Ambassador Bounty Killer?

Groundins

By: Charles H.E.Campbell

The summer is practically over and I can now happily report that, during the performances at most events, we detected a significant reduction in lyrics glorifying the gun and violence from the major dancehall artistes. Even the usually constant diet of graphic, crude, vulgar lyrics and subject matter seems to have been less on display.

I believe that a number of factors precipitated this positive turn of events. Firstly, the Broadcasting Commission must be congratulated for resolutely sticking to its policy of cleaning up the airwaves. This has forced the artistes, songwriters and producers to become more creative and discerning in their choice of issues and words, because they all wish to have their music played on radio in Jamaica.




Secondly, the dancehall artiste fraternity has been hard-hit by the series of USA visa revocations, and entry or working visa denials for European and even Caribbean countries. As I have previously stated in these columns there is absolutely no use in having a hit song in Barbados, Germany, or the USA, for example, if the artiste cannot benefit from touring those countries, because this is the primary source of income in today's digitised world.

The third reason, of course, is the determination of some criminal elements on the one hand, and the security forces on the other, to target artistes, and the consequences of these interactions — notwithstanding the dissimilar motivations since the start of the year and the State of Emergency.

Many people question the sincerity of actions like the recent truce to their long standing public feud declared by Bounty Killer and Beenie Man at Fully Loaded. I, however, am quite prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even before the onset of summer, Bounty had already begun to utter some public pronouncements hinting at a more mature, forward-looking disposition and mindset. His reported statements from the Sumfest stage, calling for a state of urgency in addressing some of the social ills of inner-city youths urging support for the security forces, and non-interference by the politicians in the work of the police were very powerful indeed. A reformed Bounty Killer could be such a good ambassador for civility, decency and peace in the dancehall, helping to guide the reimaging necessary to stem the erosion of our international market share.

Addressing another significant development during the last fortnight, the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Rastafari Millennium Council ultimately could not resolve their differences and so they simultaneously held separate conferences on Rastafari. No matter the attempts to gloss over the reasons behind this failure and even with all the finger pointing, the University's haughty approach, the presumption of a pre-eminence of scholarship above conviction, and an initial disregard for authentic, indigenous grass-roots organisations fostered the suspicions and eventual discord. Needless to say, these were manipulated by elements within the millennium council, seemingly interested only in their own self-projection.

From all reports, however, both conferences facilitated the presentation of some excellent research findings and position papers, therefore the organisers should be given due credit. I do have some outstanding questions that I would appreciate answers to. Is there a difference between a Rasta academic and an academic Rasta? Secondly, I gather that elements within the University are equating Dudus to Leonard Howell. I would like to know the perceived nexus between both.

It is precisely for this reason — to guard against these revisionist theories — that the university and the society as a whole are better served when the university works alongside authentic organisation and proponents, rather than attempting to lead the process without a proper 'groundation'.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com

Revamp Sumfest venue

Groundins

By:Charles H.E. Campbell


Time and again, in my commentaries, I have been obliged to return to the vexed issue of the total lack of appropriate venues for large stage shows and open-air concerts in Jamaica. The latest casualty of this deficiency was Reggae Sumfest in Montego Bay, this past July.

Sydney Reid, the Summerfest productions director who manages the venue for the festival each year, told me that this staging was the most challenging for him so far, because of the adverse effects to the venue resulting from weeks of rainfall.

To give some background to this issue, phase one of the Catherine Hall venue was hurriedly constructed by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) in 1993. This was to facilitate the first staging of Reggae Sumfest by some very enterprising Montego Bay businessmen.

Consequently, some essential features of the venue were poorly thought-out and designed. So, for instance, one set of public bathroom facilities was near the front of the audience. This is very impractical, in relation to crowd control and the convenience of patrons who wish to use these facilities during an event. In a thick crowd, access to and from the restrooms is very difficult, time-consuming and even treacherous, especially given the present impolite disposition of a segment of our local audiences.

The Bob Marley Centre had initially been established in 1983 for the production of the world music festival. The stage was originally located at the extreme tip of the peninsular, to allow for audiences upwards of 100,000 people. However, the long, narrow shape of the land necessitated a massive amount of equipment to fill this large area of over 11 acres with adequate sound. When Sunsplash returned to the park in 1987, we decided to use only two-thirds of the venue as the main concert area. In its original design, therefore, the public sanitary facilities were located about equal distant from the back or front of the park.

However, although we had relocated the production area, since these facilities were already in place we continued make use of the existing bathrooms, although they were quite close to the stage. During the peak hours of the 1987 festival, its impracticality became very obvious to us, as traffic slowed tremendously, while (mostly) men resorted to urinating on the perimeter verges, and in the sea. By the following year, therefore, we were compelled to construct additional facilities at the back of the park, to ameliorate this inconvenience and public health problem.

Without accurate knowledge of this history, the UDC simply proceeded to perpetuate this health and crowd control hazard into the design and construction of the new Catherine Hall venue. To make matters worse, since phase one, the UDC has not continued to envisage further development of the Catherine Hall Centre, except for the misguided laying of top soil. For the first year of Sumfest, the developers had surfaced the venue with marl, and Sydney Reid tells me that, then, the water drained off within five minutes, even after a very heavy shower of rain. The problem, of course, was that the marl surface was not conducive to a high comfort level of patrons. The addition of top soil was the next logical step, therefore, for a tropical outdoor venue. To do this correctly would have required the prior installation of a proper irrigation and drainage system, so as to maintain the grass and effectively manage our seasonal flood waters.

By the second night this year, the top soil became eight soggy inches of pure mud. Under the circumstances, the traditional solution of using sawdust to sop up the excess water was of no use whatsoever. Instead, Sydney said he tried some rather novel approaches to mitigate the problem. Daily, he pumped more than 170,000 gallons of water out of the venue using various means, but this process had to be halted each day when patrons began entering the park. Numerous truckloads of crushed stones were also used in an attempt to displace some of the mud. This no doubt helped to ease the adverse conditions somewhat, but this problem now needs a long-term solution by the appropriate authorities.

The total design, layout and construction of the Catherine Hall Centre has to be revamped given the experiences of the festival over the last 17 years. In so doing, the upgraded centre must include an adequate parking area, specially prepared and constructed primarily for that purpose.

It is not coincidental that Montego Bay has been staging most of Jamaica's largest festivals annually since Sunsplash began there in 1978. It is the most suitable location in Jamaica for this type of event, because of the pre-existing essential features, facilities, amenities, and public services. These include the largest stock of hotel rooms; an international airport and wharf; a public transportation system; public utilities such as electricity (including its own generating plant as a major component of the grid) and potable water; a significant contingent of security forces; a wide array of restaurants, shopping malls, night clubs; also, most importantly, it has a public garbage collection system and an integrated public sanitary disposal system. This is complemented by numerous businesses, such as tour bus operators and motor vehicle rental companies, and many tourist attractions in Montego Bay proper and all along the north coast.

If, indeed we are serious about exploiting the competitive advantage bequeathed to us by the popularity of Reggae music, we need to redouble our efforts to further tap into the niche market of patronage to international live events. This will certainly enhance our present tourism product. Within this context, Montego Bay deserves a proper entertainment park, with facilities which would also include a theatre for the performing arts.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com

Is the music industry ready for change?

Groundins

By: Charles H.E. Campbell

On July 22, 2010 Leahcim Semaj hosted on his Facebook newsfeed, a summary and the link to www.fastcompany.com. The article primarily referenced and reported the contents of a joint address at the new music seminar in New York City, by Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Records and Eric Garland CEO of Big Champagne, on the state of the International Music Industry.

These two gentlemen revealed some grim, startling statistics, as it relates to sales of albums released in 2009. Combining physical and digital sales, "Of the some hundred thousand albums released last year, seventeen thousand of them sold only one copy; more than eighty one thousand albums sold fewer than one hundred copies. In fact, just thirteen hundred albums sold over ten thousand copies."

Eric Garland claims that for physical sales alone, "Only two percent of new albums on sound scan sold over five thousand copies." Austin Kerr, the author of the article adds the comment "That's a sky diver's plummet from the golden era of the music industry."

While singles sales tapered off between the years 2000 and 2003, since then, there has been an almost eight fold cumulative increase in sales up to 2009. This is attributed to the fact that a higher percentage of the world's populations now ply this trade either as an amateur or professional.

Among the reasons given for the precipitous fall in album sales is that the traditional business model which centered on production and release of albums is outmoded and presently counter intuitive to the cultural disposition of contemporary music aficionados who mostly listen to compilations or a collection of songs.

Another reason cited, is that, this phenomenon is a direct by-product of a deliberate business strategy employed by iTunes to sell every song, as a single, for ninety nine cents; as opposed to a cost closer to one dollar ninety nine. The implication is that this would have encouraged higher album sales. Here is a good example how even with the impact of globalisation and the worldwide reach and impact of information technology, the music distribution trade continues to be skewed towards serving the interests of a few monopolistic trans-nationals, based mostly in North America and Europe.

In terms of future trends, Eric Garland made a telling statement that music consumers are using YouTube as their first option, and informs that it currently has the largest catalogue of on-demand music on the internet. The article concludes with the deduction that "traditional music media is going away", but ponders whether the music industry is ready for the change.

This unvarnished information gleaned, now warrants urgent, widespread analysis and debate within our local entertainment industry. Whereas, since the birth of our modern popular music, from Duke Reid and Clement Dodd in the sixties, through Sly and Robbie in the eighties, to the present, with companies like Jet Star and VP Records, our artistes and producers have challenged the status quo and bucked the commercial trends, in what was, back then, somewhat of an intuitive revolution in the business of marketing music. Now, finally, the rest of the world is catching up, as has been admitted in the comments above, by two big movers and shakers at the pinnacle of the industry. The promotion and sales of singles and compilations, as a main component of revenue intake for their sustenance, has always been a core feature of the Jamaican recording industry. In today's world, with universal access and growing popularity of iTunes and YouTube, the gross sales of physical CDs have been totally decimated, along with the record/manufacturing sector.

In order to compensate for this major loss of income, live performances, concerts and tours, have now become the predominant source of income for most prominent artistes and musicians. In this sense, the music industry has come full circle to the era which predates the invention of the phonogram and the manufacturing of records and tapes. But, that's a simplistic view, because during that time, the only means of hearing or seeing and artiste/ musician was through live performances. While the old music media is probably moribund, the new emerging media, made possible by the web-including YouTube and iTunes, gives most artistes, musicians and producers a much enhanced, dynamic advantage.

In this new dispensation, we must examine our state of readiness to maximize on our competitive advantage and potential, in the areas of online sales and performance touring. The industry has been turned on its head. Historically, tours were used mainly as a marketing tool to promote the sales of records. Today, released recordings are mainly to promote concert tours. With the enormous market penetration of the new media however, songs become an instant hit in many markets simultaneously; opening up new touring opportunities for our artistes in far flung places where traditional media might not have penetrated.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com