Category: Blog_Post

Covid-19 kicked me out my comfort zone

For years, I have been delving in the visual arts as a photographer, exploring and now specializing in multiple genres in the art of photography. At no point in time have I ever considered venturing into the world videography. While my camera is quite capable of recording video, I have never felt the urge or the need to explore the video features of the device.

Earlier this year, I lost my eldest aunt. As Covid-19 cases started to rise here in Jamaica, the government taking the needed steps to try and curb the import and spread of the virus, took the decision to close our borders. This meant that family members overseas would not be able to attend the funeral. Coupled with the restrictions on public gatherings, friends and family here would also miss the funeral.

With just about 3 weeks to go before the funeral I got the idea that I should try and learn to record and edit videos so I would be able to record the funeral and provide an avenue for closure for those who would be unavoidably absent. I hit up YouTube University and started consuming content around videography. Learning what shutter speeds I needed to record at, matching shutter speed with the particular frame rate per second of the final video, ensuring that I stuck to native ISOs. I even learned specific video features related to the camera I use and how to manually control audio levels to ensure consistent audio quality. Being informed that for good audio quality, the camera’s built-in microphone wasn’t going to cut it, my friend Christopher over at Learn Share Photo Video recommended a budget microphone, the TAKSTAR SGC-598. I quickly jumped over to Amazon and placed the order and I managed to get it a week before the funeral.

 

Time to test if I’ve learned anything

Armed with the knowledge I gathered in the short time and the new tool, I used the days of the grave digging to get my practice in for the main event. Things were making sense and just as I would execute on a photographic session, I adjusted to changing scenes and lighting conditions. I did encounter the challenge of keeping the camera perfectly level and avoiding jerky movements while operating the camera handheld, as well as manually racking focus on subjects, but I did my best to compensate.

On the day of the funeral, mentally I had a workflow down and ready to try and execute as best as I could considering my beginner status. However the day was not without newbie mistakes. Firstly, I ended up leaving the house without my tripod so I had to record the entire funeral hand-held. I think I gained some muscle at the end of the day, trying to hold the camera steady enough to simulate being on a tripod. My second newbie hiccup occurred close to the end where I missed a few minutes of footage. My camera has a time limit on a single recording of 20 minutes. On one instance the 20 minutes ran out and I was there in the motion recording and not realizing that recording had actually stopped *facepalm*. Luckily it wasn’t a critical moment or else I’d be so upset at myself.

 

Putting the piece all together

Now that I had the footage, it was time to learn how to piece it all together and make a final production. What software did I choose to edit the videos you might ask? I decided to try out version 16 of the non-linear editor (NLE) DaVinci Resolve. From what I gathered at the time it was the industry standard for cinematic color grading of video footage. Without getting too techie with it, as that’s a part of my other life, it’s a feature packed application offered by BlackMagic Design FREE of charge and rivals the likes of Adobe’s Premiere Pro and Apple’s Final Cut Pro. There are a few advanced features excluded from the free version that hardcore video editors would need. These are offered in the paid version of the product, DaVinci Resolve Studio.

I began learning how to review and cut footage, lining them up on a timeline, adding transitions between each cut and adding and syncing videos using their audio signatures. Producing video is really a time consuming task. While I can do a 1 hour shoot and cull through the session images and pick out the best ones that I will end up retouching in just a few minutes, it’s not the same with video. If you record 1 hour worth of video you will have to watch that 1 hour footage to determine what needs to be kept. Just imagine a full production. Imagine a wedding videographer or cinematographer who has covered a full wedding from getting ready to reception. That’s at least 8 hours of footage that they would need to review and post-produce. Whew! I had about 3 hours of footage that I had to review to make my final video.

All in all, it was a good experience and another level of growth for me. I have already enrolled in a course on lynda.com to get a better handle on DaVinci Resolve so I can become more proficient in using the application.

Did Covid-19 kick you out of your comfort zone too? What new thing(s) did you learn

Source: DWAYNE K. SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

Author: Dwayne K. Smith

Dwayne is a multi-genre photographer who lives and exercises his craft in the beautiful island of Jamaica. His approach of being an explorer of the various photographic arts helps to mold his personal style. 

See more of Dwayne’s work in Portraiture, Events, Nature, Landscapes, Weddings, Astroscapes, Timelapses, Food Automobile Real Estates and Interiors by visiting Dwayne’s website to see more of his pictures : https://bit.ly/3zqEeuF

Blog Originally posted here: https://bit.ly/3ywJlIQ

 

 

 

 

DWAYNE K. SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

Creative Tech Lab 2.0 Births Innovative Business Ideas from Jamaica

The Creative Technology Lab (CTL) 2023, an innovative initiative uniting creative minds and tech enthusiasts, has concluded its journey, marking the culmination of weeks filled with collaborative energy, hard work and creativity. Spanning across Jamaica and Honduras, and funded by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), this event was a testament to the extraordinary potential of combining creativity and technology in the region and how nations can collaborate beyond the boundaries of borders and language.

Participants in Jamaica worked with the Kingston Creative team and in Honduras with the team at the Universidad Tecnologica de Honduras, while the overall programme was guided by Banj, a Haiti-based Tech Hub. Throughout the journey, the participants embarked on an enriching experience, delving deep into intensive learning sessions, gaining invaluable expertise, and engaging with regional industry experts. This immersive exploration not only honed their skills but also developed new business ideas.

The event closed with a Pitch Day hosted by the Kingston Creative Hub in Downtown Kingston. The participants unveiled their visionary projects before a panel of investors, industry experts and 500 online viewers on Facebook Live.

A distinctive feature of CTL 2023 was its hybrid approach, utilising cutting-edge technology to transcend geographical barriers between Jamaica, Haiti and Honduras. Through virtual collaboration tools and live streaming, participants and audiences were seamlessly linked, fostering collaboration and innovation despite the physical distance.

 

Two standout projects emerged from this talented cohort from Jamaica:

Eventide™: This cutting-edge software revolutionises event graphic design and marketing. Eventide™ offers intelligent templates, AI-driven design insights, cost estimation, collaboration tools, automated marketing, and performance analytics. By streamlining design processes, Eventide™ not only saves time and enhances creativity but also maximises budget efficiency, transforming event planning and marketing strategies.

Innersight: A Web Portal meticulously gathering qualitative text and voice data for creative arts program testimonials. Powered by transcriptors, this data fuels a dashboard showcasing social impact metrics. Innersight’s vision bridges the gap between creativity and social impact, providing a holistic view of the transformative power of the arts.

The conclusion of CTL 2023 marks not just the end of a regional hackathon event but the emergence of promising business ventures which can be incubated through Kingston Creatives Incubator, Accelerator, Best Pitch Forward, Business Registration and other programmes designed to empower creative entrepreneurs and drive growth in the Cultural and Creative Industries. Hackathons are essential features of the ecosystem, nurturing future innovators and fostering a culture of collaboration in the creative economies of Central America and the Caribbean. All the participants have received an exclusive invitation to use business services at the Hub and join the Kingston Creative Incubator Programme, which will further guide their projects and entrepreneurial pursuits.

 

Reclaiming physical space is resistance. Challenging the status quo is resistance.  Defining Arts and Culture as a driver of social and economic transformation is resistance.  Putting artists and cultural workers in a position of prominence and status in our society is resistance. Intentionally betting on what is most powerful about us as a country – OUR CULTURE – even though it arguably is created by who we consider to be from the working classes of society – is resistance.  Deciding to change our city, our economy and empower our most culturally vibrant communities – is resistance. Imagining a new future together, and taking action together from the ground up, not the top down to realize this new future – this is an act of resistance.

If you ask me on any given day whether I’m “into” politics, I, like many creatives, would say that I am not political.  Our politics is framed in a limiting way, as it forces us to think about development in choppy 4-year cycles instead of the 25- and 50-year strategic cycles that lead to real transformation and sustainable national development.  To be creative, one must be in a certain state of mind and often I find that it is necessary to block out the partisan chatter that we all too often find ourselves embroiled in as a society.

But “politics”, from the Greek word “politika”, is defined simply as “affairs of the cities”.  In a very literal sense, politics is just the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups and managing the power relations among individuals.  The Irish political scientist Michael Laver, put it this way:

“Politics is about the characteristic blend of conflict and co-operation that can be found so often in human interactions. Pure conflict is war. Pure co-operation is true love. Politics is a mixture of both. “

If I were to abide by the true definition of politics, then the work that we at Kingston Creative are engaged in is very political.  Artists and creatives are actively changing the affairs of the city with every mural, every film, every book and every cultural tour.

Kingston Creative is a movement that came into being 7 years ago almost to the day, so let me say first Happy 7^th Anniversary to the entire Kingston Creative family.  I vividly remember being upstairs in the attic in my home in London, making that call to my cofounder Allan Daisley who was in Miami.  My hand was shaking, and I was absolutely full of trepidation.  This vision was so big, and I just didn’t want to sound unhinged.  I didn’t even want to speak it out loud, but it was so urgent that I felt that I would burst if I didn’t.

Even as a possibility thinker and an eternal optimist, I know how the world works.  I am a dark-skinned black person, I am a woman, one with an unremarkable last name at that and no generational wealth to fund a massive vision, so who were we to think that we could really shift the affairs of the city?

But we stepped out in faith and developed our 10-year plan with David Mullings and Jennifer Bailey. I moved back home to Jamaica, and we took a small another step forward, first presenting the concept at UWI’s Imagine Kingston conference in 2017.  We formed a core team with Doris Gross and Dr. Kim Marie Spence.  Very rapidly, a group of 100 volunteers and creatives came on board, who all played a critical role in hosting Artwalk festivals and monthly meetups, painting murals and driving this vision forward.

We registered a nonprofit company in 2019, then a charity organization, and were able to raise money to fund operations.  This would not have happened without the support of who we term the First 50 Founders, individuals and companies that donate one million a year because they want to be a part of the transformation of Downtown and the economic growth that they believe creative entrepreneurs and the Orange Economy can deliver.

Since 2017, we have painted 101 murals, opened a Downtown coworking space, launched the Artwalk -a monthly public arts festival and created a cultural tourism destination in Water Lane that is now listed on Tripadvisor.  This street art pathway connects the Institute of Jamaica museums on East Street with the National Gallery of Jamaica on Orange Street, and the talent of these artists has brought many visitors into this part of the city.  Our main partners in these developments are the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), Sherwin Williams, the KSAMC, the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), the CB Facey Foundation, and the Kingston Restoration Company (KRC), but it is important to note that none of this would have started without the time and money contributed by ordinary Jamaicans, both here and in the Diaspora.

Ours is a vision of “people and place” and with partners including IDB Lab, DBJ, PIOJ, JAMPRO, HEART and Sagicor we invest heavily in developing creative people.  We have delivered over 5,500 free training opportunities, enabled 9 artists to go overseas on travel grants, developed an ecommerce platform called Kulcha Connect, developed an online directory of creatives called Caribbean Creative Network where the world can now find over 409 creatives – and hire them.  We have hosted four editions of Best Pitch forward, the first pitch competition exclusively for Jamaican creatives where $2.2 million in seed capital has been granted to creative entrepreneurs.

Formalization is critical to the development of the ecosystem, and Kingston Creative, with the support of IDB, JIPO and Companies Office of Jamaica, has helped 104 creative entrepreneurs to register their businesses and intellectual property.   We conceptualized a regional programme called CATAPULT (www.catapultsarts.org) which gave support and grants of $73 million JMD to 1,535 creatives from 27 Caribbean countries during the COVID-19 years, when artists around the region were at their most vulnerable.  This we accomplished with a tiny 4 person team and by partnering with Open Societies Foundation, American Friends of Jamaica and Barbados-based nonprofit, Fresh Milk.

We have engaged with 20 Downtown Communities and 8 Downtown Kingston community tourism locations have been supported by the tours that we offer.  Most of all, we have made a small dent in shifting the public perception of Downtown Kingston, along with our media partners the Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaica Observer – both of whom are fully committed to turning around the old city and reducing the stigma.

If there are any secrets to our success, the first is, without question, people.  We have a committed, talented team, an amazing Board, and many advisors and truth tellers that keep us on the right track.  We also have visionary partners and advocates within the private and public sector and multilateral sphere, not least of all the Ministry of Culture and its agencies like the Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Music Museum – we are thankful for all the great people that work there.

Our second secret is imagination. We give ourselves the room to imagine a positive, creative future for Jamaica. We balance that big imagination with practicality and persistence.

Our third secret is small consistent action.  The movement is not known for flashy pronouncements and massive projects, but we come together to take tiny actions, sometimes imperceptible baby steps to get us closer to that future that we imagined.  We stay centred by never forgetting our mission of empowering creative people, so that they can succeed, gain access to global markets, and create wealth for themselves and their communities.   We hold as a beacon to inspire us, our vision of Kingston as the Creative Capital of the Caribbean.  We always know who we serve – a community of creatives and the beautiful old city of Downtown Kingston.

Often, I am asked, where did all this come from?  The story starts in Glasgow Scotland, where I was born to a Trinidadian mother and a Jamaican father in the era of Black power, surrounded by Caribbean people and some legendary parties where the music of Bob Marley played late into the night.   I lived with my grandparents there in the 80’s, who took me to bookstores, where I spent hours just sitting on the carpet luxuriating in books which are still my first love, with visual arts, drawing and painting as a very close second.  I grew up walking to school and roaming the streets freely in a safe city.  We frequented the art galleries and museums, and it was normal to see free public art in theatres, public spaces, parks and gardens, where friends played, families met and memories were made.

The second chapter of the story moves to the USA, where I became a licensed professional structural engineer working on multimillion dollar city redevelopment and historical preservation projects in Washington DC.  I worked my early years in Miami, in the Design District, on 2^nd Avenue, near Little Haiti, where now a famous Art District called Wynwood stands, and the change is incredible to have witnessed. There is also some valuable Jamaican public sector experience, the years when I was the Director of Technical Services in the Ministry of Water and Housing, responsible for over 90 joint-venture housing developments across the island and the squatter management programme, which took me into some very depressed communities in Montego Bay and of course Downtown Kingston.  I have worked in private sector corporations like Gracekennedy and Digicel, both Downtown-based companies, where skills in strategy, projects and managing multimillion dollar USD budgets were honed. Finally, I am an entrepreneur coming from a long line of entrepreneurs starting with my Grandma in Falmouth (Big up to Miss Richie!) and I started Bookophilia in 2008, a bookstore and café on Hope Road where I started to really understand the needs of the creative community and where Kei Miller, Marlon James and Anthony Winkler read, and where a young Protoje, Jah 9 and Kabaka Pyramid would have all performed.

The idea for Kingston Creative came from these diverse experiences, and it is fueled by the collective passion that every other single person in the movement has for this cause.  And now, in year 7, in abandoned spaces and the neglected back lanes of Downtown Kingston, we see a real Art District emerging.  Upstairs in Swiss Stores, above the F&B Downtown restaurant, we have building a creative hub coworking space – a Home for creative entrepreneurs, where they can have the space, training, investment, funding, recognition and the respect that they need to succeed.

The approach of using Art for Social and Economic transformation is not unique. Street artists have changed neighbourhoods and governments have invested in the Orange Economy and cultural tourism and reaped the benefits before.   Other cities have invested in building the infrastructure, supported placemaking projects and invested in revitalization.  This is nothing new – but it is a proven strategy that works.  If we can apply it here in Jamaica, it can have a number of critical benefits:

• It can uplift artists and artisans from inner city communities, not just in Downtown but in similar communities across the island.
• It can diversify our economy through growing the Cultural and Creative Industries like film, fashion, culinary arts, dance, literature, and music.
• It can make our tourism product more resilient – cultural tourism is a viable and lucrative addition to the offering of sun, sea and sand.
• It can instill new pride in the parts of ourselves and our capital city that we try to hide.
• It can employ young people, offering a viable alternative for them to gangs, violence and scamming.

Kingston Creative deals with issues of grassroots empowerment and use of public space, which is disruptive. It challenges colonial mindsets and notions of ownership and frankly speaking, these structures just aren’t challenged enough in our society.  In the Arts, gatekeeping was the norm, where a select few can determine which artist is worthy of accolades and which might be permitted entry into elite gallery spaces, and which might earn. But when the gallery becomes the street, young unknown artists are selected through an open call, and then these young artists are hired, just on the basis of their work, not the validation of gatekeepers – and they are paid millions for their talent.  This is resistance.

 In closing I want you to close your eyes and imagine with me for a second. Imagine if we had a legal and governance framework that really facilitated the success of our creative people, and that promoted the status of the artists, and the growth of the Orange Economy. Imagine that we had a policy, plan and funding for the development of cultural spaces across the island, rules that ensured that our built heritage can’t be knocked down by private interests, and that we encouraged the transformation of privately held, under-utilized spaces into viable creative spaces.

Imagine further that it was a national priority to build fit for purpose creative spaces, theatres, museums, new galleries and state of the art festival spaces. Imagine millions of people coming to our island to appreciate reggae and other cultural offerings. What if we provided the necessary makerspaces, studios and creative spaces for both the production and consumption of the arts?

What if we advocated for the access that creatives need; access to visas, ease of movement and travel, and challenged the geo-restrictions, so that our artists had full access to the technology and digital tools that they need to compete globally.

What if creative careers and creative education was a year-round priority and that pesky “A” in STEAM was consistently present, and the school kids that are the dancers, actors, singers, songwriters, musicians and poets, didn’t feel like outcasts.  Imagine if these talented kids knew that there was an ecosystem to ensure their success in Jamaica, just knew that they could… like anyone else… work hard at their craft, buy a house, educate their kids, have full retirement funds, health and life insurance and if god forbid, they did fall ill, that their family could deal with it in a dignified manner without handouts and charity.

Imagine or just a second, what would happen if our young artists, especially those from inner city communities, knew that they were valued and that there was a real place in society for them, that they didn’t have to migrate, and that we valued them and that as a country, we were strategically organized to promote their success.

I often ask myself, where would we be as a country if we really believed in ourselves and in our cultural supremacy (which is so obvious to the rest of the world) and not only believed, but followed through in a structured, practical way.  Where would we be today, if instead of simply singing along to “One Love”, we embedded the necessary guiding principles, policies and legal frameworks for development of the Cultural and Creative Industries and real transformation for us as a nation.

Thank you for imagining with me.  This small act of imagination and action – this is resistance.

History is a subject I never studied in high school, but I always appreciated. ‘Black History’ or African history were my favourite topics as a teenager. As my love for music grew and I started making it, its development over time, naturally, became an interest. Being a Jamaican, I was familiar with Mento, Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, Dub and Dancehall, but I wanted to know the details of who did what, when, where, how and why. Strange to some, but not uncommon for many in my generation, my love for Hip Hop outweighed my appreciation of any other form, including Jamaica’s indigenous genres. If I ever had any doubt or reservation about my love for ‘foreign’ music, I was given assurance and confidence in knowing the culture’s forefathers and some of its greatest contributors were Jamaicans or the children of Jamaicans and other Caribbean people. This is why history is important.

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I know I envisioned it for myself in some form when I was younger, but I didn’t see myself being a part of history quite the way I am now. You may consider me to be ‘underground’ (a badge I wear proudly because that’s where art has to be authentic to thrive) and I am not a full-time working artist as I strive to be. However, somehow, I have found myself on stages overseas, in a recent national advertising campaign, mentioned in books and the subject of academic papers. Not bad, considering I used to be told that rapping in Jamaica would get me nowhere. All of my achievements have been without a record label, a manager, a publicist, a ‘producer’ (in the Jamaican sense where one is expected to invest in and ‘buss’ an artiste) or any major investor or sponsor. I cannot take credit for everything and say I have never received advice, help or support, but I am the quintessential example of an independent artiste, and, more precisely, a DIY (do-it-yourself) artiste. That often means playing all the previously mentioned roles, plus many more. I took control of my career and put the wheels in motion whereas I found that many Jamaican artistes had a mentality of waiting for things to happen or people to do things for them, and no concrete plan that they could execute for themselves. As a Hip Hop artiste in Jamaica, I quickly learned my artform wasn’t viewed the same way Dancehall or Reggae was, and the traditional avenues for music were not open and welcoming to my genre. It was not so much a case of people not liking Hip Hop or not liking me personally, or my music necessarily… they just did not believe in it. This includes other artistes, industry insiders and even friends. Hip Hop in Jamaica just did not appear to be a nice bandwagon to ride, and it still is not. Chances are if you are a Five Steez fan, it is because you genuinely appreciate my character and/or my work, and not because you think I am the biggest thing or the next superstar. I love these fans the most because human beings can be fickle. Some people ‘lose offa’ an artiste when they don’t become as successful or famous as they had hoped. For me, as a true fan of music, as long as the artiste’s work is good, I will still be listening and following. Getting support doing Hip Hop in Jamaica was not easy. Like many artistes have experienced, radio play seemed to be garnered mostly through connections and payola, if you were not already established or popular. In 2007, a series of live events catering to Hip Hop, or at least embracing artistes of the genre, emerged (I chronicle these events in this article on my website). By early 2009, my peers and I also discovered that while radio wasn’t an open field for us, local cable television was. One of the first music videos I appeared in was Get Down. It was then we began releasing visuals that were shown on Hype TV and RE TV, as well as the traditional TVJ and CVM. While we had some opportunities to perform, there was little community ownership of these events and the platforms eventually fizzled. The year 2010 was incredibly pivotal in my journey and that is when I stated making a name for myself as Five Steez. This is when I start my official story, although my closest peers will tell you I was first called Five Star and belonged to a group called The Bulletproof Army (The BP Army / BP). Nomad Carlos of The Council was a member and so was Simon the Writer (then Simo-B) who is now more recognised in the local creative scene as a poet and the main organiser of The Apollo Series. Many developments took place in 2010. Like many creatives have done or wish to do some day, I took a massive leap of faith and left the corporate world. I returned 3 years later, but what I was able to accomplish and learnt over the period is invaluable. I definitely lost out on income at the time, but I laid a foundation for the path I am on today. The time I had at my disposal and the passion within me led me to working as a part of the non-profit organisation Manifesto Jamaica (MJ). It was Simon the Writer that told me about this initiative for some time before I joined. I remember my first MJ meeting and it was the energy I heard expressed that made me feel I was around the right people. I was also interested in the organisation’s connection with Manifesto Community Projects in Toronto, which has been staging what is now the largest urban arts / Hip Hop festival in the Canadian city. I was Simon’s assistant for the Literary Umbrella. With Simon overseas that summer and MJ ramping up fundraising efforts, I found myself leading on the execution of the ART’ical Exposure series which was held at Bookophilia. These were the first art/music events I ever helped to organise and, interestingly enough, staging events has become a part of what I do now. Being a rapper, and being based at the now-non-existent Gambling House Recording Studio (which was regarded as the Mecca of Hip Hop in Kingston), I did my best to incorporate rappers I knew. When the final and third staging of ART’ical Exposure was held, it was a major moment for the local movement as dozens of rappers performed to a supportive crowd of hundreds and it received good press. The Gleaner article days after was my first media mention, highlighting my performance that night. Later in 2010, I released my first mixtape The Momentum: Volume One with New York city underground radio icon DJ Ready Cee. Although I had a project in 2008 which may be known to some familiar with the underground scene in Kingston at the time when I had the moniker Five Star, I consider this to be my first release. The journey continued with more mixtapes, performances and press, leading up to 2012, which was momentous due to the creation of Pay Attention, Kingston’s premier Hip Hop event which ran until 2015, and the release of my debut album War for Peace. Pay Attention was first held on April 21, 2012 at Heather’s Garden Restaurant, just a two-minute walk down the street from Gambling House Recording Studio, which was at 21 Haining Road (now, a car lot). It had four stagings there until it moved to Juggz Sports Bar and Grill (formerly Christopher’s), downstairs the Quad Nightclub, and then Funky Munky on Holborn Road, before settling at South Beach Café in March 2013. While the movement started before, it was there that the brand really took shape. The release of War for Peace was another proud achievement. It received great reviews locally and internationally. The one that stood out the most to me was the iTunes Editors’ Notes, not because it said anything particularly magnificent, but because of what it meant for an outlet like that to review an album from a ‘nobody’ like me, an independent artiste making a genre in a country with no industry for it (or its own genres for that matter… but let’s not go there now). The album was also featured on the front page for Hip Hop as New & Noteworthy. With War for Peace available, Nomad Carlos having Me Against the Grain out and Pay Attention in full swing, The Council (before we were The Council, but were just members of the Pay Attention Committee) came together to host The Takeover in December 2012. This stageshow paved the way for Pay Attention to take on a new life, The Council to be formed later and for my working relationship with Mordecai to begin. At this event, The Sickest Drama (TSD), Nomad Carlos and myself performed Kingston Invasion, a track we did on a Mordecai beat and released just days earlier. Me and Mordecai went on to release HeatRockz in 2016, Love N Art in 2019 and will release HeatRockz 2.0 this summer. One of the things I took from my experience with Manifesto Jamaica was how we could create our own platforms. I saw the need for the Hip Hop community to have its own space and that was a major motivation behind the foundation of Pay Attention. Always keen on the Jamaican Hip Hop identity, we helped to spread the term ‘First Coast’, which is essentially the idea that without Jamaica-born Godfather of Hip Hop DJ Kool Herc going to the Bronx, there may be no Hip Hop as we know it today. It is also a term we use for the local movement and even the island of Jamaica itself. For years, we shouted this term… TSD, especially, at the top of his lungs, as he hosted many stagings of Pay Attention, and The Apollo Series, in more recent times. Today, I am confident people will be embracing the term ‘First Coast’ a lot more. In March 2019, The Council gave the presentation ‘First Coast: The Jamaican and wider Caribbean involvement in Hip Hop’ at The Trinity International Hip Hop Festival at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. We have also been accepted to do the same at the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) conference The Legacy of DJ Kool Herc: Celebrating the Jamaican Roots of Hip Hop, which has been postponed to October due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I am also discovering that my career and work is the subject of some of the submissions that have been accepted. I hope the event does take place, and I also hope UWI is exploring a virtual option in the event that it cannot happen physically due to the ongoing pandemic. In any event, we will be submitting a ‘First Coast’ paper for the conference’s anthology to be published. I may also do a similar presentation at another international forum to which I have been invited for November. Now, earlier this year, we could truly say Hip Hop came full circle when DJ Kool Herc himself returned to Jamaica for the first time in decades as a special guest of honour at the Jamaica Music Conference. I wrote this article ahead of his arrival to articulate what I believe this meant historically. I also had the distinct privilege of not just meeting and building with him and his sister Cindy, with whom he held Hip Hop’s first block parties, but also sitting with them at the conference’s media briefing to speak a little about what he means for Jamaica, Hip Hop and the local community. Of course, I explained the term ‘First Coast’ for the audience. That was definitely a surreal moment. It was almost like we spoke it into being. That was February. A lot has changed since then. Many plans are up in the air right now for creatives worldwide because of the new pandemic, myself included. Fortunately, my full-time job does not appear to be at risk at the moment and I am able to work from home. My efficient weekday time management and the lack of traffic (which took up 2-3 hours per day of my pre-COVID life) is giving me more time for myself. Add that to my crazy work ethic in general, my determination to make the most of this ‘downtime’ and my slight anxiety that I, too (and you!), could die during this pandemic so I need to do as much as possible (I’m feeling like Tupac on Death Row Records right now LOL)… I am getting a lot done! I am now at my peak of physical activity and creative output since I was around 18, and I am also improving my business and financial acumen, while tying up loose ends. This year started strong for me and I am not going to let this Coronavirus slow me down or discourage me at all. I intend to build on and leverage the familiarity that Jamaicans now have with my face and voice as a result of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica’s What If advertisement, in which I am featured as a rapping teacher. Last year was excellent as I released two projects in one year. In addition to Love N Art, there was the Pantone EP with French beatmaker J-Zen in October. This year, I could do the same. By the time this is published, I should be close to releasing HeatRockz 2.0 and should have finished recording an album with Brazilian producer Sono TWS. I should also be at work on another project that will remain secret until the time is right. One of the next steps I’ve been exploring and researching is organising my own tour, or at least, more festival appearances. This is definitely where COVID-19 has wiped out much of what was possible for 2020. I am not deterred, however, as I will be using the time to learn the ins-and-outs of getting and being on the road, while creating and marketing online my brand better than before. My intention is to have new product, all my business in order and to be ready to take on the road by the time that travel and large gatherings resume. I am very hopeful that mankind will find a way to defeat this pandemic and simply make it a moment in history that we know will never return. It is just that we are very early in a fight against a new virus and we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel as yet. We will get there, I’m sure.

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In these uncertain times, I know some of what I have in store, but there is so much we cannot predict. My journey as an artist will continue. That includes writing (like this) and (maybe not so much again now) organising events. One of the things I’ve learnt in my journey is that you don’t always know when you’re making history or being a part of it. I always tell artists to stick to their vision if they truly believe in it. If people don’t get it, find those who do. I have also found it important to tell your story and document the journey as I am doing here. As a Hip Hop artiste locally, I’m prone to being overlooked or my story being misrepresented so it is essential to me, from a marketing perspective, to control my own narrative and influence others’ perceptions. These articles I write at times about my artistic journey and/or Hip Hop in Jamaica are not journal entries, although they revolve around me and I try to be very conversational and open. These are, in fact, historical documents, for those who are interested in Hip Hop culture, as well as music in Jamaica. I can do only so much, however, and these writings are small fractions. It’s funny, I always loved history, and I tried my best to study whatever aspects of it were most relevant to me. That included history about race, ancestry, nationality, culture and music. Now, I find myself writing history. And who is more qualified to do so but the one that is actually on the frontlines making history too? The journey continues… First Coast -The Jamaican and wider Caribbean involvement in Hip Hop

“Embracing the Feral in the Concrete Jungle of Kingston”

Isis Semaj-Hall

As a Jamaican writer-scholar, I am inclined to begin a discussion of Chain of Love: Rice and Peas Bush in Lower South Camp (2024), an ecological public artwork by visual artist Camille Chedda when and where Jamaican theorist Sylvia Wynter^[1] begins 530 years ago, in May of 1494 when the Tainos of Yamaye discovered Columbus and his men offshore in strange cloud-tipped canoes. This land’s first people could never have imagined the imposition and exploitation that was to come. They could not have anticipated the planting of flags – first Spanish, then British; nor could they have foreseen diasporas of people forced from Africa and lured from Asia. The fruits, flowers, and fronds stowed on European-commissioned Jamaica-bound ships from Africa and Asia, all for the sake of feeding colonial husbandry, could not have been predicted as the Tainos gazed out on the not-yet-warmer and not-yet-polluted waters of their island home that was not-yet-losing landmass under climate change’s sea-level rise.

Why examine a 21^st-century art installation through a 15^th-century perspective? I begin here because centuries of abuse, exploitation, and neglect continue to impact us and our environment today. But through new and meaningful partnerships, there is a way for us to survive and bloom anew. Through the arts and culture nonprofit organisation Kingston Creative’s^[2] participation in the Global Co-commission,^[3] an international initiative foregrounding subaltern community knowledge, contextualising the global climate crisis, and driving collective action in public art in urban spaces, Chedda’s Chain of Love installation can plant seeds of community-building possibilities.

The title and theme of the Global Co-commission is A Feral Commons, which refers to the co-dependences and collaborations between humans, plants, animals, and water. What history does the word “feral” hold for a postcolonial place like Jamaica? For many, it recalls those Africans who were freed and who freed themselves to the hinterlands of this island. The Spanish called them “cimarrónes” because these formerly enslaved people were deemed “wild” and feral for stealing off to live free in the island’s densely forested, mountainous, bio-diverse, and colonially inaccessible interior. But Jamaica’s cimarrónes, later anglicized as Maroons, survived because of their knowledge of their environment and their ability to coexist with nature.

I begin with this historical grounding because today, in the legacy of colonialism, plantation devastation, industrial/ technological/ and digital revolutions, and a worsening climate crisis that will unevenly impact small island states like Jamaica, we, like the Tainos, are facing the possibility of annihilation. Just as it was for the Maroons in the 16th century, today, our future as Kingstonians depends on our ability to work with nature. Our chances of climate survival in this urban space depend on the actions we take now to shift away from the abuse of nature and towards building a respectful and reciprocal relationship with our natural environment.

In 2015, Kingston became a UNESCO-designated creative city of music. Decades before, the world came to know Downtown Kingston through the voice and lyrics of Bob Marley of The Wailers, who sang out in 1973 that this place is a hard and difficult “concrete jungle” where few can survive.^[1] In a way, Chedda extends the possibilities of the “concrete jungle” through her vision to reinvigorate a community park at Tower Street and South Camp Road. In partnership with Kingston Creative, residents of the community, and local government representatives, Chedda’s vision for an equitable and beautiful multi-species community space blossomed. But true to Kingston’s “concrete jungle” reality, the road to fruition was hard and hot.

This park’s community has seen an unfair share of violence. Meetings with residents were sometimes difficult as people had concerns for their safety. The park needed repairs that could only be completed by elected officials, so when local elections were held during the park’s rehabilitation, the change in representation meant unavoidable delays. Still committed to the community and the project, Chedda persisted and forged relationships with the men, women, and children she met in and around the park. She came to know residents like the community gardener Mr. Peary, the cookshop-keeper Miss Madge, and the well-respected and well-loved Mas Joe (Joseph Manning).

For many in the community, Mas Joe was synonymous with the park. Chedda learned that he planned the park decades ago, and he installed the ironwork that borders the space. On any given day, he could be found there with a warm smile and a gentle spirit. So, when Mas Joe passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Easter Weekend 2024, during the planning and installation process for Chain of Love, sadness swept over everyone in the space and people working on the project. With this heavy loss, Chedda’s artistic vision had a chance to prove its restorative power. Even before the project was complete, it provided a space of solace and comfort. Her installation of a metal-arch-topped cement structure was designed to give the wild Rice and Peas bush (Antigonon leptopus) a way to climb overhead. It also functions as shaded seating for park-goers to look at photographs of people in the community who worked together to create this “feral commons.” Under the metal-meets-plant archway, the cement base blocks frame what are now deeply sentimental images of Mas Joe’s last days. Because of his role in the park’s original development, Chedda planned to include his likeness in a mural panel, but with his passing, her painting of him evolved to honour his legacy in the community. Sitting in or walking through the commons, the mural depicting Mas Joe’s warm eyes and smiling face can be seen and felt.

Alongside Mas Joe, Miss Madge’s cookshop is also featured in one of the many murals painted by Chedda and a group of volunteer artists from the community. Large images of residents’ dogs, cats, birds, and a very large rooster are brightly painted on the commons’ back wall. Depictions of children and adults resting on blankets and benches invite passersby to do the same. Connecting the mural’s panels are paintings of the pink-flowering vines of the Rice and Peas bush. As a common fast-growing plant on the island, the Rice and Peas bush had taken over this downtown park during its years of disuse. Pretty but not ornamental, Jamaican gardeners tend not to invite Rice and Peas bushes into their botanical spaces. But this feral plant has both nutritional value (the edible seeds are used as a substitute for making the eponymously named dish Rice and Peas) and medicinal value (the leaves are brewed for tea to relieve cold symptoms and menstrual cramps). Rather than remove the bush and the ecosystem it supports (bees, in particular), Chedda left much of it untouched. While the northern area has been de-bushed to accommodate people and an herb garden, the commons’ southern area remains fully feral. The Hope Royal Botanic Gardens and the Forestry Department donated mint and basil plants, as well as flowering bougainvillea and plumbago plants to line the commons’ footpaths.

Where once there was a park that had fallen into wild disrepair, now thrives an active public space revived by art. In this community park, neighbours now gather in the shade to reflect, and when needed, they can nourish and heal themselves with medical and edible plants that flourish in the space. With climate concerns graduating to climate crisis realities, this ecological public artwork invites the community to return to the land, to their roots for sustenance. In this “feral commons” new seeds of climate resilience have been planted. Environmental caretaking now rests in the able hands of the community, just as it did long ago. To survive, people and plants must coexist in the concrete jungle that is Kingston.

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^[1] Here I refer to Sylvia Wynter’s book chapter: “1492: A New World View,” Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View. Editors Vera Lawrence Hyatt and Rex Nettleford. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, pp. 5 -57.

^[2] Kingston Creative was founded in 2017 to nurture and support the creative ecosystem of Downtown Kingston. For more information, visit https://kingstoncreative.org/ourstory/.

^[3] A Feral Commons is the central theme of the Global Co-Commission, an initiative by Alserkal Advisory in partnership with the Global Cultural Districts Network and supported by Urban Art Projects, please visit https://aferalcommons.com/the-global-co-commission-2/.

^[4] See Orlando Patterson’s article: “Slavery And Slave Revolts: A Socio-Historical Analysis Of The First Maroon War Jamaica, 1655 – 1740.” Social and Economic Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, 1970, pp. 289–325.

^[5] As sung by The Wailers on the reggae classic “Concrete Jungle” (1973, Island Records, UK).

 

Read More: ‘A Feral Commons’

The Journey from Reggae Music Mecca to Creative Economy Hub.

Jamaica has long been a cultural mecca, with over 4 million visitors per year coming to its shores to soak up the sun and experience the culture. This is the birthplace of Bob Marley, reggae music, and no less than five other major music genres, including dancehall, ska, rocksteady, dub, and mento. The creative talent isn’t just limited to music as Jamaica also has a creditable showing in dance, literature, film, visual arts, the culinary arts, and craft.

Poverty and crime, seen at its worst in the inner cities of Kingston, appears quite at odds with Jamaica’s cultural reputation. A common misconception is that Jamaica is doing well, having earned significant income from its reggae music industry. The reality, however, is that most of the economic activity (recording, publishing, distribution) that drives the Jamaican music industry is domiciled offshore.

Wikipedia’s list of international reggae festivals lists 136 events – all located outside of Jamaica. Jamaica does have two major reggae festivals, Sumfest and Rebel Salute, and by comparison, Italy has 16. While a few individual Jamaican artists may do well from touring overseas, most local creatives struggle to make a living. Over the years, the lion’s share of the earnings from Jamaica’s culture, accumulated in other countries, leaving Jamaica underdeveloped.

Globaleconomy.com reveals that Jamaica’s ranks second in the world for ‘human flight and brain drain’, out of 177 countries, achieving a rating of 9.5 out of 10 in 2023. As both the business and the audience are overseas, it is no surprise that artists of all types frequently migrate, contributing to the crippling brain drain experienced by the island and depleting the cultural sector of talent.

But all is not lost. Jamaica can still turn around its fortunes and it is betting on its cultural capital to take it there. Attention is being paid to developing creative entrepreneurs and aligning the policies needed to spur Creative Economy growth. Investments are being made to provide the funding and infrastructure that artists and creatives need to monetize their talent. The informality of the sector is also being challenged, as new programmes actively encourage creative entrepreneurs to register their businesses and their intellectual property, at no cost.

The recent developments augur well for the future of the cultural and creative industries; from a billion-dollar Film Fund to free creative training, creative coworking spaces, and a new Art District being developed in Downtown Kingston. The vibrant murals in Water Lane created by a young cadre of artists and animated by augmented reality, are spurring the rapid growth of cultural tourism in once desolate back streets.

Behind the scenes, this change is being driven from the bottom up, with a complex raft of multilateral, public, private and third sector partnerships as well as Jamaica’s extensive Diaspora lending support. It appears that the potential of the creative economy to deliver much needed growth is now being understood by the creatives themselves, as well as the policymakers. Concrete steps are being taken to ensure that the local ecosystem is improved, so that with the next wave of art and music emanating from Jamaica, the creators, artists and local communities hopefully will be the ones that benefit.

As a small island nation of only 2.8 million people, Jamaica’s musical and sporting icons have no business being global household names. The true power of Jamaican culture goes way beyond the entertainment value or even the possibility of culture delivering economic growth. Jamaica’s culture speaks to its people, its heritage, a turbulent history, a sense of fierce independence and social consciousness – powerful messages of “one love” that the world has embraced, and which Jamaica must do everything possible to preserve.

Author: Andrea Dempster Chung, March 2024
Photo Credits: Verrol Blake