Jamaica’s Entertainment Industry Has Been On Back Burner Long Before COVID-19

What a relief? Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in Parliament, expressed his sympathies to Madam speaker, by saying he is sympathetic to the currently closed entertainment industry in Jamaica. The entertainment, culture and recording industries linked through music, also includes theatre, dance, drama, and traditional folk forms, hardly needs sympathy. It needs urgent support.

The DNA of these industries survived three hundred years of slavery, post-colonial oppression and is currently experiencing post-independence regulations.

The early developers in these industries were at times regarded by authorities as “backwater”, “back a wall” “Dutty foot Rastas” who were making noise. Out of those early chants and melodies despite the fights, came Bob Marley and many others. Bob’s first time singing was at a live event in “Back O’ Wall” Kingston, present-day West Kingston. His reward then was One Pound. We all know Bob went on to be a superstar and an ambassador for Reggae music.

To date the industry’s chief enemy is not COVID-19, it is the Noise Abatement Act. This act loosely regards the melodious sounds of music played from a sound system as noise. However, music is not noise. Music is memory and accumulated memories become culture.

Most Honorable Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, I examined the two statements you made last week directed at the entertainment industry, the first being:

“(I) directed to be done… the Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport; the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, and the Minister of Health, they will be meeting next week to review the proposals … and at the end of that review, we will come back to Parliament and report as to what might be possible”.

Jamaicans are resilient people as you know Mr. Prime Minister, but why so many meetings after a full year of closure and sympathies.

COVID-19 is real and should be treated as such, but with every delay in opening the industry there is a silent unaccounted death of an industry. The theatre industry for example hires actors. Before COVID-19, eighty percent of actors in Jamaica were unemployed or had to seek work elsewhere. Now it would be trending towards ninety nine percent because that industry sector struggled before with no help and has now totally dried up. Theaters are closed and other night life industry players continue to wait..and suffer, until the meetings are completed and you make a decision.

When compared to the tourism industry, specifically, the hotel sector, they have mask optional parties at their theaters, clubs and ballrooms every night. The move to get these beneficial nocturnal industries going again is too slow.

Music degrading the culture

The other statement made was at a Jamaica Stock Exchange event, directed at music and culture industries.

You outlined, “Our music has been such a powerful tool not just for Jamaica but for the world, it is a means of liberation, elevating us in the eyes of the world…but in the last few decades our music has been overtaken by violence”

You further stated that “what we are producing is devaluing our culture, which is important to economic development”.

Mr. Prime Minister, the entire country takes claim and benefit from the cultural capital, foreign exchange, language and proximity to the common struggle that our world class singers, DJs, dancers, actors, musicians achieve in spite of the lack of infrastructure or systems in place to develop their world-class talent.

Indeed the moniker that you have been given and have been referred to at several official functions  “Most Honorable Bro Gad” came as a result of some aggressive dancehall lyrics. It is the artist Daddy1’s song and music video of the same name from whence the moniker came.

The lyrics of that song include “My Bro Gad Dem nahguh sell out, Dem know bout war bokkle boom tump out. Those are not lyrics from a prayer chorus, they are from the streets. It is through these sometimes heinous lyrics that dancehall music in particular keeps a close proximity to the streets.

Most Hon. Prime Minister, the music you enjoy from Chronixx took him years to produce and many mentors and inspiration. He had to find resources to stage his concerts and build his momentum without governmental support. His last Smile Jamaica concert in Montego Bay ended prematurely while he was mid-performance by law enforcement. The same city that Reggae Sumfest is held each year way into the morning. It is through dedication and resilience that Chronixx continues to do his brand of music.

There are countless other talented youths in Jamaica who have yet to develop wise ambition and resilience. They need a space to rehearse, decent spaces to perform, a studio to record, marketing help, and to import proper sound equipment. For many, they will find a way to make it work privately, and others, we will never hear of them because they cannot afford the cost to import these assets.

Most Honorable Bro Gad, if I may, it is the lack of local infrastructure to practice, the Noise Abatement Act and curfews that only apply to small-time events that weaken the self-esteem of artists and devalues the culture. They do not feel like they are a part of a common good because no one with virtue and authority has helped them to realize potential and achieve their dreams.

The culture and entertainment industries are as great as their talent pool. These industries don’t need sympathy, in order to increase in value, they need industry upgrades and export expansion.

It would have been a more virtuous cry if you had acknowledged the industry players who continue to use what they have to make a living, regardless of the exorbitant duties to be paid for importing instruments, costumes, camera equipment, DJ consoles, studio engineer equipment, microphones, lights, sound and stage accessories.

The entertainment industry does not only consist of professional recording artists. There are newcomers every day as it’s the one industry that someone can go from obscurity to a celebrity of value in a day’s work. If concessions are only given to the registered list of professionals, the industries cannot grow.

In your meetings this week, please consider that without the access to capital and quick, direct action towards the importation of the tools to practice, the industry will collapse culturally and economically.

If the meetings to be held should bear fruit in increasing the value of the entertainment and cultural industries, then on the agenda should be mentorship, apprenticeship, investment, immediate executive and legislative policy action.

Valuable Culture starts with the common values

The high schools and colleges in Jamaica are void of proper facilities such as well equipped studios and theaters to practice music or the performing arts. Schools have to use makeshift auditoriums that act as classrooms with mediocre acoustics. This devalues the ability to practice and develop talent.

Most of the well-equipped performance spaces in Jamaica are in private hotels and not accessible to the public. As a result, most of the live music shows, theatre shows and dance shows on the island are presented in parking lots, open-air, or on makeshift stages.

Some people may be reading this and saying the entertainment industry does not affect what I do but without music and entertainment the Jamaican people would have perished.

You rightfully admit that the competitive advantage Jamaica has over other nations is the ability to make compelling and inspiring music. For an industry that gives substantially more than it takes, it is unfair to place the devaluing of the culture on musicians alone while not making precise and specific moves to uplift the industry at all levels.

More Jamaicans earned international acclaim from the culture, recording and entertainment industry than from any other profession, yet less than four percent of the national budget is spent on the Entertainment, culture and sports industries combined. That weakens the musical output and culture.

Global competitiveness is attained in any field through innovation. You can use the present crisis to stimulate and incentivize innovation. Without gainful livelihood people become desperate. You must be commended for keeping an ear to the music but consider that what you are witnessing are desperate people acting on desperate measures to come out of their circumstances. The opposite action of desperation is innovation.

The weakness in the culture didn’t start with the music or musicians, they are, more than anyone else, reflections of the people, not the other way around.

I agree that the music is sometimes degrading and seems too close to real life, but view it as a zeitgeist documentary, rather than as utterances from cultural denigrates making noise.

If you want to help the industry to grow, then review, rescind and replace the Noise Abatement Act with better terms for the entertainment sector. Additionally, use the crises as an opportunity to stimulate innovation in the creative industries with duty-free concessions on all hardware and equipment used in the profession.

Then, the noise will be drowned out and the sweet memories of music rise to the top. Youth want to be heard; they want to be valued for their voices, their fashionable way of life and their music.

JR Watkis is the producer and host of World Music Views.

Email: worldmusicviews@gmail.com