no less than the average Jamaican has accepted that “murder is a everyday ting.”

I say this against the background of political handwringing and finger-pointing that continues at home while the body count continues to rise. Last month, an average of four Jamaicans lost their lives to the unrelenting violence and over the 11-month period, January to November, a total of 1,285 Jamaicans has been murdered.  It is no comfort that the police have predicted that by year end, they estimate that approximately 1,400 Jamaicans will die violently; a continuation of the reckless abandon that drives murder and the extent to which its omnipresence have made us so numb that we have accommodated the scourge of murder as a part of our daily regimen. It is the Gunman Shift ting… a soh di ting set.


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 ROBERT NESTA MARLEY -NATIONAL HERO

 There has been a growing call form sections of the Jamaican population for the naming of the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley (Bob Marley), O.M, and the Honorable Louise Bennett-Coverly (Miss Lou), OM, as the country’s latest National Heroes. This call has been echoed and re-echoed over the last three decades and has crossed the desks of the responsible individuals across political administrations. To lay the blame at the feet of one or the other political administration would be a useless exercise as both sides have had multiple opportunities to field this issue. It is interesting that consistent with the political inaction, is the public sentiment expressed by the handful of individuals across the political divide. I would therefore like to, through the use this column, wade into this issue.

It is generally accepted that a hero is a person who is admired and acknowledged for their courage, outstanding achievements, and noble qualities. By extension, a National Hero is someone who, beyond that, has made significant positive contributions to the growth and development of society, and someone who represents the vast majority of all of us. In the circumstances, I am prepared to state that both Bob Marley and Miss Lou already fits that bill. It is my view also, that there are some highly placed Jamaicans with significant influence who are opposed to the elevation of Marley to this status and as a result, drippings of the paint from that brush, washes across any consideration for Miss Lou.

The Honorable Robert Nesta Marley, OM, is proclaimed and accepted worldwide as the “King of Reggae” having charted his own course in the music industry with passion and creativity as a song writer, singer, and performer. Marley successfully transcended three Jamaican musical genres from the 1960’s through to the early 1980’s – Ska, Rock Steady and Reggae – his most influential musical form. And, after almost four decades since his death, his music is still relevant to millions of people across the globe. The consequence of this is that no matter where you travel in the world, people will undoubtedly know of Bob Marley. His legacy is loved and respected by many, and his music is practically a religion on its own. It is intriguing that while many are familiar with his music, they may not know who he was and what his impact was on Jamaican culture. Yet we in Jamaica who are aware of his impact on the island’s culture, are unwilling to give him his due.

Author Timothy White in his book “Catch A Fire: The Life of Bob Marley” hailed him as the “most charismatic emissary of modern Pan-Africanism and regards Marley as one of the greatest musical legends of our time. For my part, having seen Marley perform live on two occasions, the first being Sunday, December 5, 1976, at the Smile Jamaica Concert at National Heroes Park, and the second being the One Love, Peace Concert on Saturday, April 22, 1978, I can attest to the magic of his performances as his passion overflowed the stage and into the consciousness of his audience.  At 33 years of age, the philosophy that guided his existence was omnipresent in his music; a philosophy which primarily emphasized peace, love, equality, and his spirituality. His commitment to his Rastafarian faith and his views on social issues were the cornerstone of his music. It was this passion which to this day, has served to influence the acceptance of Reggae music by people worldwide, particularly in Europe, North America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

Reggae music originated in the bowels of Kingston’s inner-city communities in the second half of the 1960s, just a few years after Marley had moved from Nine Miles in St. Ann to Trench Town in Kingston. The music was largely scorned and rejected by mainstream Jamaica and made up less than 5 percent of the play-list on the island’s local radio station. A decade later, Marley had three albums in rotation and several entries from each had slipped into both the RJR and JBC record charts. Over the next five years, Robert Nesta Marley would be principally responsible for Reggae’s acceptance as a major music-form not only in Jamaica but across the entire world. This fact was underscored by the 2019 declaration by the United Nations that Reggae, the Jamaican music that spread across the world with its calls for social justice, peace, and love, be declared a global treasure that must be safeguarded. According to the citation published by the Paris based UNESCO, “Its contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love and humanity underscores the dynamics of the element as being at once cerebral, socio-political, sensual and spiritual.”  

Jamaica’s Reggae music and Rastafarianism together combine as integral components of the island’s cultural exports and are together responsible for pulling hundreds of thousands of tourists the world over into the island. Admittedly, the unmistakable and most recognizable face of that export is Robert Nesta Marley. In this regard, Marley’s contribution to music and to Reggae has been internationally and locally recognized with his song, ‘One Love’, voted the best song of the 20th century, while the album ‘Exodus’ which was released in 1977 and which stayed on the UK’s music chart for 56 consecutive weeks, was voted the greatest album of the Century by the US based, Time Magazine. Both accomplishments must rank among the most the most outstanding achievement any artiste could possibly desire.

Marley, despite living in Jamaica in a period marked by harsh violence-driven political divisions, did his best to remain ‘A-political’ a decision for which he almost paid with his life. He suffered gunshot injuries in an attack at his home at 56 Hope Road, in Kingston on December3, 1976, a warning against a decision that he had made to perform at a concert dubbed “Smile Jamaica” and slated for December 5, 1976. The attack had the effect of elevating Marley in the eyes of a majority of ‘salt-of-the-earth Jamaicans’ as bigger than the island’s divisive politics and as a local hero who had triumphed above the adverse intent of his attackers.

Having been born a mulatto in 20^th century Jamaica, Marley suffered considerable derision over his complexion. As he put it at the time, “My father was white and my mother black, you know. Them call me half-caste, or whatever. Well, me don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side nor the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white, who give me this talent.”
One could say that his own life experiences led him to championing the fight against oppression and inequality and to support the cause of the underprivileged. It was no surprise that he was invited to play on the April 17, 1980, Zimbabwe Independence festivities, a concert for which he personal paid all the costs of attending. Marley, in playing the Zimbabwe concert gave Jamaica its loudest voice and a permanent and prominent face in the culminating struggle against oppression and racial discrimination in this Southern African State.

In 1981, Marley was awarded Jamaica’s third highest honor, the Order of Merit, for his outstanding contribution to Jamaican culture. Forty years later, his contribution to the country has multiplied exponentially.  Across the world, Marley is celebrated as a Prophet, while Jamaicans revere his work but criticize his Rastafarian lifestyle, replete with his ganja smoking and the multiple women with whom he had sired children. Ironically, ganja today has been legalized (as it should always have been), and in respect of his womanizing, none of his children (his seeds) have been allowed to sit on a sidewalk and beg bread. I say this to say that none of us as Jamaicans are without sin and in that regard, Robert Nesta Marley is one of us, warts, and all. No other Jamaican comes remotely close in terms of their local or global reach and impact. Of the seven current National Heroes, except for Marcus Mosiah Garvey, none has the current and lasting social and economic impact. Robert Nesta Marley provides the ethos of the Jamaican “can-do” spirit. He exemplifies the realizable potential of every single Jamaican who is willing to put in the necessary work.

To the powers that be, I say that the time has come to make the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley the country’s eighth National Hero.


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.