By Chaos, Freelance Writer 
(From left to right) Mortimer Planner, Dr Frederick Hickling and Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd share a moment at a symposium in Dodd's honour at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, last Saturday. - Dennis Coke /Staff Photographer
A QUESTION AND answer session which should have followed a panel discussion was anything but that and at one point almost devolved into a shouting match between Barbara Gloudon, communication consultant and popular talk show host and Professor Carolyn Cooper at a symposium on Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd last Saturday.
Staged at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, the symposium honoured Dodd as being practically the creator of popular Jamaican music.
A speech by keynote speaker Professor Rex Nettleford, UWI's Vice Chancellor, was followed by a panel discussion entitled 'Towards A Caribbean Music Business'. The panellists were Clyde McKenzie of Shocking Vibes Productions; Colin Leslie; musician-extraordinaire Ibo Cooper; Maxine Stowe, Dodd's niece and music industry executive and Junior Lincoln. The moderator of the session was Dr. Michael Witter, head of the Department of Economics, UWI.
After the members had paid tribute to 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd and delivered their thoughts on the music industry in the Caribbean, the panel was opened to questions from the audience.
However, very few questions were asked as members from the audience took to the microphone to present their views on the topic at hand.
To start the ball rolling, Ibo Cooper responded to a question about the lack of youth in the audience - no one there seemed under 30 years old. Specifically, he referred to a 'disconnection' which, he said, occurred in the 1980s when Reggae gained international acceptance and Jamaican entertainers started making money overseas. He said there was a set of people who did not know what had gone before and who were influenced by records and music but had no knowledge of the persons behind them. This was essentially the first and last question asked.
Dr. Fred Hickling, Head of the Department of Psychiatry, UWI, Mona, was up first. He stated that his feelings were varying between happy and sad from one minute to the next. He was sad because "...for the last 40 years we a chat 'bout the same things, but we nah move forward. Jamaicans born outta piracy and plunder. The first Governor of Jamaica was Henry Morgan, a pirate. Forty years later we still a plunda one anadda, we not dealing with reality. Every time we get plunda, we just 'lick dem wid a nex' riddim'. Every time dem tek one, we jus gi dem a nex' one and dem tek dat one. We riddle wid red eye and bad mind. Every time somebody tek a step up, somebody behind him wan pull back," he said, with regards to the issues of intellectual property and the ownership of catalogues of Jamaican music.
Clyde McKenzie responded to Prof. Hickling's impassioned speech by saying that he shared his despair, but, "As a student of the human condition, I know that to get some messages across is a difficult thing and sometimes 40 years is not enough. Repetition is a powerful thing. We don't have the tools to instil memory and we lack the records to do so."
Alric Lee Denham, a sword-carrying Rastafarian who introduced himself as 'Wolde Amanuel Warika' was up next, and immediately took the panel to task after declaring "Everybody inside here don't know I, but I know everyone inside you. Tru' dat." He paid his respects to the man of the moment, Sir Coxsone, and to the panel, and then accused them of being 'dishonest' since no mention had been made of Island Records creator Chris Blackwell in any of the discourses. He managed to work in a mention of ganja as well when he pointed out Dr. Hickling during his piece, declaring that "...him used to cure people and use herb do it, and dem run 'im."
He went on to declare, "We dishonest in Jamaica. The panel no account fi how fi inspire musicians. Drum and bass players didn't know what direction to go, soloists had to learn how to create indigenous sound, not R&B etc.
"Unno lef' Rasta outta di music, dats why young people nuh de yah. Unno nuh love Rasta but unno children love Rasta. Anytime unno decide fi let in Rasta, da place ya a go full. Unno affi go get a bigger place," he said.
Then came Barbara Gloudon's turn at the microphone, which was on the stage, facing the audience. She launched into an impassioned dissertation about the state of Jamaican popular music, past and present. She made a connection between the degradation of Downtown Kingston and what she regarded as a similar fate of music today, saying "Downtown get dirty and the music get dirty." She described some of today's music as 'nasty', saying that "people used to sing about 'pun-..' but then it was just risqué, they understood it was in the brain and the loins, now it just in the loins." Gloudon also mentioned the gulf between Sir Coxsone's time and now, when music was "sinuous and sensuous, but never nasty. Me no mean sey man neva rude, but dem rude with style." Nastiness, Miss Gloudon said, has now been elevated to an art, stating that "Man nuh bathe and call it art." She proceeded to make mention of Marcus Garvey's meetings where people used to quote Shakespeare and the fact that the national hero never encouraged people to 'boogie yagga'. "Brentford Road," she said, "...people were poor but they were clean. Every man swept their yard... and out of that they were able to create, out of respect for self."
She closed by stating her disgust with those who do not go back into their communities, to start businesses, for example, once they make it 'big', opting instead for a lifestyle epitomised by gold teeth and the like. She also said to Clement Dodd, "I respect you because you are a clean person. Dem coulda sey all sorts of things but you are a clean person, true to history..." and congratulated him on his belief in his country and himself.
Her remarks however did not find favour with Professor Carolyn Cooper, who was none to pleased with the analogies chosen by Gloudon to express her disgust. Unlike the previous presenters, she was not allowed to speak in peace, as she was continuously interrupted by members of the audience, including Miss Gloudon, but she was determined to have her say. She spoke of our African heritage and African's way of adorning their bodies with gold as a means of celebrating it, so the practice should not be associated with nastiness in any way. The dirt metaphor overall and the Shakespeare allusion earlier also came in for criticism, since they were seen as ways of ignoring our African history in favour of that of the European colonisers. "What was the point of all that?" Miss Gloudon asked when the Professor left the stage.
Ibo Cooper, in an effort to calm things down, warned Miss Gloudon that "You have to be careful how you voice certain things. If we write off a whole set of people, or seem to do so (said in response to her denials of having done so), we're doing something very wrong."
See tomorrow's publications for further reports on the Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd symposium.
