I Am Glad SOJA Won!

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SOJA

It is perhaps portentous that the same week that the reggae industry tragically lost two founding members of The Mighty Diamonds, a predominantly white Reggae band won the Reggae Grammy. Some feel that this win adds insult to injury, and have all sorts of xenophobic and racist comments to post online, but all I can say is: Finally.

This has been a long time coming. SOJA deserved to win. For many years, the band has been soldiering on, championing Reggae in venues all across the US. SOJA has released eight studio albums, one dub album, one live album and two EPs, starting with their first album titled Creeping In in 1998.

The group is signed to ATO Records, a New York-based independent label co-founded by rock star Dave Matthews of The Dave Matthews Band. SOJA’s fourth studio album Strength to Survive is their biggest selling project to date. Released in 2012, it has sold more than 70,000 copies in the United States. The band generated over 106 million streams worldwide last year. How many other reggae acts can boast about selling north of 70,000 copies on a project?

The Virginia-based band has four Billboard chart-toppers: Poetry in Motion (2017), Live in Virginia (2016), Strength to Survive (2012), and Amid the Noise and Haste (2014). One of those albums, Amid the Noise and Haste, their sixth album, sold 12,213 copies in its first week. SOJA performed in Jamaica in January 2015 at the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival.

I am glad they won because the band deserves it. The other nominees, Spice, Etana, Gramps Morgan, Jesse Royal, and Sean Paul, were also deserving. But SOJA has been on the bulwark of a movement by US reggae bands such as Rebelution, which have been dominating the Billboard Reggae charts for years, and this breakthrough has been coming. This win gives us an opportunity to turn on a fulcrum and indulge in some good old-fashioned self-examination.

SOJA’s win is the kick in the ass that we need as an industry. Because of a COVID-19 postponement, SOJA’s Grammy win ironically has occurred in April, unofficially celebrated as Rastafari Month in Jamaica since 2017. April is an important date in Rastafarian culture as it marks the 1966 state visit of Emperor Haile Selassie I to Jamaica which occurred between April 21-24. The date April 3 also marks the anniversary of the birth of Empress Menen. So why not use April to examine the current state of Reggae today?

I don’t want to take a dig at Protoje‘s In.Digg.Nation, but I will. Since the big deal was signed, where is the consistent run of hits? Where are the great albums? What happened to the consecrated heroes of the Reggae Revival? Chronixx? Kabaka Pyramid? Is the RR movement on life support? Does it need CPR? Has its bright promise dried up like a raisin in the sun?

There is no lack of talent in Jamaica. We have great artists, and world-class musicians, and every once in a while, we produce great songs that rise about the sea of banality that clogs up the radio waves. However, the problem has always remained the industry’s glaring lack of structure, under-capitalization, and the reluctance of most artists to adhere to business contracts or adopt proper business practices.

Jamaica is a rich place for writers and performers of music. Read the dailies and you will find inspiration in the suffering of the people. All of the factors that make a great incubator for a national movement pushed by great music still exist: Oppression. Degradation. High food and fuel prices. Poverty. Corruption. Lack of access to health and educational resources. The teaching and words of our national hero Marcus Garvey are still relevant today, the Rastafarian movement is still alive and kicking. So where are the songs? I get several songs daily in my inbox that will never grace local Jamaican radio, and therein lies the problem.

Ask your typical reggae artiste, young, talented, and inspired and he will tell you: it is expensive to make a proper song. He cannot walk into a bank and get a loan based on the value of his future intellectual property. If and when he finally lands an investor, or a kind aunt or uncle steps forward to make the dream a reality, then they hit the wall of radio play and promotion, and that niggling problem called payola. Add to that an army of greedy, unscrupulous publicists siphoning their hard-earned cash away, and you realize their conundrum.

It’s enough to drive anyone bonkers. And I truly feel their pain.

My friend, acerbic journalist Milton Wray believes that radio remains the problem. He believes that Reggae music is heavily dependent on old-fashioned metrics because it skews towards an older audience. Reggae artists NEED radio play; streaming cannot cut it.  But what Milton Wray will never admit is that radio plays what is promoted, and too often, reggae standard-bearers don’t believe in aggressive promotion of their so-called ‘wholesome music’. They are either just cheapskates or turned off by the cut and thrust of negotiating deals to get their songs played on radio. On the other hand, the go-getters who find ‘creative (read illegal)’ ways to fund themselves, push music that reflects their one size fits all, carnal, gun-toting, get-money-now philosophies, and the selectors and broadcasters in turn foist this garbage on our reluctant ears.

Why have we allowed the scammers and deep-pocketed risk-takers with their skewed values to hijack the music industry simply because they have more money to pay for payola? Why?

We have failed our generation of upcoming artists and musicians. Where are the reggae music academies set up for creatives all over the island? Why isn’t April officially recognized as Rasta Month? Why haven’t our leaders recognized our first lady of theatre, Ms. Lou or even Bob Marley as ‘national icons’? They are creatives and their accomplishments have far surpass the qualifications of the Order of Merit, which they both already possess? Why are they not on any of the newly designed banknotes?

The answer is simple. The myopic bureaucrats and bean counters don’t recognize value of creatives. That is why the government has failed to step in to mandate that local radio stations play at least 60 percent local content on our airwaves.

In 2013, as much as 85 percent of royalties collected by the Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers Limited (JACAP) was expatriated overseas to overseas copyright holders – a serious indictment on the local music industry.

In 2020, of the $106,602,998 in royalties collected by JACAP, 35 percent—a total of $37,385,556—was paid to local interests while $69,217,442 was paid to foreigners. In 2019, 36 percent of a total of $172,321,071 collected from radio stations went to locals while a whopping $109,517,516 was paid to overseas interest, accounting for 64 percent of the total. How can an industry survive when there is such a lopsided difference in the balance of trade?

So will anything sensible be done? In the UK, Grimsby Minster’s clock has been stuck at 12:02 for 12 years. The town was facing a £50,000 repair bill but the problem was finally fixed by two bell-ringers with a £3 can of WD-40.

Reggae ain’t broke. There is nothing that exists in the industry that a roll of duct tape or a can of WD 40, or a simple, cheap, creative solution cannot fix. Let’s begin with one. We need to amend the licences of radio stations to institute a 60-40 mandate to ensure radio plays reggae music, especially young emerging reggae talents.

We need to do it now.