HAS AFRO-BEATS VIABILITY DISPLACED DANCEHALL?

 

In 2008 I spent three months in London, partly due to an Art Show that I had there, and to give myself enough time to drink in the cultural offerings. During that period, I attended a dance at Kings Cross in London’s West-end. It was a massive session which featured more than half a dozen sound systems. Two of these sound systems had Jamaican origins and of the remaining four, two were British based while the other two identified as Ugandan and Nigerian respectively.
To cut to the chase, the two “African” identified sounds made mincemeat of the others and it was the first time that I had experienced such an infectious beat. It felt like Dancehall and Reggae, but it was sweeter. It mixed well with the 1980s and 1990s Jamaican Dancehall, but it was headier, and it had the crowd in an absolute frenzy. That beat is what is being heralded today as Afro beats.

AFRO BEATS DEVELOPMENT

According to the bredrin with whom I was touring, this beat had been developing since 2002/2003 and he was certain that this was the beat of the future. He intimated then that if Jamaicans did not wake up this African infused Jamaican influenced rhythm would soon displace Jamaican music. He opined further those Jamaican musicians had been missing the mark as instead of developing on what worked, we were too quick to want to imitate the American Hip-Hop sound. In the process we had been abandoning Reggae and Dancehall, especially 80s-90s dancehall which had begun to be picked up by the Latin Americans and being reproduced as Reggaeton. He stated at the time that the members of the African Diaspora had also been consuming Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall and were not only producing their own Jamaican influenced Reggae but was also infusing the African rhythms onto Dancehall which was being presented as Afro beats.

Fast forward to the recent revelation that Billboard had ditched its Reggae Digital Sales Charts and had joined forces with the music festival and global Afrobeat’s brand Afro Nation to launch the first-ever US chart for Afrobeat’s Songs. My response is simple enough “It has been a long time coming.”

THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

The African population is more than 1.2 billion and its Diaspora population is over 140 million with 56 million residing in Brazil alone and another 47 million residing in the USA. In the circumstances, it makes absolute economic sense that Billboard would want to focus on those areas where a critical mass of population resides. After all, music is a big-money business and within the music fraternity, it has been the general view that not only is African music in the ascendancy, but also that it is taking the space of Dancehall music. This as Dancehall seems to have lost its way as the output from most of the current practitioners in the genre is indecipherable from American Hip-Hop and certainly lacking the energy and brashness that was generally associated with Dancehall.

Billboard in their release, stated that the US Afro beats Songs chart goes live on Tuesday, March 29, 2022, and will rank the 50 most popular Afro beats songs in the United States, “based on a weighted formula incorporating official streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of leading audio and video music services, plus download sales from top music retailers”.

The fact is that Billboard’s executives are responding to the trend-lines drawn by the Afrobeat as it has grown tremendously as a genre in America but when it comes to dancehall itself, “people are afraid to give it a chance,” the singer Kranium says. Then he reconsiders. “They kill it even before they give it a chance.”

According to Sean Paul in an article published by the Rolling Stones magazine, “There are several challenges facing a dancehall singer hoping to reach the American market. The first and biggest is the way we speak. Most of us sing in patois, which evolves every year, so you can’t write it down in a textbook, you can’t teach it to someone unless they live it.”

UNDERLYING PROBLEMS WITH JAMAICAN MUSIC

Jaxx, the producer, points to another underlying problem: the Jamaican market’s lack of robust infrastructure for international distribution. According to him, “In America, there are major labels that you can bring your artist to and then you have a platform while no parallel institution exists in the Caribbean.” For his part, New York based Ricky Blaze has lamented that, “we don’t have a Def Jam Jamaica.” “It’s very hard for a record to make it far outside of Jamaica without a mainstream label behind it,” adds Linton “TJ Records” White, who produced “No Games” for Serani.

There are also often constraints on the travel of dancehall artists themselves, most of who may face complicated border control measures when attempting to enter the U.S. According to Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor, who has produced for Sean Paul and Vybz Kartel, pointing to the 2010 crackdown against Jamaican dancehall singers during the Dudus Coke Affair, “Most of the frontrunners in dancehall had those issues in recent years, which strained the entire industry,” McGregor says.

The other unspoken fact is that Jamaicans in the Diaspora do not buy Jamaican Dancehall music, making the genre largely unattractive economically.

 

FIND THE WILL TO TRANSFER THE POCKETS OF EXCELLENCE NATIONALLY

Jamaica is known around the world for the pristine white sand beaches that bolsters its tourism product, as well as its track and field athletes who have contributed to building the island’s reputation as a track and field powerhouse. These are just some of the pockets of excellence that resides in Jamaica. In addition to those two contributors though, Jamaica is best known for its pulsating Reggae music which has carried the island’s flag multiple times around the globe over the last 40-50 years. In fact, Reggae is generally accepted as one of the primary magnets which has served to attract visitors to the island over the years, creating the mystique that singer Tony Rebel maintains that “a Reggae put Jamaica pon top.”

  
The fact is there aren’t many countries in the world where its music has the kind of social and economic impact as Jamaica, and if we needed any reminders, twice the United Nations Education and Scientific Council (UNESCO) made underlining declarations. The first in 2015, when it declared capital city Kingston a Global Cultural City, recognizing the capital’s contribution of six of the island’s eight officially recognized music genres gifted to the world. The second was in 2018 when it announced the granting of “Culturally Protected Status” to Reggae Music.

One would have thought that not only should both announcements have been met with vigorous responses from the Jamaican business and political communities, but also that within the period, the island would have been further ahead in terms of mining the opportunities that lay buried within its rich music history. Instead, the very same biases that beset the music in the pre- and post-Independence era are today still alive and active in the island.

In Track and Field athletics, we laud our athletes when they are successful, their feats are often rebroadcasted, and the excellence celebrated. What may not be as obvious is that these results are the products of systemic approaches to harness and prepare these athletes over the years. While we acknowledge the abundance of talent present within the Jamaica’s athletics cohort, that talent is supported by our primary and secondary education system where sports is part of the school program. This allows for systematic development at all levels. Competition at the prep, primary and the secondary levels sifts out the extra-ordinary and culminates in the National Trials that selects our best to represent us on the National and International stages. Not so within our music community.

In spite of Jamaica’s celebrated successes in music, less than 15 percent of music revenues are realized by artistes. According to Song Embassy CEO, Paul Campbell, Jamaican artistes leaves too much on the table as very few artistes are aware of the US billion $ commercial music market as most have no appreciation for the business-side of the industry. Songwriter Mikey Bennett intimated that there is little or no preparation of our artistes that would gear them towards excellence. Both were speaking on Yaawd Media’s Sunday Scoops program recently.

For decades, our artistes have simply risen from the ranks of the underprivileged and nothing prepared them for individual success or excellence.  Very few of our artistes know how to write a song or how to read music as in the main, only a handful of schools offer any kind of music program. Further, most of our recording artistes have very little appreciation for the business of music and depend on their own efforts and the push that comes from an underlying desire despite the absence of any support system. Add to that is the fact that poor academic results produce poorly prepared graduates, and it is this pool that our artistes are produced.

Perhaps now would be a good time for a collaboration between the Ministries of Education, Culture, and Tourism to look seriously at creating some solid policy foundations upon which we can develop and exploit the full social and economic benefits that reside within the music industry. At the Education level, this would include making music part of the academic curriculum and would not only build a positive domestic attitude towards music, but it would also make more Jamaicans see music as a positive career choice.
At the levels of Culture and Tourism, cohesive and supportive policies could see more Jamaicans participating in Tourism at the entertainment level instead of current practice of importing Spanish speaking acts from Latin America to perform at local hotels.

I believe that the time has come for establishing a Jamaica Music Museum and Performance Centre where local and international patrons can experience live and recorded music and other aspects of our culture seven days a week. This would be a project involving government and private sector interests, including members of the entertainment community as well as securing the public’s participation similar to the approach taken with Wigton Wind Farm. This must be supported by designating spaces consistent with the ‘Creative City’ designation within inner-city communities as zones of creativity where people can practice and refine their artistic and creative skills.

I believe that these are significantly “low-hanging” fruits that can be reaped without exhaustive cost to Jamaican taxpayers while providing significant benefits to the Jamaican economy. It is not sufficient that each year we regale our Music for a month and then return to our slumber. What is required is finding the correct leadership and the appropriate will. 

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