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.


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.

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.

JLP'S NEWEST POLITICAL FOOTBALL- OUR CHILDRENS EDUCATION

 

This week the Jamaican Government through its Ministry of Education, announced the expansion of the secondary schooling period from five to seven years. This to take effect immediately and effectively slapping a permanent ban on graduation at the end of fifth form or grade 11 years.

Let me hasten to point out that I am no expert on Jamaica's education policy but having done my time in the system and by virtue of my contact with my past student association, I do have some ideas of the function or dysfunctions inherent in our education system. Such involvement tells me that this JLP Administration is playing politics with the lives of our children by forcing an unworkable education policy on the population. It appears that such a policy has benefitted from very little thinking and even less participation from the stakeholders in education, namely, parents, educators and principals, and the students themselves.   

My own assessment is that there is a building critical mass that is approaching as unemployment numbers are on the rise, especially at the youth level. This has not been helped by the Covid-19 pandemic which has ravaged the economy for the better part of the last two years, shrinking the economy by more than 30 percent and while contributing to a ballooning of the unemployment numbers. Add to that is the galloping crime numbers with murders for the third year running set to top 1400 per year. Security Minister Chang is on record ascribing increased crime statistics to increased gang numbers swelled (his arguments) by rising numbers of unattached youths.

Each year, the secondary school system disgorges some 35,000 youth onto the streets, two-third of whom will have no more than one or two CSEC subject passes at a grade 3 or 4 level. This means that these young adults are qualified for nothing at all. Let me not mention the 15 percent of secondary schools whose school population are barely functionally literate at the end of five years.  

To suggest that keeping these kids in school compulsorily over two additional years will solve the problem is a dog that will not bark. Jamaica has had a dysfunctional education system prior to Independence and all that has happened over the last 60 years amounts to tinkering without addressing the real problems. This additional two year extended stay in school is a direct attempt at stifling the unemployment numbers and adding to the unattached population. What will happen when, after these initial two years we are still in the same position? What the government is attempting to do is to buy some time.

A country's education policy must align with its social and economic development policy. After all, it is not bauxite and tourism that are our best resources, it is our people. In the circumstances, a sound educational development policy starts with elementary and primary education. That is the foundation on which the education of our people has to be built. If the kids are inadequately prepared at this stage they will carry this malformation into their secondary years and will be just as useless by the end of secondary school as they were when they left primary school.

From where I sit, the proposed policy begs a number of other questions. Firstly, how will the school system accommodate holding 35,000 to 70, 000 additional kids over the next two years? These seats cannot magically be created overnight without some investment in expanding physical capacity. How will this be funded.

Secondly, what curricula will be pursued in these institutions at this additional grade levels? Certainly, this retained quadrant will not all be pursuing Cape, as already, most are incapable of matriculating into that level of pedagogy given the existing academic deficiencies. Has that curriculum been agreed, and if so, who is going to teach it?

Thirdly, there is the question of teachers. Where will the additional numbers come from and how will they be paid. This is not helped when teachers currently on the roll are yet to receive pay for September 2021. Where will the monies come from?

My fourth question relates to the issue of choice. Are we saying that a government can arbitrarily insert itself into the decision-making process for parents and their children in determining when and how a child is educated as they approach adulthood? Not every child who leaves school at grade 11 needs a college education. We pretend to be a democracy and in such a situation there is the freedom to choose ones approach. I feel as if we are approaching a dystopian stage of existence as Jamaicans sit powerless as the train-wreck that this policy represents, unfolds in 'real time.'

 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.

 

JAMAICA, WE ARE FAR BETTER THAN WHAT WE ARE DOING TO OURSELVES

Late last month Netflix's new Western opened at select cinemas across America. It was made available as part of its streamed offering on November 3, 2021, and is already proving a treat to lovers of the genre. Titled "The Harder They Fall," the film features a crack All-Black leading cast and is based loosely around characters that actually existed in real life.

The film's title bears a close resemblance to that of the 1973 Jamaican film "The Harder They Come" written and directed by Perry Henzell with some writing contributions from Trevor Rhone (both Jamaicans) which opened that year to a disappointingly small audience in New York City. Over the next couple of months though, the flick began to grow on audiences and eventually gathered steam among the college audiences across most northern USA cities. It would quickly attract cult status and its soundtrack be attached with the responsibility for helping to make the much-needed breakthrough for Jamaican music in the USA markets. The Harder They Come (Trailer)

The Harder They Come would open to Jamaicans at home some months later, and played to sold-out houses for months after. In short, what started out as an inauspicious film grew into a resounding success, notwithstanding the fact that at the time of its making, the film's production was beset by myriads of problems.

In the first place, money was difficult to come by as the people who had the cash was not convinced that the project had any real chance of being successful. A large part of the initial funding came from Chris Blackwell of Island Records who saw the project as a marketing vehicle for moving Jamaican music into overseas markets. The shortage of funds though somewhat hampered the making of the film and as a result, filming was done whenever a little cash became available.

The script I am told, developed over time and when recording artiste Jimmy Cliff (its main star) had to go off on tour, filming stopped.

The production team had only one gun available to them (a starter's pistol) and had to be extremely creative when setting up shooting scenes especially scenes that involved exchanges of gunfire.

Be that as it may, on the wings of "The Harder They Come" rode the aspirations of Jamaicans interested in developing the island's film industry as it represented a continuation of the building of the island's reputation having scored a decade earlier with films like Ian Flemings' Dr. No and Goldfinger, among a few others.

The Harder They Come (as stated earlier) carried a large part of the hopes of Jamaica's music industry. In fact, Rolling Stones magazine rated the soundtrack for the film as one of the greatest ever put together for a movie.

Fifty years later and we have only succeeded in literally shooting ourselves- killing more than 1,300 annually for the last 25 years. Our music industry for all its promise has failed to develop the anticipated critical mass as only a handful of Jamaican recording artistes are keen enough to actually invest their monies in any kind of attempt to create a superstructure upon which the music can be better able to realize its real potential.

Watching Netflix's "The Harder They Fall" this week, took me all the way back to 1973. Call it "the magic of the movies" if you wish...and I so wished it were. For me, it was just great to hear the creations of Barrington Levy, Koffee, and the late Dennis Emmanuel Brown stitching pieces of a big movie together. Better late than never

As a country, we can and MUST do better than the negative image we continue to project across the globe. I believe that we are way better than "conning" and killing each other. I know that we are. 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.