Election 2025, North West, St. James

From the Montegonian News Desk here's what you should know about the potential face-off between Horace Chang and Allan Bernard in the 2025 election for the North West Montego Bay seat:

Candidates:

• Horace Chang: The incumbent MP for St. James North Western since 2002. He represents the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Chang is also the current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security.
• Allan Bernard: He is the People's National Party (PNP) candidate for St. James North Western. Bernard is a community development specialist and UWI lecturer. He has been involved in community work for over 30 years.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqziQgnJq2c)

Key Points and Issues:

• Chang's Experience: Horace Chang has a long political career, starting in 1976. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Western Hanover and North West St. James, and has held ministerial positions.
• Bernard's Background: Allan Bernard has a background in policy and development, having worked with organizations such as the Organization of American States, the European Union, and the United Nations Development Program.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cebhTNoq0YA)

• PNP's Strategy: The PNP is banking on young aspirants like Bernard to break the JLP's control in St. James.
• Bernard's Confidence: Allan Bernard has stated that he is not afraid to challenge Horace Chang, a political heavyweight. 

(https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/02/15/pnp-banking-young-aspirants-break-jlp-control-st-james/)

Campaign Issues: Bernard intends to challenge what he views as "down-trodden policies" of the current government and improve the quality of life for people in North West St James.

(https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2023/10/31/if-i-dont-trod-rastafari/)

Legal Battles Over Campaign Signs: In April 2025, the St. James Municipal Corporation removed PNP campaign signs, leading to legal action by Bernard and other PNP candidates. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the PNP, halting the removal of their signs 

(https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/06/10/putting-right-back/)

(https://our.today/tag/allan-bernard/)

Bernard's Vision: Bernard emphasizes empowering the people and ensuring a better quality of life. He believes the PNP will win the upcoming election.

Rastafari Tenets: Bernard has stated that he will uphold the tenets of Rastafari in his political representation.

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Learn more:

1. [Horace Chang - Office of the Prime Minister](https://opm.gov.jm/cabinet_ministers/horace-chang/)

2. [Jamaica Labour Party - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_Labour_Party)

3. [Horace Chang - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Chang)

4. [Horace Chang - Jamaica Information Service](https://jis.gov.jm/government/ministers/dr-horace-chang/)

5. ['If I don't trod Rastafari' - Jamaica Observer](https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2023/10/31/if-i-dont-trod-rastafari/)

6. [Allan Bernard: I'm Not Afraid to Face Horace Chang - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqziQgnJq2c)

7. [ALLAN BERNARD- PNP CANDIDATE NORTH WEST ST JAMES: A TRUE VISIONARY FOR THE PEOPLE - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cebhTNoq0YA)

8. [PNP banking on young aspirants to break JLP control of St James - Jamaica Observer](https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/02/15/pnp-banking-young-aspirants-break-jlp-control-st-james/)

9. ['We putting them right back' - Jamaica Observer](https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/06/10/putting-right-back/)

10. [Allan Bernard - Our Today](https://our.today/tag/allan-bernard/)

Songs written for Montego Bay City: A Musical Exploration of MoBay!

My Top 9 Montego Bay Songs

The history of Montego Bay Music and Montego Bay in Music is a very long and storied one. A history too long for this post I have intended... At this moment I wanna peep at songs written for MY CITY, Montego Bay City! Why investigate the city by song you ask? Well...rumor has it that there is a song for every city in America. Many such songs never get further than the city limits others became international hits. Gerard Kenny’s 1978 ode to his hometown ‘New York, New York - So Good They Named It Twice’ spelled the re-birth of America’s largest metropolis after it almost went bankrupt in 1975 and one year after a city-wide blackout shut it down for 25 hours. So the ethos and the brand and the identity of a city we see can be inextricably linked to song and music. In Jamaica the focus is mostly on Kingston, granted Negril gets some good mileage in "Cottage in Negril," and "I want to go to Negril", Linstead is indelibly etched into Jamaican memory via the folk hit "Laad What a Night.. what a Satiday nite!"

Memphis, Tennessee is touted to be mentioned in more songs than any other city in the world, “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn is the one that readily springs to most people’s minds, and coincidentally is the song that inspired me to write a million unsung Mobay songs... but here are some songs titled and inspired by Montego Bay

Before Kartel ever did the Mobay Anthem there was Crazy Chris' anthem... "Welcome to the Second City". A song that marked the fact that western Jamaica was taking the dancehall by storm and never step back from the limelight. This lyrical story is a gritty tale of the guns in the community of Montego Bay, its edgy, rough and raw!

Hezron has this year join the list of artistes that are championing Mobay!

In this next grimy song, by Vybz Kartel though not from Montego Bay, takes us on his detailed and "informative" tour of crime ridden Mobay communities as well as listing all the dons much like a crime noir novella!

 

Popcaan, while in Kartel's tow, seems to have picked up some affection for the second city as well!

 

This Montego Bay song by Queen Ifrica is to The Montegonian, the definitive Montego Bay song. Folksy, yet reggae and pop-ish, it has strong lyrics, vivid site choices in the city, it is grassroot and has local authority!

 

My next favourite Mobay song is by none other than the lyrically profuse and verbose, Lij Tafari... This Montego Bay talent I think is easily on par with Damian Marley lyrically, and is as fresh as Kabaka Pyramid and Protoje.

 

Bobby Bloom as a North American came to Jamaica and found his inspiration in which city?

The rest of the songs that follow are covers of Bobby Bloom's song and give unique and various sonic signatures to the song that make it somewhat their own...

 

 

 

Chikungunya Chikungunya!!!!!!

JAMAICA NOW: Ebola alert ... Changes to ganja laws ... Chik V emergency ...

Reggae Sumfest 2013

Reggae Sumfest...

This year, the 21st year of Reggae Sumfest will take place July 21 to 27, 2013. Dubbed The Greatest Reggae Show on Earth, the Festival is expected to again attract thousands of patrons from Jamaica and the rest of the world to Montego Bay. Music lovers from all over are invited to come to the Festival and celebrate this milestone in Jamaica's musical heritage!

Threnody

“crossing that bridge with lessons I've learnt, time is a space between me and you”
~Seal: Prayer for the Dying

“Those who are dead, are not dead, they're just living in my head”
~Coldplay: 43




Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Morning, I hope you'll be still enjoying the lovely weather when you get a chance to read this, be huddled at that seat at the shop, or sombrely warming up to that shot of JB which you'll be happy to have excuse to drink, “A Wedda, A Wedda! U nuh see seh time chilly.” Or maybe you're on your verandah, I hope the breeze doesn't hamper your reading too much, but where ever you are I beg and beseige thee, take a very solemn walk with me, a path some of you maybe vaguely acquainted with, some of you not so acquainted with. Our scenario today reminds me of a Stephen King series I read named The Dark Tower. It is a tale of a Gunslinger, who has seen all his friends die and seen his country and his lovers, home and family dessimated and is on the chase to reach a place called The Dark Tower, to defeat a Red King and call out the names of all his fallen friends and reset or restore the order to things. And some things stood out in that book for me and one was an expression he used frequently to describe the changes that he saw took place in his world, and it was this “The world has moved on.” He never said from what, but it was from the point he had marked as the better years of his life.

Now death and loss are things I've always known of, however in my early twenties I realized that I was ill-prepared for it. Because I never realized that as early as 19 and 20, so many of the ones I knew would be gone, and I've come to realize that I have lived under the naïve belief that me and all my friends would grow old, but now I know better. This year I've had to learn of death all too intimately.

A threnody is a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person. The term originates from the Greek word threnoidia, from threnos (lament) + oide (song). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European root wed(uued or ooed)- (to speak) that is also the forefather of such words as ode, tragedy, comedy, parody, melody, and rhapsody. And that is what this article is gentle people all across the land. My Threnody for Paradise Lost. I don't know if it is because we are in a leap year or what but the tragedies this year seemed a many. It all start last year this time. Decemeber 7 to be exact, when a police battalion rolled through Paradise and killed one Cedric Thorpe, also known to many as Goosey. I had seen him, just an hour before, stood and spoke, then continued my journey downtown, by the time I had reached the top of Union Street, people were talking about a Goosey dead, and I paid it absolutely no mind, after I had just spoken to him, must be another one. By the time I was at Perry Street my phone was ringing of the chart, “Yuh hear she dem just kill Mankind!” That set the trend for the year to come, I would be standing out by Likkle Dread loitering before getting food when a friend of mine Homie's father would drive pass in his little red car as per usual, stop get a cigarette at the shop up the road, he would complain of not feeling well, and I would watch him drive off in his little red car, only to have a heart attack and crash less than 4 seconds later. He would drive off into a column and crash and die of heart complication. Just like that life will blindside you, and it is just earth runnings and the way of the world, and leaves us to wonder, what is man...

I would later have to watch my close parri, suffer through the loss of his mother. Then to bear witness to some kind of secret wars being waged in Paradise and watching innocent and young lives spin out and spill out in bloodshed, and then to not really know, what secret games and deeds they had played and been punished for. To watch the life of Sticky Bean get snuffed out for mistaken identity on a rainy day, to hear Bess a shopkeeper's life being wasted away at 6:50 in the morn while drinking tea, to get up the following morning to hear a pretty little girl you watch grow, offer proper council and advice when you could, Madeeks, get wasted away at the same taxi stand you and everyone whoe probably knew her, all before the age of 20. To then watch the spirit of a community die. Shortly after some respit from the urban prowl only to return and hear my good friend, a very spirited old man, very short thin and pixie like, full of verve and life a man that sat amongst thieves, murderers, weed heads, rum heads, youths, gun toters and average Joe's, a Roman Catholic at that, who would always be in spirited debates with me and my entourage about politics and God, and it was always good natured and never got bitter, no matter who we persecuted his belief or angle. His name was Dandy... and he lived by that name, he was always dandy. No one knows how Dandy real died, he just became ill, thin and died. In the space of 2 months that I had not really seen him, he just upped and died. Then there are Jerome (Amoy) and Gwangy (who the front page of the Mirror named Wong by some error in calculation or translation and they even gave him a career as a cane vendor). They gave away their life carelessly by persistent pursuit of bad things. But they were human, they had families and friends, some of whom I am very close to, I knew them. They died. Byron Balfour who I knew, he wasn't fond of me who wrote next to me in the Mirror write on the next page there, so close to me in some regard he died too. And my cousin/unlce on Tate Street... my fallen friends and soldiers are many.

Most days I feel like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, weeping for all the sorrows I've seen in this world, all the lives we must touch and live to see shattered, for all those who curdle up on the street, under taxi stands and make the concrete jungle their posture pedic, for all my friends who have tossed way their lives to coke and now roam the town like ghosts for all that to die, for it has said, many more will have to suffer and many more will have to die, don't ask me why.

I close with a Peter Gabriel song “I Grieve,” 
“it was only one hour ago
it was all so different then 
there's nothing yet has really sunk in 
looks like it always did 
this flesh and bone 
it's just the way that you would tied in 
now there's no-one home

life carries on 
in the people i meet 
in everyone that's out on the street 
in all the dogs and cats 
in the flies and rats 
in the rot and the rust 
in the ashes and the dust 
life carries on and on and on and on 
life carries on and on and on”

Yannick Pessoa
yannickpessoa@yahoo.com
http://yahnyk.blogspot.com