The Reverend Jim Parkes (right) chats with (from left) the chairman of the Finance and Legal Sale Committee of Sounds and Pressure, Colin Leslie, the President of Jamaica Federation of Music, Desmond Young, and musician Courtney Laughton before the start of the church service yesterday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Jamaica Popular Music Recording Industry at the Kingston Parish Church, downtown Kingston. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE RECTOR of the Kingston Parish Church, Archdeacon Leon Golding, yesterday urged musicians to use their talent to help rebuild the country.
"I challenge you to use your art form to recapture something of the soul of our people that makes us proud to be Jamaicans and help us to bring us back," he said while addressing the members of the Jamaica Popular Music Recording Industry during their 50th anniversary service at the church in downtown Kingston.
The archdeacon, noting that music is a gift from God, suggested that some popular artistes - through their work - had played a role in the decay of the country's social and moral fibre.
"I have no intention of putting the blame on any particular group for the state of the society, but there is no doubt that popular music has played a role in the promotion of evils in society [such as] violence and abuse of women. I challenge [your] members to be part of the process that stands for what is good and beautiful in the country and to help clean up the lyrics of some of your songs."
CRITICAL ROLE
He acknowledged: "Music has played a critical role in the country [through] protest songs which energised our people to take charge of their own destiny." Archdeacon Golding pointed to Bob Marley's Get Up, Stand Up, which was used effectively as a voice for the marginalised in the society.
The rector expressed regret that today's artistes - unlike their counterparts of the 1960s - were more interested in "financial rewards [rather] than ... using music as a tool for good, to bring back the soul of this country."
