Andrew Wildes, Gleaner Writer

It was to a standing ovation that Judge Joe Brown took his seat after addressing the graduating class of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA) on Saturday night.

The CBS TV celebrity judge, before a packed audience at the Courtleigh Auditorium in New Kingston, delivered a damning sentence against 'gangsta music', while fervently challenging the graduands to use their art to uplift their culture and people of colour everywhere.

"I call upon you to accept the challenge I give you. Don't just be what you can be and what you want to be. Be what you ought to be! Be what you should be!" he charged.

"You have a challenge because I have seen things go down in the last 30-something years I have been coming to this island. I have seen an art form too much influenced by negativity from the United States! Now you got yourselves free, do not let the states who had to be freed come back and poison your minds with the wrong things," Brown added to rapturous applause.

Before anyone could wonder, he clearly identified the poison of which he spoke.

"Hardcore gangster rap is not the answer. Not because it is vile, vulgar or profane, but because it does not show the man or woman of colour about the business of changing his or her neighbourhood for the better," Brown roared. "It merely shows a glorification of negativity in some obscene acceptance of second-class citizenship, in second-class status, in the glorification of dysfunction!"

Preach it

Parents, teachers and graduates alike responded with applause, cheers and shouts of "preach it!"

It was a 'word' especially relevant to a group of students whose training has set a path for them to work alongside the leading dancehall and reggae acts in the world. The robust batch of 140 students is the first to graduate from EMCVPA's degree programme, with bachelor's in the areas of fine arts and education. The graduation, therefore, is a milestone for the college, as it is now the only recognised degree-offering institution of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean.

andrew.wildes@gleanerjm.com