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

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Minister of Freakonomics: Lisa Hanna!

How Can a Youth Minister Support Abortion?

May, Child's month not even fully a month behind us, and our Minister of Youth is endorsing eliminating youth... it seems somewhat absurd, if not paradoxical.

This reality reveals much of what is wrong with public policy discourse in modern Jamaia. Our politicians lack character, insight and vision, that is why they will endlessly regurgitate white America's intellectual drivel. A 10 minute Google would have shown our dear Minister of Freakonomics that the abortion-cut-crime theory has not even come close to meeting the burden of proof, but, instead, she like a lot of  our nation's intelligentsia fell inlove with the theories perpetuated in the book Freakonomics by Donohue and Levitt. Being innumerate, most politicians, presstitutes and the punditariat are willing to dupe the proletariat, the masses. It is easier to simply engage in intellectual yes-man-ship and take a guru figure like Levitt on faith, than even ask a local statistician or economist. A few book reviewers, like James Q. Wilson (America's leading expert on crime for several decades), expressed deep skepticism about the books propositions.

It amazes me that in todays day and age, an influential person such as our Minister publicly endorsed the theory, when a bit of diligence with Google would have shown her it was dubious, if not racist and prejudice.

It is an attention-grabbing theory, to be sure, possibly even more noteworthy than recent research indicating that liberalizing abortion increased pre-marital sex, increased out-of-wedlock births, reduced adoptions and ended so-called shotgun marriages.

But a thorough analysis of abortion and crime statistics leads to the opposite 

conclusion: that abortion increases crime.

There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term.

A theory such as the one by Ms. Hanna has far reaching social, political and moral implications and, as such, needs to be rigorously debated and researched. The intent of this letter is to illustrate that, although the abortion-crime theory gained much attention and popularity in the United States, Donohue and Levitt’s findings are not apparent and obvious, nor are they indisputable, hence ought not to be taken as fact.

The criticism of the book's conclusions need to be given as much attention and consideration as the findings and arguments originally put forward in the book. Indeed, much of the research done after Donohue and Levitt’s study was published disproves the abortion-crime theory and casts serious doubt on whether such a link exists at all. Since then several times in articles, Donohue and Levitt acknowledge that a number of factors may have contributed to the falling rates crime rates during the 1990s. So why do we follow blindly American schools of thought?

Indeed many in the academic community contend that Donahue and Levitt’s research suffered from methodological flaws. As The Economist noted, “Donohue and Levitt did not run the test that they thought they had.” Work by two economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, found that, when the test was run correctly, it indicated that abortion actually increases violent crime. John Whitley and I had written an earlier study that found a similar connection between abortion and murder — namely, that legalizing abortion raised the murder rate, on average, by about 7 percent.

We need to be doing our own research and not slavishly following North American trends of thought.

Montego Bay Job Listings and Classifieds for Mid-June!

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5. Jam Radiator Cottage Road, Montego Bay needs Radiator Repair Expert. Must have experience in field. Tel 979-6495 leave info.

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Montegonian's Take on Tappa Issue!

The Montegonians Take on the Tappa Issue!

Burrel must go..., that Old Big Belly Barrel must roll, not Tappa's head. Like Jack Warner... and di whole a di FIFA old boy's fraternity, JFF is a dinosaur... proned to chronic and systemic problems which hamper the Reggae Boys more than coaching inability.

Where was tuffy? Whose ideology is it to use bare foreign ballers? Why do local coaches still get paid less than foreign ones? Why are we still imitating Brazilian football, when Spain and the Germanic countirs are on top and playing a better calibre of ball?

Aye Captain stop chat BS before mi bun down di bakery... as Tappa neighbour/or just member of the same community... Paradise/Norwood a dat me a seh!

We nah seh Theodore perfect but come on man... stop look fi scapegoat... go tek JFF problems to Azazel.

Mobay have Tappa headback covered on this one...

Who Protects Brand Montego Bay?

Brand Montego: Part 1

The City has to Develop and Protect it's Brand

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well. Jeff Bezos

“There is more similarity in the marketing challenge of selling a precious painting by Degas and a frosted mug of root beer than you ever thought possible.”
A. Alfred Taubman

Imagine the words Montego Bay, instantaneously it brings to mind, relaxation, coconut and palm trees, white sand beaches, sun and sometimes even sex - it's one of the most powerful images in the Caribbean. So how is it, dozens of companies use the name to sell products – Payless is notorious for selling a brand of sandals called the Montego Bay Club, there is even a foreign band full of white boys called Montego Bay Band, A Freemason pub of some sort in England with the Name Montego Bay littering the menu- so I put it to both the government and the public now, that we start considering seeking protection for Brand Montego Bay, under intellectual property, through trademark and copyright.

Freemasons Arms Pub... on the Menu Montego Bay Chicken Wrap!

We must consider that in today’s environment cities compete amongst each other for talent, business and human resources. In many ways they have to act like commercial entities by selling themselves to potential customers – business investors, visitors/tourists, the working and creative classes– as successful, vibrant, forward-looking brands. Simply put they have to market themselves as the place to be, project an image of tomorrow and betterment. At the same time that image, that name, that identity must be guarded. Just as commercial entities, have lawyers and make legal cases on issues of copyright and trademark infringement. So too must local government and even central government entities now seek to protect the Brand Montego Bay and Brands of Jamaica.

How do a group of white boys in America or is it England become the Montego Bay Band?

Intellectual property rules offer the potential to provide a valuable source of income for people in developing countries, who tend to get only a small sliver of the profits made on their goods on the international market. Do we profit from made in China T-Shirts that say Montego Bay. NOPE! Montegonians are not getting value. Their image and name is being abused. Consequently I saw a study that detail through study of Mobay and other areas, how Brand Jamaica has mostly benefited entities like Puma, whilst craft vendors and small businesses flailing in the harsh economy.

Montego Bay City must re-examine its role and function, as well as define its appeal to ‘citizens/consumers’, at the same time protecting the name and the Brand of the city for the citizens. Our city must distinguish itself from our competitors (Kingston, Portmore, Ocho Rios) and position our self as a recognizable brand in an increasingly regional and international market place. Port of Spain, San Fernando, Bridgetown, Kingstown are all Caribbean cities vying for status and international cosmopolitan appeal, so what of us in the Bay?

I noted on twitter that a few Kingstonians started noticing that “Mobay look like farrin” and that “any time mi waan go farrin mi go Fairview, Montego Bay.”

Here is an excerpt of Mobay through a foreigners eyes

“Downtown resembled a cross between America and what we would picture as rural Africa. The streets were full of activity. People yelling, laughing, buying and selling items. Playing music. Their skin was black as tar and beautiful. Their hair was the epitome of natural. They wore clothes that we would have worn in the early 2000’s but did their best to match it up.”

From instagram.com (via @RudeboyRJ) - June 3, 4:05 PM

What is the vision of Mobay, what is the vision for Montego Bay, who protects the name Montego Bay? The name Montego Bay has been already been branded and used and bandied about like there is no tomorrow, but Montegonians haven't seen the benefits.

I put it out there that Montego Bay is the biggest cultural brand in the Caribbean. When I travel abroad, Montego Bay always seems to be the more popular Jamaican destination and known location. So those companies using the Montego Bay Brand in ways that really do enhance their business, they use the name to make association with luxury, comfort, sun, breeze and such... so it's reasonable for the Montegonians to ask, Why aren't you coming to talk to us? Why aren't you asking our permission? Why don't you engage with us?

The notion of cities and cultures seeking IP protection is not an entirely new one - the Native American Navajo recently brought a case against the clothes company Urban Outfitters, for use of their name.

Relying on past glory is no longer enough; As the once den like, homely Montego Bay is now becoming a metropolis and showing a citizenry acquiring the cosmopolitan lifestyles to go with it… the friendly city is now a big city, and nowhere near as friendly as it used to be. 

Today, successful companies and young talented people have lost hometown loyalties; note the influx of outsiders and outside businesses in Mobay, not to mention the ‘Spanish Invasion’. They can choose where to cluster. Cities with distinctive characteristics; be they economic, cultural, environmental or life style, and it these things that will attract the best companies and people. So now we have questions of Montego Bay’s identity and its brand identity: What are the distinctive characteristics of Montego Bay, what makes us, US?


To Be Cont’d

On Anti-heterosexuality, Anti-hetero-pathy & Heterophobia: The Unpopular Intellectual Opinion!

As the Rowdy Gays saga continues... I have seen the gay community saying The Jamaica Observer is being vindictive, for publishing the address of where the gay men had been squatting. The media's prime objective in reporting is to answer the 5 W's who, what, WHERE, why and when. I will admit the first published article leaned on some bias as is indicated by tone and choice of words, but the writer never truly crossed any line in journalistic integrity. I don't want to seem insensitive or rude on the issue but... are we now to toby to the whims of unscrupulous gay men and wards who violate the law by squatting, by being rowdy and soliciting or eliciting media attention by attacking the media. 

I say the gay community has let prejudice, colour its judgement in hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo/blue and violet. The colors of J-flag has shrink wrapped the brains of many in our national and diaspora's intelligentsia... and to oppose the homosexual lobby is to be unpopular and court the life of a pariah.
I am pro-tolerance and never promote harm to humanity, but I disapprove of homosexuality and feel a sincere attempt to shut up, lock off, label, libel and slander any intelligent opinion that does not agree with homosexuality as antiquated, draconian, non-progressive or not with the progressive liberal agenda... dunce... outdated and overly or unnecessarily militant. Is there a polite way to just say no to homosexuality! Once you show any dissent on homosexuality you are branded ’homophobic.’ While these accusation do not fill me with indignation, I know they are an inaccurate description of what I do, who I am, or how I think.

This sudden groundswell of Anti-heterosexuality, Anti-hetero-pathy, Heterophobia, Anti-hetero-philia... would seem as if they are in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. If your straight shut up. Our have no right to free speech straight people... shut up... u can have no legitimate grouse against homosexuals! The terms “homophobic” and "homophobia" are usually used by the Gay Activists and Lobby Group to discredit and inaccurately define its critics. Once someone is branded homophobic, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they are heard, and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised gay pride and ego.

But what do the terms “homophobic” and "homophobia" mean? Do they mean you are anti-music or Elton John or Luther Vandross? Or that you’re opposed to freedom of choice? That you don’t delight in listening to Diana King (whom I love dearly, I listen to her version of "Say a Little Prayer" ritually) or Freddie Mercury (everyone in Jamaica sings "Another one bites the dust)? That you have a quarrel with Shebada? Does it mean that you don’t admire the positive work of hundreds of thousands of possibly and notably gay persons who have contributed positively to the advance of humanity? Does it mean that you hate gay people? Truth be told it does not. One can disapprove of smoking and not hate the smoker, one can disapprove of homosexuality and not hate a homosexual and not be homophobic.

It is a conflation to try and say that every time someone disapproves of homosexuality or every act or event that went unfavorably for the homosexual community was or is based in homophobia. It is not just a conflation but borders on intellectual dishonesty. It is also most crucially a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those the group mind, the institutionalized Gay Lobby, international establishment has set out. If you’re not homosexual you’re a homophobic. If you don’t love us, you hate us. If you’re
not Good, you’re Evil. If you’re not with us, you’re against us.

There is this fancy attempt by the gay community to sanitize its image by projecting only the successful productive ones amongst them and distancing and disassociating itself from the so called "screbbe screbbe" ones. So that it would appear to most that gay is taste acquired by affluence or education and open mindedness, or it would be, as it is rumored Rex Nettleford once told an ironically rowdy student, whom as the case maybe  had opted to verbally abuse him as "B---Man" to which he replied, "Yes it is an intellectual disease you'll never catch!"

If one faithfully followed common homosexual propaganda you'd think all homosexuals were artsy, cultured, tech savvy, swanky sophisticated people, soft gentile people, limp wristed folk... living high above poverty in aloof safety sipping wine and nibbling cheese smoking long cigarettes at fancy shin digs...

The homosexual PR propoganda machine is well oil, lubed even and working.

If it had been GUNMEN hiding over there... The headline would probably have read "Residents call police on gunmen squatting uptown," or "Squatting Gunmen attack reporter"... If it had been RASTAS squatting there the news would probably read "Fanatical RASTA squatters attack Journalist," So why is it because they are GAY SQUATTERS we must sshhhhhhhhhhhhhh doah seh the squatters dem gay... The only reason is that it makes GAY LOOK BAD!

Sooner or later this madness has to stop.

OBSERVER ARTICLE: Unruly Gays

Behind the music on a very popular Montegonian: Jimmy Cliff

Jimmy Cliff was born James Chambers on April's Fool's Day, 1948 in the Somerton District of St. James near Montego Bay, Jamaica. He reputedly chose the stage name Cliff to reflect the heights he intended to scale in the music business. And while he belatedly became a household name in the 1970s - in the UK thanks mainly to his appearance in The Harder They Come both as an actor and a singer - it became clear to those who followed his career that his name actually came to represent artistic, political and personal struggle, rather than easily attained commercial success. 

When he was 14 years old he moved to Kingston...

Read the full article!

My Daughter and I listen to this song every morn... she even sings it to herself... it's off his latest Grammy winning album! Another good hit is "Took the children's bread and give to the dogs!

Mello FM Making Waves from Montego Bay!

As media in western Jamaica becomes a force to be reckoned with!

Montegonian Toons

Montegonian Editorial Exclusive: POLITICIANS CRIMINALISING JAMAICANS

The atrophy of socialism, social welfare, the welfare state and the growth of the penal state represent a double criminalization of poverty. Criminalising Survival, Vending, Hustling, Small Businesses, Corner Shops, Street Life Street People Street Hustling... Street children might not be securely lodged in the life-patterns that the middle class impose on young people, but their reward from trying to maintain a minimum standard of living that their parents and governments are unable to provide them is infinitely preferable to living in the absolute poverty that surrounds them, yet police and state will incarcerate them... in juvenile centres and later on in life in BIG PRISON... We know there is a Marginalised Black male, A lack of opportunity, a lack of education, a lack of funds and lack of land and access to it. We born in Jamaica and then they say you are a squatter, "wah mi supposed to do, born and float above the ground, since me cannot get any plot of land via birth right. rent an existence forever"

The government needs to stop seeing the people as a mass of cattle for culling taxes and revenue! The poor appear to be just another commodity, good, product... to be speculated, traded and profited from by the gang of bankers and political cronies

This folly continues by using a stance on Weed and drugs as an excuse to systematically incarcerate even non-violent youth. Black religious expression and such is facing serious repression. while court houses and tax office are cash collectors. They take much and give us so little.

The transition from welfare to taxfare and the proliferation of young bodies behind bars taken together work to marginalize Jamaica's black poor population, with an economy forcing them out of Jobs and no public aid, on the one side, and holding them under lock, on the other, and eventually pushing them into the peripheral [and deeply precarious] sectors of the labor market and farther on the road to poverty

We don't live in a direct or indirect democracy, in reality. We live in a police state, controlled by oligarchic forces, a two head serpent. The heads of state lack the will to HELP people out of poverty. instead we have generation that go from Cradle to Prison...

 This country is based on slavery and land grabs by a small plantocrasy. Had they been decent people, to begin with this plantation class would have asked for permission to share this land with the Tainos and or Arawaks. Instead, through force and genocide they took the land and resources and divided them up, as they did again after emancipendence, when they divided the land and this country among the descendants of slave masters and the indentured labourers and buffer classes, just as we do now by letting the wealthy determine the laws and by making slaves of the have-nots, through debt and financial slavery and usury.

If Jamaica is ever to be fixed... land reform, education reform, energy reform, economic  and spiritual reform are now absolutely necessary!

https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-montegonian/montegonian-exclusive-politicians-criminalising-jamaicans/569974083035507?comment_id=6896269&offset=0&total_comments=2

Jamaica Gleaner News - Queen Ifrica plays, explains 'Montego Bay'

Queen Ifrica plays, explains 'Montego Bay
'Published: Thursday | July 16, 2009
Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Montego Bay is Queen Ifrica's first album with VP Records.As she presented Montego Bay, her second full-length set, at her first album launch on Tuesday evening, Queen Ifrica's face and posture reflected the mood of the songs.And there was ample time and reason for the changes, Ifrica explaining the background to almost all the songs on the 13-track set in an extended stint at the podium during which she got noticeably more comfortable as time went on, engaging the large audience at Kabana, Hope Road, St Andrew.The trip through an outstanding album actually started with her voice alone, not the actual recording, as after a herald of horns, Ifrica delivered the album's title track a cappella, smiling, the audience cheering at the start and again when she hit the chorus.After the recording was played, Ifrica explained, "Montego Bay is special to me. That's where my whole Rastafari development took place." Still, she noted, the inner-city communities do not see the benefit of the 'lush' from the tourism industry.She was sombre for Streets Are Bloody, dedicating it to 20-year-old Ejaun, "a very close individual to Flames. He was gunned down by a soldier at a club". Ifrica described Ejaun's kindness, respectfulness and computer wizardry, commenting that in the society "the people who do good are the people who die like this". The song has the line "none is immune, Ejaun gone to soon".In My DreamsIfrica smiled as she asked, "Any lovers? Any husband, any wife, any matie?", before In My Dreams was played, rocking away with eyes closed and clasping her left shoulder with her right hand.And when she said "we ago step up the vibe" with Yad To The East, commenting "dis a di man whe dem sey inna Ifrica", Ifrica grinned gloriously as the rhythm hit and the crowd exploded at the opening line, "Selassie I never lose a fight yet".And so it continued, Ifrica often merging her voice with the tail end of the recordings, playfully prodding the audience to more enthusiastic applause and dropping advice on hard work, focus, purpose and the importance of teamwork to younger artistes.She has stuck to a team, as before she sang along to the recorded songs on Tuesday night, Ifrica sang the praises of Tony Rebel, giving the background to starting to work with his Flames Productions in 1998, after performing at a Garnet Silk tribute concert. And among the other persons Ifrica said thanks to was Penthouse's Donovan Germaine who "say I am a granddaughter of Penthouse, because Tony Rebel is a son".Guest speaker Kay Osbourne, general manager of TVJ, heaped praises on Queen Ifrica and Montego Bay, which she described as an awesome collection that showcases the inner workings of Ifrica's mind and soul."It is clear that this unique woman of truth has something to say," Osbourne said, taking a closer look at many of the songs. "She expresses the personal universally," Osbourne said later in her address.However, Osbourne is not impressed with much of Jamaican music being produced currently, pointing out the narcissism, exhibitionism, image manipulation and "the mere ability to attract attention is rewarded".Tony Rebel, who welcomed all to the album launch, spoke about Queen Ifrica's development, from not being able to do a song properly in the studio and having to be told 10 times what to do, that being reduced to thrice, then twice and "now you don't have to say anything".There was a time when she had to be asking producers to go on rhythms; now she is being requested. Long gone are the days when she was trying to get on shows; now there are so many offers she has to decline some."When you have someone like a Queen Ifrica standing up and not taking off her clothes I have to salute her," Rebel said.Extensive exposureIn presenting Montego Bay, Ifrica noted the struggle that her song about incest, Daddy (which appears in English and Spanish), has been going through in terms of getting extensive exposure on the airwaves, although it has connected in the streets and at live performances.When she was asked which track was her favourite Queen Ifrica did not name one, but said that the opening chant, TTPNC, is special, as "it is my whole Rastafarian belief ... That is who I am. I am a Niyabinghi woman".The recordings ended with Far Away, Lady Saw, Assassin, I-Wayne, Capleton and Tarrus Riley embracing Queen Ifrica onstage. It wasn't all over, though, as there was one more a cappella song for her to deliver, the crowd whooping for Keep It To Yourself.

Jamaica Gleaner News - Queen Ifrica plays, explains 'Montego Bay' - Entertainment - Thursday | July 16, 2009