‘Dancehall Professor’ Says Much Of Jamaica’s Music History Documentation Lies Exclusively In Hands Of Foreigners
A leading professor in culture at the University of the West Indies (UWI), is contending that longstanding prejudices against Dancehall, Reggae and Jamaica’s other music genres, has resulted in much of the documentation of the island’s musical history being undertaken by foreigners, many of whom refuse to share the content with the nation unless they are paid.
Donna P. Hope, who is Professor of Culture, Gender, and Society at the UWI, made the observation during a recent radio interview with former Principal Director of Culture in the Ministry of Culture, Dahlia Harris, and her co-host Wesley Burger during their Two Live Crew show on Radio Jamaica. The segment was aimed at highlighting the late pioneering deejay U-Roy’s, contribution to the development of Dancehall and Reggae music forms.
The professor, who is also known as The Dancehall Professor due to her extensive academic work and publications about Reggae and Dancehall, made her comments after the hosts expressed disappointment that the construction of a Reggae Museum has not materialized.
Burger had also added that he had seen on various occasions in the past where overseas journalists came to the island to meet with some of the artists privately, but that he was “wondering how much locally we are able to capture some of the work and the history”, separate and apart from what the University professor has been doing.
“You know Burger, the challenge we have faced, historically over time, with our music… and other aspects of our culture, is that documentation and archiving of our culture is something that we have not necessarily paid much attention to. It costs money and it costs time. You have to have the time to devote to it. You have to have the resources,” Professor Hope said.
“Museums take up space; you have to get the material in – and also sometimes I find that the will to do it, the interest in it is limited, very small, because there are still prejudices against the deejay, the Dancehall form – the different forms of music. I mean, we only get to a point in our history now where we are actually able and willing to connect positively to Rastafari music, Reggae and these forms. At one point we rejected it outright and what happens is that when something is existing in that kind of vacuum, others, from external places, foreigners come in and deal with it,” she explained.
Professor Hope said foreigners had taken advantage of what the Jamaican powers that be had failed to do, by visiting the island and taking full advantage of opportunities to interview artists and other players in the music industry and document these, in most cases for profit.
“So we have far more work going on, for example, video documentaries, and these films that are being done by foreigners. So they come here; we the people of Jamaica and the artists are the extras. I put a microphone on you and a camera on you; they do a documentary, you see it come up on Netflix. Look in the credits, there are no Jamaicans involved, except as the actors,” she said.
“So the ownership reside elsewhere. And you would be surprised that some of the times, you want to use them, they tell you, you have to pay for it… Because they come here; the raw material is lying around all over; it is accessible; people are very willing you find, to put their faces on a camera and their mouths on tape machines – and those tapes will be taken elsewhere – especially when there is a white foreigner behind it, and I am saying this very deliberately. Sometimes they are not as willing when somebody who looks like them asks,” she said.
Added Professor Hope: “And the images go away from us and sometimes some of these things are locked away from us. And these people get more grants, they are able to access a lot more of the large grants.”
The professor said it is imperative that the history of the music be preserved for posterity, as many millennials were growing up oblivious to who many of the vintage artists are, and of their contributions.
“When I am getting students now, they are 19 and 20 so they are born after 2000. Three-quarters of the people we are talking about, they don’t knows who they are. Where do they get the information? It is not being taught to them anywhere in school. It is not coming in the media much because the media is under siege. Jamaican media has to be competing now with everything coming from elsewhere including Instagram and Snapchat and Tik-Tok,” she argued.
“In the meantime, people are doing their best to put the information down. We are trying our best to at least make it available and not go in terms of the way that we are doing it now – talking in the media- but also documented so people can go and look at it.”
Professor Hope also said she believes that the relevant powers that be ought to begin to officially pay homage to its musical and cultural icons, especially when they reach an advanced age. She also found solace in the fact that U-Roy had been bestowed with the Order of Distinction by the Government of Jamaica, and had also been honored in 2019 as the King of Dancehall by Irish and Chin, and crowned by Shabba Ranks.
“I want us to start celebrating the lives of our icons, especially once they have passed the three score and 10 and moved on beyond that age. Because it is a difficult time for us,” she said.
“We give thanks for his (U-Roy’s) life and his immense contribution and for developing genres not just in Jamaica, but also the connections to the other genres – Hip Hop, Reggaeton and other genres. And I hope that the Dancehall artists of today are also paying a little attention to someone whose work in the music industry provided the platform on which they all stand today,” the professor added.