Jahmiel Says Popcaan Advised Him To “Focus On Africa”
Popcaan, in a show of brotherly support, has advised Jahmiel to look to the African continent as a mainstay for performances, as he is well-loved in many countries in the Motherland, the Great Man singer has revealed.
“A recently mi deh pon a flight wid Popcaan an mi an him a have a conversation an him a seh ‘yow, Jahmiel, yuh need fi focus pon Africa, yuh nuh. Caw di people dem love yuh differently. An dem nuh love everybaddy’,” Jahmiel told Television Jamaica’s Anthony Miller during Friday night’s airing of The Entertainment Report.
According to Jahmiel, he has seen some indication that he has strong support, particularly in The Gambia where he has performed on two occasions and was treated like a “legend” and a “great man”.
“Fifteen thousand you name it man. Nuttn unda dat. An dem know all a mi song dem word-fi-word. Even songs weh mi Jamaican massive nuh know Africa know dem word-fi-word. Mi caan lef mi hotel- a riot,” he said chuckling.
Incidentally, on Jahmiel’s newly released Legend album, there is a track titled Africa featuring Bugle, which praises the continent as the place he would “rather be”, and expresses love for all Africans, whom he said are still spiritually connected and have an unbreakable bond, despite being fragmented by the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.
The song also speaks to the expansive inventions of Africans including the Great Pyramids, Africans being the creators of Mathematics.
In February 2018, Jahmiel made his debut performance in The Gambia where he pulled out more than 20,000 patrons at the Independence Stadium in Bakau. At that time, he said that the experience was overwhelming and that the love demonstrated by the Gambians was unforgettable, as the fans sang tracks he recorded earlier in his career, word-for-word, which made him realise that many of them have been following him from day one.
“The love from Gambia was so real. The energy they gave me throughout my performance is one I will never forget,” he said at the time.
Jahmiel was back for a second performance in 2021 to yet another packed stadium of doting fans.
The African continent is being pinpointed in recent times, as the “new frontier for the Dancehall genre” and the ideal place for Jamaican artists to place their focus, particularly following some artists like Popcaan and Konshens’ recent sojourns there where they headlined sold-out concerts.
The topic had come up for discussion in February on the Two Live Crew show on Radio Jamaica, and saw co-host Christopher “Johnny” Daley positing that “if you follow certain artists on Instagram, you will see that the new green gold for our artists, is the continent of Africa”.
“Over the last three months I have seen Popcaan, Konshens, Beenie Man, Delly Ranks and couple other guys went over there. Listen I think that our eyes are open up more now to the fact that the music has permeated the African culture in several African countries for years, but we have not been going, not been celebrating that. Now is the time,” Daley had said.
The discussion was sparked after Popcaan called for direct flights between Jamaican and Ghana.
The opportunities for touring Africa, particularly countries on the West Coast and in Kenya in the East, was also a hot subject for discussion during an Onstage interview conducted by veteran entertainment journalist Winford Williams with Dancehall producer NotNice in February last year.
Williams had contended that Africa was fertile ground for Jamaican Dancehall artistes, and that the genre and its parent Reggae, were the “soundtrack” of Kenya, where Konshens, Christopher Martin, Etana and Vybz Kartel are huge.
“We run away from everything African… Yet it is where your numbers are in this numbers game. In this numbers game where people are racking up numbers in social media; our numbers I believe are more in Africa, than anywhere else,” Williams had argued.
Williams had recommended that Jamaican musicians conduct strategic positioning of their work “to meet particular taste of various demographics”. According to him, Africans naturally gravitate to the music of Jamaica, as the music forms have great African retentions.
“The music of Jamaica – it doesn’t take any rocket scientists to know why Africans naturally consume Reggae music, because it was borrowed from Africa. Is Africa it come from,” he argued.
“We need to know that and we need to target-market. Some of us need to take time out – because if they can do critical analysis of demographics and markets and behaviour and so on why people love your music. A lot of us have music out there and we don’t know why people love the music,” he had said.
In November 2019, Mojo Morgan of Reggae Grammy Award-winning group, Morgan Heritage, had told The Gleaner that Africa was highly lucrative for Jamaican acts.
“I think if Jamaican artistes would look at Africa like every other touring region around the world like the US, Australia, Europe, Canada … we will be able to tour consistently. But we continue to look at Africa as a remote destination. Africa is a continent. We’re not talking about an island – but a continent that has a population close to or more than 1.5 billion people. America has a third of that,” Morgan had said.
“Our whole mentality is, if we can get on a tour bus and a drive across America, or even sometimes fly from city-to-city touring, why we can’t do that inna Africa? A place that I and I as a people identify as the root of our music?” Morgan, who has toured multiple African countries had argued.
He added: “If we’re going to do what we have to do to build certain regions in the world as markets where we can go and tour consistently, we have to take that same mindset when we go to Africa. It would be very lucrative for all of those that decide to take up the challenge.”