Wanted: Good Songwriters

Groundins

By: Charles H.E. Campbell

I am elated about the feedback I have been receiving on my last two commentaries. This is in regards to conversations they have generated with senior, knowledgeable music industry professionals.

In summary, three structural weaknesses have been identified in order for Jamaican reggae music to re-position itself at the apex of the industry. These are: the lack of good songs with which a world audience can identify; weak professional artiste management; and finally, modes and channels for international marketing.

In an interview with Balford Henry, published in the Sunday Observer on October 28, 2012, Aaron Talbert, VP Records' vice-president for sales and marketing, was quoted as saying: "It takes much more now to make the whole fan base know what's going on. Even for that audience that is committed to the music and the culture, there's a lack of a channel to reach all those people at the same time."

I feel strongly that in order for us to compete with international marketing companies and other mainstream musical genres, Jamaica needs to establish a marketing aggregator for its creative products. This is an idea that Junior Lincoln has long-touted. It would require a public/private sector partnership which would register subsidiaries in all the major commercial capitals of the world, especially where reggae/Jamaican cultural products already has a latent market. The main objective of the entity would be to pool the products of our creative/cultural sectors for the purpose of promoting and marketing, using the very popular Jamaica brand.

In the area of professional management, our artistes have to reform the approach of hiring uninformed family and close friends to manage their international careers. There is no doubt that undisciplined  personal behavior and unethical business practices have significantly hurt our reputation with the media, promoters, venue operators across Europe, North America and Asia. Often times this is due to the inability of the artistes' manager to effectively manage the affairs of his/her protégé.


It is the common belief amongst all my correspondents however, that what Jamaican Reggae needs at the moment are good songs in the mold of Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Bob Andy and, of course, Bob Marley.

Just recently, we got a clear indication of the enormous impact that Bob Marley's music had on none other than US President Barack Obama. Obama stated the following to MTV's Sway Calloway: "I can remember when I was in college listening and not agreeing with his whole philosophy, necessarily, but raising my awareness about how people outside of our country were thinking about the struggles for jobs and dignity and freedom."

Our songwriters today seem disconnected from the major global issues that arrest people's attentions. Human Rights, global warming and environmental abuse, the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and The West Bank, the apparently insatiable greed of the international capitalists and their drive to accumulate wealth at the expense of working people and the developing countries, the growing disparity between the declining wages of the working class relative to the exploding and irrational incomes of management and increasing company profit, are all burning issues which deserve to be written about.

E-mail: che.campbell@gmail.com

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/Wanted---good-songwriters_12899930#ixzz2BN5O6AO3