The MoBay Underground Arts Movement

“We live in cities you'll never see onscreen, Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things, Livin' in ruins of a palace within my dreams, And you know we're on each other's team”
Lorde: Team

“Don't you think that it's boring how people talk, Making smart with their words again, well I'm bored, Because I'm doing this for the thrill of it, killin' it… It's a new art form showing people how little we care (yeah), We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fear”
Lorde: Tennis Court

I know the word underground cued you in to this article! So you wanna know what is “the underground”? Well it is the cutting-edge output of writers, musicians and artists linked to together by the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) of Montego Bay today and operate more or less outside the margins of what mainstream artsin Montego Bay and Jamaica has come to be known. Now during the last century, the vast majority of music you heard and bought was controlled by a small number of companies: record labels, radio stations and other dominators of the media. So too with the art you see, it is run by a small cabal of tastemakers and custodians. Artists need them to reach the public and the public’s choice was prescribed by what these gatekeepers believed could best turn a profit or suited their inclinations. Today, however, a networked world is giving artists and audiences the tools to reject those companies forever.

The arrival of illegal filesharing on Napster  at the turn of the century changed everything: it was a collision between a new format (MP3) and a new distribution system (the internet), both of which sat outside of the control of the traditional music business. It made the first dents in the arts and culture cartel and gave the underground a hotline to a global audience for the first time. Social Media platforms learned from this and focused on doing one thing well: community (Facebook, Twitter), video (YouTube), audio (SoundCloud), sales (Bandcamp), ticketing (Songkick, Dice), self-serve distribution (TuneCore, CD Baby), alternative funding (Pledge, Patreon, Kickstarter) and so on. In time Google image searches,Deviant Art, Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest would do the same for visual art. For the last two decades, if not even longer, modern Jamaican art has been trapped in the vicious circle of pastiches and appropriations. The art world was full of neo-somethings, post-isms, and meta-artistic phenomena. Conceptual art, minimalism, the revival of the abstract, all these movements were more concerned with conditions of their own existence, self-referential and approachable only through art theory. Modern Jamaican art spoke only to a limited circle of educated people and even they are getting tired of its senselessness.

Today’s underground in Mobay is an eclectic mix and hybrid of intellectualism and energies ignorant of academic discourse and theory, immersed into our real and current everyday reality which contemporary artists ignored, naturally has become a movement attractive to many. Also, it is the only movement that emerged in the last 15 years or more that wasn’t just a revival of some other historic art traditions. What we have here is not a harkening back to Barry Watson or Claude Mckay, not a reggae revival as the artistes in Kingston have engineered but a kind of Afro-Caribbean Futurism. Furthermore, the aesthetic diversity of Mobay’s art practitioners is welcomed in the art world dominated by monochromatic canvases and empty spaces.

Music and art today are highly democratic because of its rootedness in public, communal spaces and social media spaces. The social, political aspects and critical connotations sre to be praised owing to the fact that contemporary art has lost its sense of the social surroundings. When on display at the National Gallery West has on display Art like “How to Kill a sound boy” and “We should keep her”, it seems contrary to what artists and artistes on the ground in Montego Bay Jamaica are doing. Kill a sound boy seems an assault on the musical artist and begs question of sexuality. While a piece that would suggest we have kept the Queen, seems a slap in the face to all the street poets and artists that believe in our ability to govern our own destiny and chart an Afro-Carribean future. It would seem a reneging on the zeal of our predecessors.

“The mass media and mainstream are too expensive and soul sucking for the underground artist. Renting a gallery for exhibition isn’t cheap. There are too many compromises. Too many people telling you how you should be doing things.” Hence, the greatest painters and musicians and poets are rarely on TV as to be invisible, never ever in daily newspapers, and not even in the same universe as advertisers.

Montego Bay’s Underground art is emerging as rebellious owing simply to its exclusion, so expect it be connected to subculture lifestyles, hostile toward art institutions, with anti-capitalist, social and political undertones. The flowering of Montegonian underground art is strongly dependent on the communities and local reception. It originates on a neighborhood and community level, addressing local issues and communicating messages in-situ. Globally, urban art like no other movement in recent art history gained praise and recognition everywhere and the most intriguing thing about it is that it was equally appreciated by the large art loving audience, elite collectors, and art professionals. It is a puzzling fact then it is left behind as Montego Bay presents itself to the world?

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student. Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

The Economic Fringe

"Outrageous behavior, also known as the lunatic fringe, is the seed bed of innovation and creativity."
~Joel Salatin

The other day I had the rare opportunity to speak to my councilor. Needless to say I wasn’t heartened. Instead of hearing me out, I was placated and plastered with all the JLP party had been doing, and not much listening to us about what needs to be done. He also went on to elaborate about youth and employment, which he had a rosy and glowing portrayal of the situation. However that is when dissonance crept in… what I have been seeing is not a massive employment sweep for youth but a growing trend sweeping the youth and the most vulnerable to the edge of society and to the brink of existence, a place close to poverty and a life as vagabond or vagrant. Young adults today earn half of what they would have made 20 years ago. The labor market problems of young workers are disproportionately severe; they include higher than average unemployment and relatively low earnings when employed and this does not bode well for our future.

Since the late 1970s, social science researchers, the media, private foundations, and policymakers have directed considerable attention to the labor market problems of young adults and their families. It is noted that there has been sustained drop in earnings which has especially dramatic for young adults with no postsecondary school education. Most proposed remedies have emphasized the quality of the labor supply. But improving education and training, while often worthwhile and necessary, is not by itself sufficient to raise earnings. If this downward trend, which has persisted through recession and recovery alike, is to be reversed, then policymakers and educators must address the demand side as well as the supply side. Raising young adult wages will require not only better academic performance, training, apprenticeships, and school-to-work programs, but also full-employment policies, changes in the configuration of jobs and careers, and larger young adult union membership.

ECONOMIC ADOLESCENCE

The steep downward trend in the earnings position of youngsters has lengthened the period of "economic adolescence," during which young adults are working but not earning enough to be economically self-sufficient or capable of supporting a young family. This development has, in turn, had a number of damaging consequences for young men and for society at large. Among the effects of this protracted adolescence are:

• a sharp increase in the age of first marriages;
• lengthier stays in the homes of parents;
• a rise in young single-parent families;
• reduced economic support of children;
• the increased economic attractiveness of drug sales and other illegal activities;
• the sustained rise in the numbers of young men incarcerated in jail and prison.

Tell me now you don’t know someone who meets one of these criteria… it may just be you yourself? Don’t get me wrong I do not believe that economics is destiny,though I do believe that changes in the labor market can in large part account for these wider social phenomena.

For wages to grow on a sustained basis, workers’ productivity must rise, meaning they must steadily produce more per hour, often with the help of new technology or capital. Further, workers must receive a consistent share of those productivity gains, rather than seeing their share decline. Finally, for the typical worker to see a raise, it is important that workers’ gains are spread across the income distribution. If wages are rising but the increases are all going to the best-paid workers, the typical worker doesn’t see a gain. Two of these conditions have not been met, which explains the fact that productivity has risen while the median wage has barely changed.

Assigning relative responsibility to the policies and economic forces that underlie rising inequality or declining labor share is a challenge. International trade and technological progress have played significant roles, putting downward pressure on the wages of low-skilled workers. For example, as imports from low-wage countries made inroads into the manufacturing sector, job losses in Jamaican manufacturing were substantial in some areas. At the same time, local manufacturing has learned to produce more with fewer workers. Both developments generated widely shared benefits in the form of new products and lower prices, but also led to dislocation of some workers and downward pressure on less-skilled workers’ wages.

We also know that educated workers have fared better; the wages received by those who finished their education with a four-year college degree grew. While increasing educational attainment has helped to raise wages for many workers, it remains the case that the majority of Americans have not completed a four-year degree. Hence, domestic policy choices have mattered, too, especially because they have affected workers’ bargaining power and the allocation of wages across different workers, examining the bargaining power of a Freezone worker, little to none.

It took many factors — some the result of deliberate policy choices, some the outcome of broad economic processes — to produce decades of wage stagnation for the typical worker. Similarly, it will take many incremental reforms and new policies to reestablish the conditions that support robust, broadly shared wage growth. There is no single wage growth panacea, but many policies would help, including: raising the minimum wage; increasing worker bargaining power; ensuring adequate labor demand through looser fiscal or monetary policy; increasing dynamism through pro-mobility or entrepreneurship policies; and making broad improvements to education or productivity policies. Given the longstanding trends and limited improvements in living standards for many workers, taking action to increase wage growth is one of the most important policy imperatives we face. If we don’t create solutions soon we will soon see many in our social circle continue to be pushed to the edge...

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student . Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

The Emergence of the State

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
~Arnold H. Glasow

As Jamaica’s hyper-realism continues, it is most evident that the city and parish’s state of emergency is little more than a Public Relations stunt designed to abate the fears of those who don’t really live the average Jamaican’s reality.  Hyper-realism is the young art form of creating illusions by enhancing reality. As a political philosophy, it is the reliance on spectacle and well-orchestrated exploits which combine the showmanship and force in order to transcend the need for a coherent, well-articulated political agenda. I hold on to the belief that we need better policing and forensics. Instead of empowering the cries that they get rid of INDECOM. The use more brute force seems counterproductive, we need instead to seek a socio-economic solution. Now imagine the police and soldier are at a funeral in Mobay and all about the city in full force, yet it never prevented the killings, then there is the matter of this bogus hocus-pocus wanted list... tell me we don’t need better intelligence. Is the crime on the rise because of government naysayers and is it state of emergency naysayers and their ill will and negative energy that caused the blatant killing in view of Jamaica’s magnifying glass on us? Is it the naysayers and not a failure in our political imagination? For we are working and operating on the assumption that states of emergency and curfews have ever curbed crime. Show me stats that prove that. We are working based on the assumption more police and brute force will let crime relent. Show me the data to prove that.

We understand to a great degree that poverty is not the source of crime as the redistribution of wealth now seems to be. Scamming came to be seen as reparations in the eyes of some, for the social void of slavery and 400 years of free labour. Wealth which could no longer be secured in the illegal drug trade even though there is an opioid epidemic could be secured from America suckers and naive elderly folk and relocated to the marginalised black male and poor scammer. This has resulted in massive social shifts, upheaval in the social order and exponential rise in murder. But we must understand that lack of access to the economy in a sensible way is what prompted scamming. Compounded with an archaic and out of touch failing education system, confounded by the political class, this cauldron of skullduggery is bubbling and has yielded the Montego Bay we have now.

Aren't wealth, access to wealth, access to the economy economic problems, education and our culture of violence, misogyny and narcissism, aren’t they the factors and social ills that lead to miseducated, undereducated and immature boys that find illegal access to wealth and power? Boys who end up using this great power with no real sense of responsibility. Isn't that a socio-economic beast? Must these issues not be addressed. It was alleged that ZOSO would be followed up with social intervention. I can remember of none with the exception of some government official saying Mt Salem was full of prostitutes. Will the State of Emergency even actually have a socio-economic component? Does the State of Emergency stop the white collar components of crime?

At the start of the millennium Montego Bay had a moderate murder rate, what existed then was a vibrant Narco-Trafficking industry, drug mules, smuggling and airport or wharf drug busts were the news. Then came Operation Kingfish to disrupted a criminal empire and network in the bay. Drug Barons fled or were extradited. The minions who always had guns but were not involved in spontaneous gun crimes because the Dons was cashy, now had to resort to extortion, contract killing and armed robberies. In the wake of no social intervention and being left to suck salt through a wooden spoon, crime mutated. And the youth sought out new routes to financial power. So after all this police and brute force… with little or no social intervention what comes next… what will fill the coming void?

I can say however the state of emergency has cut and curbed downtown traffic, and in general, diminished the general sense of lawlessness that is so pervasive in Montego Bay; see the illegal petroleum bust. The reduction of lurkers etc., however as we have seen lawlessness and crime, especially violent crime, just aren't the same thing.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

In Defense of INDECOM

Today we live in extraordinary times when unprecedented events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world. Scamming, youth apathy, bleaching, waves of crime and violence. This is a time and place where those in power and control seem unable to deal with the issues of the day, and no-one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future. It seems paradoxical and contrary to me that the government is unable to negotiate payment of the Police yet now, for the sake of political grandstanding, for public relations relief our Prime Minister has proposed to pay the legal expenses of Police who are under the scrutiny of INDECOM, undermining the same institution his party predecessors implemented. Simply for political expedience, human rights gains are reversed.

I can see no logic to this as 1. this position doesn't fix the economic/wage, social and psychological problems within the police system. 2.This position takes an adversarial stance to INDECOM. Positing that the agency goes "too far" with regard to police oversight. In practical terms, INDECOM is one of the few human rights steps we have taken to have a major effect in the country on the ground. 3. INDECOM is not an impediment to crime fighting. To truly fight crime we need one an accountable an effective police system. One which we know is free of corruption, one which is paid properly, trained properly. We need a system of comprehensive forensics and follow up of an investigation. The fight against crime requires a more efficient legal system and justice system, the removing of a corrupt judiciary, not more laws, but the execution and carrying out of the laws we do have with greater speed and efficiency. The work of fighting "crime" which is an intangible and nebulous thing or concept, takes substantive efforts in the spheres of education, culture and economics, not public relations fluff, not political grandstanding. Fixing the country is real work.

The police is a very old institution in this country, with a history of policing over a slave class and second class citizens. Let us not forget one of the early display of police brutality and state force in the Coral Gardens Incident of 1963. Let us not pretend that the history of the police was to use force against newly freed slaves to protect the interest of the former plantocracy and that legacy of force has morphed into a present day where the police have become apathetic with regard to doing the actual work of investigation and follow up, but would rather just shoot first and ask question later if ask any at all. I know many good police officers, some who employ community policing and social approaches, but believe me, they are far outnumbered by the epidemic of brutality and corruption that has infected the police. It is common knowledge that power corrupts, so we must now ask "who watches the watchman" another common expression. Oversight of the police is necessary and a must.

Those who decry INDECOM have forgotten the social circumstance that led to the birth of INDECOM, years of Braeton 7, Kraal Killings, Kentucky Kid, an age when there was less technology at our disposal and even less precision in law enforcement. A time when the police force was simply a BLUNT instrument when innocent lives could easily be swept up in the murder of flat-footed alleged criminals being executed on sight. A time when the good suffered at the hands of the police with the bad, when respect for the citizenry outside of "Risto-dom" was nil, when police were contemptuous of domiciles with zinc fences or board houses. When civil liberties were trampled with impunity and extrajudicial killings were protested on the news nightly. What is required today in Jamaica is a more clinical Jamaica Constabulary.

Are we to pretend all the international reports about our police and policing don't exist? Are we to pretend all the national enquiries and commissions pointing to inadequacies in our policing body and methodology don't exist? Are we to forget the brutal display of force in the May 2010 Tivoli incursion? There are not that many agencies the public can use to challenge the state administratively or constitutionally, shall we erode one of the few? Then what next, dismantle the office of The Public Defender? We cannot let fear of crime cause us, to cowardly erode our own social gains and civil liberties, we should instead rise to the challenge of doing the hard work of rooting out corruption, implementing better-policing tools and methods, fixing the judiciary, fixing the economy! Let us not follow the Prime Minister in taking this cowardly path out of fear and for political expediency. Please let us not!

Activism and Advocacy in Montego Bay

Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

~Rebecca Solnit

True advocacy is born from culture, not technology or marketing.

~Jay Baer

Activism and advocacy are words that aren’t too big (as every other week somebody tells me I write with too many “big” words). They are often used interchangeably, and while their meanings and definitions do overlap, they are distinct and different concepts. An activist is a person who makes an intentional action to bring about social or political change. Samuel Sharpe was an activist who challenged the slavery systems in Jamaica which culminated in the Christmas Rebellion. Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who challenged racial segregation in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. An advocate, on the other hand, is one who speaks on behalf of another person or group. Shaggy is a Goodwill Ambassador of sorts who uses his talent and fame to advocate for the Children’s hospital. Activism, in a general sense, is intentional action to bring about social change, political change, economic justice, or environmental well being. This action is in support of, or opposition to, one side of an often controversial argument.

Now, what does all that have to do with Montego Bay? I’ll get to that shortly but I want to give more clarity to the word “activism” as it is often used describes protest or dissent, but activism can stem from any number of political orientations and take a wide range of forms, from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism (such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing preferred businesses), rallies, blogging and street marches, strikes, both work stoppages and hunger strikes, or even guerrilla tactics. An advocate can also be involved in controversial activities or issues, but because they are speaking on behalf of a group, they tend to be more likely to follow the paths of lobbying and legislation.

Is there activism in Montego Bay? Yes… especially the political kind, with councillors in the municipal corporation lobbying for political points. But that isn’t the kind I am talking about today. I am talking about activism and advocacy in the social and economic sphere. The brand of activism that tries to impact lives and uplift communities. Activism increases people’s confidence in making a difference, it improves governmental quality and leaders’/leadership accountability, it is the spark of extra-governmental change and many times throughout history it has revealed the immorality of laws like for instance the Civil Rights Era.

Activism has played a major role in ending slavery, challenging dictatorships, protecting workers from exploitation, protecting the environment, promoting equality for women, opposing racism, and many other important issues. Activism can also be used for aims such as attacking minorities or promoting war. Activism has been present throughout history, in every sort of political system. Yet it has never received the same sort of attention from historians as conventional politics, with its attention to rulers, wars, elections, and empires. Activists are typically challengers to policies and practices, trying to achieve a social goal, not to obtain power themselves. Much activism operates behind the scenes.

There are many varieties of activism, from the face-to-face conversations to massive protests, from principled behaviour to the unscrupulous, from polite requests to objectionable interference, and from peaceful protests to violent attacks.

Activism in Jamaica can be a pretty unglamorous thing, owing sometimes to apathy and funding. Me, personally I am an advocate for my community, Paradise and Norwood, for Open source, for Linux, for socialism, for pan-Africanism, for Rastafari, for senior citizens and youth. On any given Sunday I can be found at Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society (RCGBS) meetings, Residents Association meetings, Youth Club meetings or about some other community-oriented issue. The world of activism can sometimes be a slow and boring place, of talk, talk, talk, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, letters to the editor, press releases, sponsorship letters and more letters. Movement and change can be slow, but I have found these places are the only place meaningful social change occurs. The RCGBS is the most meaningful vector of change within the pan African community in western Jamaica, with the success of the Prime Minister’s apology to its belt. The Paradise Youth Club, when it was most robust and had the full attention of my sistren Venise Samuels, it was the most unifying factor in the community and gave us the biggest community sports day, and most importantly a sense of hope.

Most inspiring to me though is the Senior Citizens Association, who of all the groups is an all women cast. Why I find them, most inspiring, is because I didn’t realize how much they had been doing within the community. They semi-adopt kids and sponsor some their schooling, keep prayers at all the nurseries, entering art and craft competitions, being apart of a bigger national Senior citizens body, etc. For some reason, all this blew my mind in a small way. For one it escaped my notice, and two it really hit me that most of the women in it, had in some real way given their lives to community and here and now at a ripe old age, in a day and age that can seem monstrous beyond belief, there was a cabal of women, the “gentler” of our species, at the frailest time of their lives, defying odds and convention and opposing the ugliness of modernity. If that isn’t activism and heroism I don’t know what is.

What I do know is… people are becoming better educated and less acquiescent to authority, and therefore better able to judge when systems are not working and willing to take action themselves. Today's political systems of representative government are themselves the outcome of previous activism. If these systems were fully responsive to everyone's needs, there would be no need for activism, but this possibility seems remote. For political systems to co-opt activism, activism would need to become part of the system, with techniques such as strikes, boycotts, and sit-ins becoming part of the normal political process - a prospect as radical today as voting was in the 1700s. When that happens, we can anticipate that new forms of activism will arise, challenging the injustices of whatever system is in place.

So who are you today? Are you advocate or activist? If any? You can advocate on behalf of a small group or large group and make a significant impact as one single person. Remember that you alone can make a difference.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social/Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com