Jamaican Artists Work Twice As Hard, But Get Less Recognition Than US Counterparts —Cristy Barber

Grammy-nominated producer and music executive Cristy Barber is ruing the fact that while Jamaica’s Reggae and Dancehall music are the world’s most influential genres, artists from the island continue to be circumvented, and their musical glory given instead, to foreign artists who sample their songs and riddims.

“The challenge that we have with Reggae music on the international stage is that, it is the most influential music in the world – Justin Bieber, Reggaeton a lot of the Afrobeats music that’s coming out now samples from our classic Dancehall riddims, and obviously we are influencers,” Barber said during a recent interview on Irie FM.

“Unfortunately a lot of times when we are marketing, promoting our own, a lot of it is considered vacation music or summertime music.   I see R&B artists and all these other international artists doing the same music and the same songs that our Jamaican artists are doing, and not getting the same recognition,” she added.

During the interview, which was centered on the unique challenges which Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall artists have had to grapple, in their journey toward achieving international stardom, Barber said that Jamaicans, when compared to their North American counterparts, have had to go in overdrive in order to stake their claim as they are not given precedence over those nationals.

“So unfortunately, we have to work twice as hard, be twice ahead of the game… in any genre, in the music industry, becoming an international artist is like winning the lotto.  So that’s for everybody; it’s not just Jamaica.  But, I think we are the leaders of the pack,” she argued.

“Reggae music, like I said, is influencing all over the world.  Jamaica is home of the biggest artist ever in the music industry in the world and that’s Bob Marley.  So, it gets frustrating to see on a grand scale how sometimes homage is not paid.  But I think that is where we have to come in and make sure that we as an industry start educating the world about the history of Reggae music and how it gave birth to Hip Hop and these things,” she continued.

Added Barber: “We need to train the younger artists to know that when they go on the international stage and are doing interviews, that they are to get this message out.”

Barber’s concern is akin to those raised by Reggae/Dancehall artist Khago and his wife Francine and veteran music selector Foota Hype.

In April last year, Khago had declared that Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall remains a global cultural heavyweight towering over American genres, and that he has had to chase away American rappers who have approached him asking for permission to sample his hit song Nah Sell Out.

The straight-shooting Khago, who always describes himself as “feisty,” did not mince words as he explained his reaction to what he had considered a disrespectful, arrogant and belittling request.  “Meck mi tell yuh suppm.  How, yuh waan sample my music an mi nuh dead bwoy?  Yuh a eediat?” he recalled telling the American.

Khago had insisted that there was no way he would allow anyone access to reproduce his songs, unless they humbly ask for a collaboration with him, which must include him in everything from recording in the studio, to the video shoot.  Khago had argued that reproducing or sampling the work of an artist who is still alive, without including them physically in the recording is the height of arrogance, exploitation, and disrespect, as anyone who does that is relegating the artist and his/her original work, to being a relic of the past.

Khago’s wife and manager, Francine Gayle, who engineered his successful million-dollar lawsuit against producer Flava McGregor, contended that Americans were exploiting the music and mistreating many of the artists, sampling their music and making them appear irrelevant.  “We can’t just teck our genre just for granted just like that where anybody can just step in and just run wid it and just gone.  We have to change dat.   Because even dem ova dere too, dem teck wi fi eediat,” Francine had added.

Like Francine pointed out, in March 2015, The Fader had reported that Dancehall deejay Agent Sasco, who co-wrote and sang on Kanye West’s I’m In It (Track 6 on West’s Yeezus album) and also powerfully wrote and sang two-thirds of Kendrick Lamar’s hit track The Blacker The Berry, was not acknowledged as a featured artist on official releases on either record.

The Fader noted that the omission of Sasco by both men, resulted in an in an “exhaustive and otherwise well-informed article offering biographies of Kanye’s 50-plus Yeezus contributors and collaborators”, Myspace.com overlooked the Loco singer entirely, as they erroneously thought “that the Jeffrey Campbell listed as a writer on I’m In It must be the ladies’ shoe designer” by the same name.

The Fader also reported that Yeezus had “a noticeably Jamaican slant”, where Kanye sampled Capleton, Beenie Man, and Popcaan, but that Sasco said he “never communicated directly with Kanye during the process”.

In October 2019, after American Kanye West came to Jamaica to stage his Sunday Service Foota Hype had taken to Instagram to rebuke the rapper for orchestrating what he described as a well-planned exploitation, this after the rapper began illegally selling merchandise emblazoned with Jamaican national symbols, including the coat of arms, without the expressed permission of the Jamaican government.

Foota had said there was a slew of American rappers and other artists who have either sampled or pirated Jamaican music, in order to redeem their faltering careers, remain relevant, and fatten their bank accounts, while watering down the Jamaican artists.

The Dark Knight producer had said that artists including Torey Lanez, DJ Khaled and even Jay Z, have latched onto Jamaican music, because Reggae and Dancehall sells the most globally, but at the same time were not to paying homage to the Jamaicans who created the original works, instead giving the public the impression that they are the originators.

“So oonu haffi realize dis now seh Jamaica is the pivot point of the world when it come to music and culture; we are the Usain Bolts of the world.  So fi dem job a fi exploit wi to di fullest and water dung wi ting to di fullest,” the Calabar High School old boy argued.

As he continued his musings, Foota also cited Kanye’s 2012 hit, Mercy, which featured Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz which had heavily sampled the 1986 Dancehall song Dust a sound Boy by Super Beagle by using its Fuzzy Jones intro in full, as another heavy reliance on Dancehall to prop up Kanye’s career which had slumped.

That song had received two Grammy nominations for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance in 2013, and according to Foota following that success, “di whole a dem a penetrate Jamaica”.