A Candid Conversation on Access and Influence in the Creative Industries
Kingston Creative hosted the First Fridays creative mingle at the Kingston Creative Coworking Space at 107 Harbour Street, under the theme “Gatekeepers: Keys to the Culture” and sponsored by Bottega Jamaica. The event was a masterclass, offering rare insights from industry leaders across music, film, and publishing, while creating space for networking, authentic dialogue and building meaningful connections across sectors.
In the creative industries, the word “gatekeeping” refers to the control or influence that certain individuals, institutions or systems have over who gets seen, who gets validated, who gets access to resources, funding, and opportunities. Attendees heard from three influential voices across music, film, and publishing; Steve “Urchin” Wilson, CEO of Brand New Machine, Veteran Music Manager for Sean Paul, Producer, and Author; Tanya Batson-Savage, Writer, Filmmaker, Publisher, and President of the Jamaican Writers Society and Sherando Ferril, CEO of Yaadbridge Entertainment Director, Actress, and Producer.
“Gatekeeping has changed a lot from when I got into the game,” commented Steve “Urchin” Wilson, offering a perspective shaped by decades in the music business. “The gatekeeper was the record label, the producer, the writers, and the DJs at the radio stations. If you couldn’t get past those people, it was almost impossible for you to become a published musician. Nowadays, it’s completely changed… It’s gone from being someone you could meet in a night club and say “Hey here is my mixtape. Can you play it?” Now you have to say “here’s my mixtape” to 1 billion people at the same time and hope that someone listens to it. So you can put your product on the shelf, but how do you get it noticed?”
Coming from the film and the theatre world, Sherando Ferril, veteran actress, described how the lack of accessible venues, including the Ward Theatre, compounds existing challenges. “We no longer have many theatre spaces… The Little Theatre, which a lot of times is reserved for national events, is not easy for an independent producer to get. The scarce resources make gatekeeping even more of an issue.”
Tanya Batson-Savage from Blouse and Skirt Books noted how technology has shifted the power away from traditional players. “Gatekeepers back in the day would have been your editor, your publisher, your critic. They’re still there, and they still do a lot of gatekeeping, but one can bypass them. Amazon has built an entire ecosystem around self-publishing—and it works.”
Visual Arts also took center stage, with an intimate art exhibition of oil on canvas works by Chantal Rhone-Kellyman, whose artwork offered a reflective and emotive take on identity, memory, and cultural reclamation. In true Kingston Creative fashion, the evening ended with live music by DJ Fenix and DJ Wylyphe, connecting creatives of all backgrounds in a space of collaboration and expression.
These monthly corporate mingles for the creative industries continue to serve as a vital platform for knowledge-sharing, relationship-building, and professional growth. The Kingston Creative meetup is a part of Kingston Creative’s ongoing mission to build an economically viable creative ecosystem in Jamaica. This initiative continues to spark vital conversations that center creatives in the transformation of Jamaica’s creative economy.
