KINGSTON COLLEGE'S DISCIPLINARY CHALLENGES

On Tuesday of this week, the Gleaner newspaper carried photos and videos of students standing outside the closed main gates of the 2a North Street, Kingston campus of Kingston College. According to the published report, these students had been locked out of the institution for failure to comply with the school’s grooming and general deportment regulations. Principal Dave Myrie even penned a letter which has been circulated among the Old Boys community, explaining that this has been a long-standing issue and the myriad of approaches applied to not only address that issue but also the problem of the general indiscipline that the institution faces daily.

Let me state that I do not support the practice of locking students out of school for any reason. I believer that as challenging as it is, schools must find more appropriate approaches to deal with issues of indiscipline as sending kids home must be the very last resort. Let me also point out that this is the second such reported incident involving Myrie, the first being in 2012 under a similar heading. That event prompted much discussion among educators while exposing the non-existence of protocols from the Ministy of Education (MoE) with respect to dealing with discipline and grooming issues in schools. Ten years later, the MoE has the same vacuous approach. While they have a 29-page document entitled “Student Dress & Grooming Policy Guidelines” the document provides neither guidelines nor recommendations but sets out broad statements on the issue while leaving it up to the School Boards and Administrators to write/determine the actual policy at each school.  

I believe that it is important to note that the Ministry of Education has no definitive policy for dealing with discipline issues at these schools. Yet, that same Ministry in its generally reactive approach, is always quick to respond to the sensationalism generated by these incidents with press conferences and releases but no concrete policy proposal that redounds to a correcting of the status quo or provides meaningful help to the affected schools. Look at the number of cases of student-on-student violence, many times resulting in death. Beyond talk the indiscipline continues, with the participants ultimately becoming grist for the criminal mill or cannon fodder for the security forces.

Speaking from the perspective as a Kingston College Old Boy, I am extremely mindful of the current situation in Jamaica with respect to crime and violence and its companion relationship to the galloping indiscipline that strafes the Jamaican society. For starters, the current Jamaica is devoid of any kind of positive Leadership and what we now have is a "free for all" society where anything goes. It is against such a background that Kingston College hosts more than 2000 young men aging from 11 -19 years and from disparate home environments and at a time when they are most impressionable.

As an inner-city youth myself albeit from a different era, I am fully aware of the plethora of negative influences that exist out there. I am also intimately aware of the gang culture and the way its tentacles are immersed and intertwined within the country's social fabric, especially throughout the school system. Kingston College is certainly not immune to this, and I am aware of the major challenge this provides for the school's administrators. They have the unenviable task of providing and maintaining safe and inviting environments for all the students and administration personnel at Kingston College daily. On top of all that, the administrators have the larger task of preparing these young men to become useful well-adjusted men fit to lead our country into an unknown future. Against a background of the current dysfunctional state that Jamaica finds itself in, Kingston College must deliver that mandate that it embraced 97 years ago.

For his part, Principal Dave Myrie has been serving Kingston College for just over a decade and in that time, we have seen the impact of his transformative leadership. We have seen the improvement in the school’s academic results, the quality of teachers and pedagogy. We have seen the transfer of those disciplines onto the schoolboy playing fields where we are now reaping much success. These results did not come from wishy-washy approaches but by demonstrating firm principled management. School after all is the Secondary agent of socialization for kids. This is where disciplines normally taught at home are made operational and where correction principles are introduced and reinforced. If a parent and their child, on entry, accepts those rules, that becomes the blueprint to follow until graduation. It is my view that any parent or child who chooses not to be bound by those rules, then they should find an institution that is more amenable and transfer there. My support therefore is for Principal Myrie.
 

THE REGGAE MUSIC TRAIN MAY BE LEAVING JAMAICA AT THE STATION

 

                                    

THE REGGAE MUSIC TRAIN MAY BE LEAVING JAMAICA AT THE STATION
In 1985 the United States based National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences introduced the Reggae category in its annual Gramophone Awards ceremony.  The award was to be presented to that recording artiste or artistes for quality works in the Reggae music genre to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position.” In this regard, the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Recording was presented to artistes for eligible songs or albums. Jamaica’s own Black Uhuru copped that inaugural Grammy in 1985.

JAMAICAN GRAMMY SUCCESS
Black Uhuru’s win was a major accomplishment for Jamaica’s music as their selection acted as an acknowledgement by the American music industry and its associates that Jamaica’s Reggae music belonged. It was a fitting post-epithet to the groundwork done by people like Prince Buster, Millie Small, Desmond Dekker, and most importantly, Bob Marley and the Wailers, all of whom had spent the better part of their adult lives taking Jamaica’s music around the globe. The Grammy Award also underscored the creative value of the islands’ capital city Kingston, and the importance of its role in creating a world-music, even if that same music was being treated with slight and disdain by the owners of capital, and the framers of the island’s economic development policies.
Since Black Uhuru’s win, several other artistes have over the ensuing 36 years enjoyed similar success. These include multiple winners, Ziggy Marley, Damian Junior Gong Marley, Stephen Marley, Bunny Wailer, Toots Hibbert, Jimmy Cliff, The Burning Spear, Steel Pulse, Shabba Ranks, Peter Tosh, Buju Banton, Shaggy, Sly and Robbie, Lee Scratch Perry, Morgan Heritage, Inner Circle, and the lone female winner Koffee.
It is significant that we keep in mind that these awards focus on Genres, not country of origin. Further, their results are largely determined through “peer-assessment” and not based on record sales. That notwithstanding, a nomination for a Grammy (if the artistes’ connections are properly plugged-in) could bring positives to the artistes’ career. A Grammy win, would be even more significant as it raises the artistes’ profile (again, assuming the success is carefully managed.)

JAMAICAN MUSIC’S GLOBAL INFLUENCE
Nevertheless, the 37-year successes have not been without issue or rancor and the Grammy’s have been criticized for the persistent Marley-name dominance among other issues. All the time too, Jamaicans at home and abroad have maintained that the quality of the music being produced by our artistes have been below the standards that they have been accustomed to. Jamaican music had for years provided the influence for musicians around the globe. After all, D-J music of the early 1980s spawned Rap music in the USA, Reggae spawned Reggaeton within the Latin American corridor, and Dancehall spawned Afro-beats. The common thread here is that in all instances it has been Jamaican music moving across different shores to influence keen-eared artistes and enterprising music industry operatives in those jurisdictions to incorporate Reggae/Dancehall into their own offerings, creating newer and more intriguing output while broadening the audience base of the music. Steel Pulse is a British based group which has won a Grammy, and no other non-Jamaican group has done for Reggae what U-B40, an all-white British group has done.

REGGAE’S VALUE TO JAMAICAN ECONOMY
From a Jamaica perspective, Reggae music has for decades served to attract millions of visitors to the island and I am curious that if this music continues its pace of development in distant shores, will there be enough of an incentive for potential visitors to trek to Jamaica or to travel to other locales where Reggae’s dominance is being mined? This is the take-away that I have from SOJA’s 2022 Reggae Grammy win. We may have created the sound, but have we really done enough to merit the maintenance of the genre as Jamaican? SOJA has done numerous recording sessions in Jamaica, providing authenticity for their own output. Their win serves to further broaden the audience for Reggae, so it is up to our own musicians, artistes, and industry interests to take advantage of this exposure instead of bawling about cultural appropriation.

YAWNING NEED FOR INVESTMENT
In my opinion, those cultural appropriation arguments are empty and meaningless as Jamaica has hardly made more than verbal investment in developing the industry. Despite the stated importance of music as an integral part of the island’s cultural offering, there are no dedicated arenas for airing live music. There are no Reggae Music Museums or themed parks for visitors and locals alike to connect with the giants of the music’s past or to give ear to the suckling talent. Add to that, a majority of our current crop of enthusiasts are unaware of the music’s history. This is a music that was born out of the bowels of Kingston’s ghettoes in the 1950s but is still treated with the disdain that high society had for its creators and their output. Jamaica’s music industry woefully lacks professional and experienced personnel both at the management and performance levels. In the 1960s there were only a handful of producers operating in a space where there was a plethora of performers. Sixty years later there are more record producers than there are artistes capable of producing quality output as the industry has satisfied the long-held objective of ‘bussing” more personnel, but at the expense of quality.

JAMAICA BEING LEFT BEHIND
Artistes and management lack the appreciation for being completely plugged into the industry especially in the areas of publishing, copyrights, intellectual property ownership, marketing, and management. How many artistes are registered to vote in the Grammys? Is the Jamaican market including its Diaspora large enough to support the genre? Are we by ourselves, doing enough to attract more non-Jamaicans to purchase our music? Until these areas are addressed, Jamaican influence in its own creation will shift to other shores while we continue to complain about cultural appropriation.
Last week we were greeted with the news that Billboard had dropped Reggae and Dancehall. This week it is the Virginia based SOJA winning the Reggae Grammy. If this isn’t a clear sign that the train is leaving the station, then I wonder what is.

                                           

 

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. 

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.

LET'S PUT SOME QUANTIFIABLE OBJECTIVES BEHIND FUTURE REGGAE MONTH OBSERVANCES

As we wind down the clock on Reggae Month 2022, I am reminded that it was in 1951, that the beginnings of the Jamaican Recording Industry peeped out of the proverbial “gate” when Ken Khouri and Stanley Motta recorded and released the first 78 RPM discs. Stanley Motta had recorded Rupert Linley Lyon a.k.a Lord Fly while Khouri recorded Byfield Norman Thomas a.k.a Lord Flea. Not only did this kick-start the recording industry, but it also birthed the biggest grass-roots industry that the country has seen even to this day. This was the birth of Jamaican music, and the resultant gifting to the world by the island of some eight genres of music comprising Dukonoo, Mento, Nyabinghi, Ska, Rock Steady, Reggae, Dee-Jay, and Dancehall. Today, celebrants of Jamaican music loosely apply the term Reggae as a descriptor for all music that comes out of Jamaica, granted that such description is heavily weighted against the Reggae and Dancehall genres.

It has been more than 70 years since the discs from Lords Flea and Fly respectively rolled off the press, and in the course of that time Jamaica’s music has been carried to cities and states around the globe multiple times by various yard-born practitioners from the bowels of Kingston inner-city communities largely on the wings of sheer talent, and the support and belief of an enterprising few with the capital to spare and the guts to match. Any assessment of the history of the development of Jamaican music will show a general disregard for the music by both holders of private capital on the island and government planners who have always maintained a ‘hands-off’ approach.  The result has been one in which the music industry in Jamaica has remained largely, a ‘cottage industry’ in both design and operation where participants look out for themselves only, consistent with the “eat-a-food” mentality that looms large in every sphere of Jamaican life.

In 2008, the Government of Jamaica officially declared February as Reggae Month. The proclamation was supported by a series of events and concerts, mostly in and around Kingston. Ostensibly, the Reggae Month celebrations are organized by the Jamaica Recording Industry Organization (JaRIA), the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport. This recognition assigned to Reggae came seven years prior to the UNESCO pronouncement naming Kingston as a Cultural City underlined by its acknowledgement of the capital’s contribution of six of the island’s eight genres of music gifted to the world. Three years later the same UNESCO granted Cultural Protected Status of Reggae Music.

Today as we enter the last week of the12^th annual observance of Reggae Month,
 it is in my opinion a good time to assess the accomplishments of the stakeholders not only over those 12 years, but also the extent to which Jamaica and Jamaicans not only value its music, but also the level of value that the industry contributes to the economy. One question that burns into such a discussion is the extent to which Jamaica has capitalized on the global acknowledgement of Kingston as a Cultural city? A second question would go to the degree to which we have made economic use of the classification of Reggae Music as a protected cultural artifact?
At present there is little or no agreement as to the economic value of the Jamaican music industry. This view is supported by Entertainment attorney Lloyd Stanbury who acknowledges in his book Reggae Roadblocks that accurate data on the economic performance of reggae inside Jamaica and internationally has been very difficult to come by.  Any meaningful measure of medium to long term economic contribution must be based on this value. The best estimates that we have are based on a World Intellectual Property Organization 2007 report which indicated that copyright-based industries generated about Ja.$29 billion in producers' value to the Jamaican economy, or 4.8 per cent of GDP. There is an urgent need for accurate measurement if we are going to be able to attract meaningful financial resources into the industry.  

There is also the issue of the degree to which Jamaicans are confident enough of their culture to not only want to identify with and celebrate this musical heritage but to also invest their capital in it. This may sound strange given the reaction that those of us who live outside the island or who travel internationally receive when the question of Nationality is raised. Everyone everywhere else wants to be Jamaican or wants to visit Jamaica, the island of “cool’ and Reggae music. Jamaican Ethnomusicologist, Dr. Dennis Howard speaking on a TVJ program as well as on yaawdmedia.com's Sunday Scoops refers to this as "a lack of cultural confidence." According to Dr. Howard, "it is by overcoming the post-colonial trauma that will allow us to see in ourselves the power that we have and the value that we can and have created." This is a major step that we have to take as a nation.

I believe that the JaRIA and other stakeholders in the industry need to use its proximity with the Culture Ministry to have music taught in schools starting at the Primary through to grade nine in our secondary school system. This would help to address the cultural confidence issues as well as assist young Jamaican students who wish to obtain a better understanding of how the industry works. From there, those with the desire to pursue a career in music would then continue through to grade 11, with an introduction to the business of music. This is the challenge that I am issuing to the JaRIA and the Ministry of Culture in celebrating Reggae Month. Let us set some quantifiable objectives. There is work to be done.

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.

WITH LADY SAW'S PLANNED RETURN, WILL DANCEHALL BE NICE AGAIN?

 

“Dancehall a goh Nice again….” screamed the commentaries on social media to news that Minister Marion Hall aka ‘Lady Saw’ or ‘Mumma Saw’ had decided to abandon her social media preaching platforms for the quipped dancehall stage. “To all Christians and non-Christians who’s been coming up against my ministry. Congratulations on your mission to bring me down. You’ve successfully done so. I’ve now decided to step away from my calling in order to fulfill your desires. I will no longer be preaching or keeping the church on any social media platform. May God forgive me,” she said in a post on Facebook on her Minister Marion Hall verified account. Any immediate speculation generated from the initial post that she was merely announcing her end to pulpit sessions that she hosted weekly rather than returning to dancehall, were clarified by a second status update that Lady Saw is walking away from her Christian life, and the short-lived Minister Marion Hall has been put away until further notice.

Marion Hall was born in Galina, St. Mary, Jamaica on July 12, 1969, and attended the Galina Primary School in the parish. At the end of her school years, she held a sewing job at the Kingston Free Zone while dabbling in the DJ business from as early as age 15, with the Stereo One sound system in Kingston. She was particularly impressed by the DJ stylings of an upcoming “Tenor Saw” and in 1987 christened herself “Lady Saw,” and would soon attract the attention of local record producers. Her early compositions "Love Me or Lef Me," "If Him Lef" and Jamaican chart-topper “Find a Good Man," led to her first album in 1994 entitled “Lover Girl,” which featured the raunchy hit single “Stab Up Di Meat.”

The success generated by her first album led to the release of a second album, the sexually explicit “Give Me the Reason.” It was this album which cemented Lady Saw as the most sexually explicit female deejay in Jamaica’s Dancehall, a moniker which she bared on records, dub plates and on dancehall stages across the island and in the international space. Her June 1997 album “Passion” went to #8 on the Billboard charts, spawning the singles “Healing” and “Under the Sycamore Tree.” Her Billboard success was followed by the 1998 release of “99 Ways” which charted at #18. This was followed in1999 by her major US hit “Smile,” a collaboration with Vitamin C, which peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts which was also a major hit in New Zealand and Canada, which was certified gold with over 500,000 sales.

Saw’s 2002, collaboration with No Doubt “Underneath It All” reached number three in the US and sold more than three million copies, reaching triple platinum certification and snagged a Grammy Award for 'Best Performance by a Duo or Group' The cut demonstrated that Lady Saw was a major contender on both the local as well as on the international stage. By 2014, she had released 7 studio albums, largely punctuated by her brand steamy sexual content. To her audience her stage lewdness was as riveting as it was entertaining and in 2015, after a raunchy performance to close that Year’s Sumfest’s Dancehall Night, the 47-year-old Dancehall veteran DJ Lady Saw walked away from the genre claiming to have embraced religion.

Six years later, Saw is re-sharpening her blades for a re-assault on the genre, preceded by what must be seen as a coordinated social media campaign replete with challenges and verbal swipes aimed at current Dancehall personalities Spice, Shenseea, and Jada Kingdom, and with other female veterans like Macka Diamond, and Lady Ann joining into the fray. The reality is that the music business is just that; it is a business where investors who place their monies expect a return on investment. In that context, Lady Saw was once a brand that despite her leaning at the time, commanded a significant following and if she feels that she still has something to offer, it is up to her, her handlers, and her fans to decide her fate. I believe that an artiste with the time and credentials to her name does not need to be publicly suggesting collaborations with names that are yet to be in her league. It is for those artistes to be seeking collaborations with her and not the other way around. Saw just simply need to build a couple of riddim tracks and overlay them with lyrics based on her experience and let that do the talking. It does not have to be a return to the loose or decadent lyrics of the current crop of artistes.

Jamaican Dancehall is today racked by three scourges. The first is the gun and death lyrics that has been with us for decades and currently being partially blamed as one of the causes of our current crime wave. The second is the slackness that has been a part of the genre for decades and of which Mumma Saw was its Empress but no less lascivious than the men in Dancehall. The third question is the hypocrisy that most of us can easily identify-women are judged by a very different standard than men.

Another question that is worth waiting to be answered is whether Lady Say at 53 can go toe-to toe with 19-30 plus year-olds who now populate the dancehall space? The fact is that Jamaicans love the hype, and in the current social media dominated environment, getting a “forward” or accumulating a few million likes on these platforms is the path to stardom, even if it is only for a few weeks or months. That and the fact that Covid 19 has eviscerated the live entertainment industry (the church included) as money has been tight.

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.

DANCEHALL-THE STONE THAT JAMAICAN BUILDERS STILL REFUSES

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Dancehall in Jamaica is an industry with a value that requires accounting and analysis. A largely cottage industry, Dancehall has long overflowed those banks and has spread to the continents of Africa, Asia, North and South America, as well as in parts of Europe.

In 2020, Jamaica's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was listed at just under US$16 billion. Even if Dancehall's value is estimated as one percent of GDP, this could be worth well in excess of US$100 million, considerably more than the US$20-$25 million suggested by culture minister Babsy Grange in 2017 that all the island's cultural events contribute. What is a fact though is that any such benefit is being sucked into the chasm that comprises the gaping underground economy.

Dancehall's problem is further compounded by the country's sectarian approach to owning its history and recognizing those at the lower rung who are involved in its development. It was born in the bowels of the country's inner-city communities and as a consequence, it has always been met with resistance at every level. Like its big brother Reggae music, Dancehall has been met with the Government's promulgation of night-noise legislation, supported by overzealous policing, to curtail its activities and its growth. We need to acknowledge that the cultural and creative industries of the people of Jamaica have contributed immensely to Jamaica's global image and brand Jamaica, and that contribution needs to be recognized, respected, and appreciated. It is equally important that we remove the stigma attached to Dancehall, including the view that sees the genre and its culture historically as non-professional, non-commercial folklore of the lower socio-economic segments of our society.

In many of our inner-city communities, Dancehall is the backbone and fabric of the resident's survival. Within these communities, dancehall is an industry that extends way beyond the DJ on a recording. The Dancehall industry employs hairdressers, barbers, tailors, dance-hall fashion designers, dancers, caterers, promoters, etc. The industry, while embracing huge tracts of untrained talent, makes the largest use of the talent pool developed through the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, and provides the best representation of Jamaicans with a penchant towards self-employment. It is for this reason that every dollar spent at a dance in a community recirculates within that community for at least a month, touching more people that do traditional employment. Not appreciating these factors means not appreciating the economic value beyond the entertainment value, particularly, their economic value and contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) which has been woefully undervalued, resulting in the sector not being seen as a major contributor to the national economy.

Whether we want to accept it or not, Dancehall has become one of Jamaica's biggest exports except for Tourism, reaching more continents than any manufactured product or service. From Japan to South America, from Central to North America, Africa, and sections of Europe, Jamaican Dancehall is a steadily growing export that no policymaker in Jamaica is prepared to embrace.

Nevertheless, like the phoenix, still, Dancehall rises.

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.

PRIORITIZING JAMAICAN MUSIC BEYOND EMPTY TALK

                             Richard Hugh Blackford's original painting "The Mento Quintet"
 

Jamaica’s Reggae Music enjoys “Protected Status” and the City of Kingston, has been deemed a Creative City, two titles earned by our music, the sojourn into which began inauspiciously enough in July of 1947 when Jamaicans were encouraged to record their voices or instruments at 76 West Street in Kingston, for a small fee. In August of the same year the public was invited to a special Gala at Kingston’s Glass Bucket Club to record their songs backed by the club's resident Orchestra. The event identified one Byfield Norman Thomas also known as Lord Flea with his Mento rhythms.

The success of the abovementioned event led to the Gleaner newspaper leading a campaign for the commercial development of recording on the island. Spurred by this interest, in 1951 Jamaican businessmen (mainly of Middle Eastern descent) took up the challenge and invested their monies in setting up recording operations. Two of the early pioneers were Ken Khouri and Stanley Motta who recorded and released the first 78 RPM discs circa 1951. Motta had recorded Rupert Linley Lyon also known as Lord Fly while Khouri recorded Byfield Norman Thomas (Lord Flea).
 
In the same 1950s period, journalist Vere Everette Johns would enter the picture with his Vere Johns Opportunity Knocks concerts at the Ambassador theatre in the Trench Town area of Kingston. The concerts identified singing talent among the throng of Kingston youths and provided a growing pool of talent for record producers hungry for material to satisfy the shifting taste for the developing sound system movement mushrooming across the island.

Taken together, it is inarguable that from both developments was birthed the Jamaican music industry. It had very little structure (if any at all) and in principle, its major players would have been the little man with his god-given singing or otherwise musical talent, and it would remain largely the same even to this very day. That notwithstanding, this setup would result in Jamaica gifting eight genres of music to the world between 1950 and 2000. These genres are: Mento, Nyabinghi, Ska, Rock Steady, Reggae, Dub, DJ, and Dancehall. Of the eight genres, it is important to know that the City of Kingston was responsible for the creation of at least six of those genres.

By the mid to late-1960s, Britain became the overseas gateway for the Jamaican music product. Fueled by this accessibility, Jamaican music culture has underpinned the success of Jamaican cultural exports to the point where today, our music has been embraced by almost every country in the world.  Jamaica is among a small group of countries that has successfully exported its culture around the globe.  Reggae Music is known, played and performed in most countries and its companion Rastafarian culture has grown in lock step with its popularity. Dancehall music and culture is equally big in the Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas and provides a magnetic pull-effect in many tourist markets.

In December of 2015, the United Nations Education and Scientific Council (UNESCO) designated the city of Kingston, Jamaica a “Music City” in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. At its core, music and other cultural activities are the primary social and economic activity drivers of the city with the largest inventory of recording studios in the world, it is little wonder that the island reports as producing the highest volume of recorded music in the world per capita.   Yet, despite this designation, the country does not have a designated space where the music can be freely and publicly performed. This issue became the source of a contentious exchange between Roots Reggae singer Chronixx and then Minister of Culture Lisa Hanna in 2014 as the singer flayed the government for being long on talk but completely empty on action when it came to supporting the (Reggae) music.

No one can realistically argue against the fact that no other aspect of Jamaica's culture has contributed more to the country in economic and social terms than its music. One would have thought that the UNESCO declaration in November 2018 that “Reggae, the Jamaican music that spread across the world with its calls for social justice, peace and love, to be a global treasure that must be safeguarded,” would have spurred some urgency within the country’s political and economic management realms, to concrete action. According to the UNESCO statement, “Reggae’s 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.”

All of this is quite “heady” stuff. Announcements of Protected Status and Creative City status are the kind of stories that provides both great headlines and photo opportunities, but when it is not followed by action, it is meaningless and gives value to Chronixx’s and the arguments of other critics. I believe that much of this inaction comes from the historically held inherent bias from well-to-do Jamaicans and those who control the purse strings of capital to Jamaican music.  Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the South Korean government’s treatment of its own K-Pop industry. Here the government treats the music in the same way the Americans treat its automobile and banking industries, providing them with protected status. This includes building massive multi-million-dollar concert auditoriums, refining hologram technology, regulating karaoke bars and protecting the interests of the genre’s stars.

It is disappointing that after 70 years, the same biases still exists and while we in Jamaica are dithering, others in far off lands are enriching themselves off Jamaican music.

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.


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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.


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THE REPUBLIC OF BARBADOS AND A CASE FOR MORE JAMAICAN HEROES

 

On Monday, November 29, 2021, the island of Barbados celebrated its 55^th year as an Independent country by executing two decisions that will not only usher significant change in the political, social, and cultural front on the island but also provide a marker for the other territories that comprise the Caribbean archipelago. On that day, Barbados buried its ceremonial shackles to the British monarchy by removing the Queen as its Head of State. In disrobing from the accouterments of its 1966 Independence from England, Barbados commemorated its new status as a parliamentary Republic.   

The move from a constitutional monarchy to a parliamentary republic fulfilled a promise made by then Governor General Sandra Mason that it was time for Barbados “to fully leave  its colonial past behind and make a Barbadian person Head of State.”

Fittingly, the island’s first President is the said Sandra Mason, and Mia Mottley remains as the Head of the Barbados Government. Mason in her first presidential address to the nation stated, “Since Independence we have built an international reputation anchored on our characteristics, our national values, our stability, and our success, drawing on the lessons of those intervening years, possessing a clear sense of who we are and what we are capable of achieving.In the year 2021, we now turn our vessel’s bow towards the new republic, and we do this so that we may seize the full substance of our sovereignty.”

As the celebrations continued, Prime Minister, Mia Mottley then named Ambassador Robyn Rihanna Fenty as the nation’s 11^th National Hero. Rihanna has for years been Barbados’s most famous citizen and in 2018, she was appointed an official ambassador for culture and youth. She has never softened her Bajan accent, and her music, while tapping into pop, R&B, and dance music, has remained connected to her Caribbean heritage. Mottley said the superstar commanded, “the imagination of the world through the pursuit of excellence with her creativity, her discipline, and above all else, her extraordinary commitment to the land of her birth”.

The 33-year-old Rihanna was born in the parish of Saint Michael and raised in the capital, Bridgetown. She vaulted to fame after the American producer Evan Rogers recognized her talents. Her 2007 single Umbrella confirmed her as one of the world’s biggest pop stars, and in 2008 the then prime minister, David Thompson, announced an annual Rihanna Day. In addition to making music, Rihanna has enjoyed a highly successful business career with her Fenty group of companies. In August Forbes estimated she was worth $1.7bn (£1.3bn), about $1.4 bn of which comes from the value of her cosmetics company, Fenty Beauty, a partnership with the French fashion giant LVMH.

The Barbados announcements have set tongues wagging across the island archipelago, particularly in Jamaica, which was generally thought of as among the most socially and culturally progressive islands in the region. Many had imagined that Jamaica would have been the first to shed the Queen’s robe long before others, having fielded discussions over decades regarding taking such a plunge. Of course, we have only succeeded in demonstrating that we are long on talk but short of anything that requires taking action. Then there is the matter of naming another National Hero, in a country that isn’t short on iconic figures.

The decision by Barbados to accord Rihanna National Hero status has prompted a revisit of a long-running debate in Jamaica about naming additional National Heroes.  Long before Rihanna was even an idea there was the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley, OM, and even before him, the Honorable Louise Bennet-Coverley (Miss Lou), OM, OJ, MBE. Both individuals have distinguished themselves significantly in their individual fields. Though long deceased, both in their lifetime have laid down solid bodies of work which (to this day) brings joy and pride to Jamaicans at home and abroad.  The ground-breaking nature of their individual contribution to Jamaica’s culture serves today as eternal beacons in marketing the island around the globe. It is for these reasons that for years, many have advocated for the naming of both of as the 8^th and 9^th National Heroes of Jamaica.

One wonders why the hesitancy on the part of Jamaica in taking this step? A National Hero doe not have to be a paragon of virtue or someone of unblemished character. What is important is the contribution that such individual(s) make to the development of society, the admiration they bring to the country’s nationals, their outstanding achievements, and the extent to which their efforts enriches the lives of those who identify with them.  

It appears that none of our leaders in the last three or four decades sees such value in either, but would rather skirt the issue while our smaller neighbors demonstrate the ultimate confidence in the small gems that fall to their shores.

Congratulations Rihanna…very well done Barbados.

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THE STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARATION AS A CRIME-FIGHTING TOOL IS A TOTAL FAILURE.

 

This past week, the Government of Jamaica failed in its bid to have the State of Emergency (SoE) declared a few weeks earlier by Prime Minister Andrew Holness for seven police divisions in the island, extended for an additional three months. This failure was the result of non-support by the Opposition Peoples National Party (PNP) members of the Senate who voted against the measure. Their decision drew derision from Senate Majority leader Tom Tavares Finson among other Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) members who openly questioned the loyalty to the country of those who opposed the measure, causing its defeat. No attempt has been made to assess the arguments, or the facts associated with the use of this measure and its overall impact on the country, generally, or its impact on crime specifically. 

I grew up in Jamaica in the period of the 1970s when the then Michael Manley administration introduced legislation in 1974 which created the draconian Suppression of Crimes Act of 1974. This measure introduced “hard-policing” measures including detentions, cordons and searches, and just a general disregard for the targeted population-youths (particularly Jamaican males in inner-city communities) aged 16-25. It led to the passage of the Gun-Court Act in the same year which dished out indefinite detention sentences after speedy trials (within 7 days of an arrest) for illegal possession of firearms and or ammunition. That the British Privy Council eventually declared the Gun Court unconstitutional, seems lost on a majority of Jamaicans, and any lesson value from attempting to use short-term fixes to address the island’s crime problems over the years becomes completely lost on most.

Jamaica suffers from a kind of socio-political miasma whenever opportunities arise to address hard issues, in particular the crime issue. It highlights the “two Jamaica’s” syndrome completely as at one end resides the poor and downtrodden who bear the brunt of the brutality dished out by the State in executing these Emergency declarations. Those who reside in gated communities or have their communities electronically surveilled and or patrolled by armed security officers are oblivious to the damage caused to sections of our population by virtue of the lack of, or under-investment in developing these communities. These critics are conveniently blind to the long-termed effect of the neglect of infrastructure, cutbacks in education resources, and the general lack of investment in supporting economic activities within too many of our communities. Worse, they are numb to the fact that a child who did not benefit from solid foundational educational grounding at the elementary and primary level, will most likely become a misfit in the secondary stage and not just a failure afterward, but a member of the unattached youth throng and a prime candidate for antisocial behaviors later on.

In a Gleaner newspaper interview published November 16, 2018, Ms. Alethea Fuller, head of the Policy and Commissioning Division for the Police and crime commissioner in West Midlands advised that “ hard security measures will have little impact on crime and violence if the authorities fail to address the needs of vulnerable teenagers, who are the primary gang recruitment pool in almost all jurisdictions.” Fuller went on to state that, “The voice of the youths is critical in any security strategy implemented by the Government. I don't think we can do this work without the community. We cannot go into a community and do work without them being involved. They are not going to want to know. They have got to come up with the solution."

Well-to-do Jamaicans seem to think that creating crack police squads and abrogating the rights of its more vulnerable citizens is the way to defeat the crime monster. I have lived through this for four decades and such a strategy has proven to be an abject failure. The fact is we have been doing this since 1976 and all we have to show for it is an increasing murder spiral and a society now completely divided between the better and the worse-class.  

According to a 2017 World Bank report, crime costs the country approximately five percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) every year and this translates to over Ja.$68 billion. These numbers are by themselves significant. More significant though is the loss of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a result of spiraling crime. How do you encourage people with capital to venture from their much safer shores to a place like Jamaica with a murder rate of nearly 50 murders per 100,000 of the population? How does one measure potential Return On Investment  (ROI) against the high chance of being one of the nearly 1,400 murder victims each year for the last 20-25 years?

I do not envy Prime Minister Holness (whose prediction on the campaign trail of 2015) has come back to haunt him insidiously. The fact though, is that he is now in charge and the crime monster will neither be wished away nor solved by the continuous declarations of States of Emergencies. It is time to make hard long-termed decisions to address crime in Jamaica. It is time that Andrew Holness as Prime Minister, provides the leadership necessary by bringing all Jamaicans to the discussion table to hammer out solutions that will be to the benefit of all of Jamaica, however long that will take.

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.