Melville CookeA no political act
A no de coke an de crack
A reggae put Jamaica pon top
Tony Rebel
ON JULY 1, the Andrea Davis-led Jamaica Arts Holdings (JAH) marked International Reggae Day at the Hope Gardens in St. Andrew. The celebration allowed me to concretise some thoughts about a genre of music that I am involved in first and foremost as a listener and second as a reporter.
For me, reggae (and here I include dancehall, at the risk of offending the purists) is the only productive enterprise that the disenfranchised and landless from the days of slavery, as The Burning Spear would say, own. It is their creation, their product, their expression. Its creation did not require the ownership of huge swathes of land, like rum; it did not require that the creators attend high profile schools, as the traditional lawyer and doctor professions; it was not a prerequisite that they learn to bow, scrape and simper around the assorted important people like Chester Francis-Jacksons brand of 'dahling' journalism.
I am constantly amazed by the fact that Jamaica's most recognised product evolved from that which was feared and banned in said days of slavery - the drum. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I always think that when the ex-slaves (at least in name) who did not choose to work on the plantations left for the hilly interior on August 1, 1838, they carried a beat in their walk, a song on their lips and freedom in their hearts. And they came back down with Marley's rebel music.
MAKE NO MISTAKE
For, make no mistake about it, a genre of music that can produce a Peter Tosh singing of lighting a spliff in Buckingham Palace and an Anthony B chanting fire pon Rome is rebel music through and through.
It is also Rastafarian music, as much as there are those who would like to accept Marley as a singer, yet reject the influence of Haile Selassie on him.
It is with these lofty ideals in mind that I express my utter disappointment in what we have done with reggae. And I am not speaking of real government support here. That will not happen anytime soon, if at all, as those who make the decisions are not about to throw millions of dollars into an industry that will not bring significant returns to those among us whose major achievement in life was to come from the line of a slave masters bastard child.
I am bitterly disappointed in the hustling mentality that pervades what I can see of the supposed music industry. And I am equally gravely wounded by what is done with the returns that do come to those who make money from it.
The hustle means to make money at all costs, with no regards for standards. So, the most crass and crude and downright nasty of dancehall music is often put on the front burner by a disc jockey or writer who is paid to do so, or is just following the trend and hanging on to the hype. The hustle means that an entertainer will voice as many songs as he/she can in as short a time as possible, without sitting down to create an album of worth. The hustle also means that simple things such as competent public relations (although that is certainly improving) is sometimes non-existent.
And, in the end, the hustle often means that persons with great talent get old and die while we are collectively instructed just how to brush yu teet in a dancehall.
We have also produced a number of musical pirates, following in the tradition of Columbus and Henry Morgan and, like those two scoundrels of no mean order, many a modern pirate who has robbed the singers and players of instruments blind has had honours heaped up and public places named after them.
TRANSFER OF WEALTH
The returns are another matter. Why make all this money and put a significant chunk of it straight back in the hands of those who done rich 'arready'? That is what happens when an entertainer buys an Escalade (or two) and the assorted Benzes, Hummers and BMWs that populate the music industry. Sure, it is nice to be comfortable, but there is this incredible transfer of wealth from those who pay at the gate to see entertainers in Jamaica to those who own things like land in expensive areas and whose families are already wealthy.
I maintain, it is all well and good to spend $30 million to live in the same area as one of the famed families that run Jamaica, but to live beside a person does not mean that you live with them.
Musician Steve Golding said something during the Peter Tosh tribute at the most recent Calabash International Literary Festival that will stay with me for life. He said, in essence, that while there are complaints that the music has gone to the dogs, maybe it is a situation that it is the dogs who are playing the music.
However, even with those failings, it is certainly not bad, as those who hold to a standard are still there, despite the DJs (dog jockeys) on radio and in print (dog journalists). Reggae remains the emerging technology of Jamaica; the studios are our Silicon Valley and the creators our programmers of drumbeats and lyrical loops that have the world logging on to the website called Jamaica.
I love it.
The doctor said son
You have Reggaemylitis
Peter Tosh
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
