Jamaica Is Losing Its Cultural Architects — And We Are Letting the Stories Die With Them- By Richard Hugh Blackford
- Yaawd Media
- Feb 23
- 4 min read
One by one, they are leaving us. The architects of Jamaican music; the engineers of sound system culture, the lyricists who gave voice to the ghetto, the producers who built global genres from zinc fences and four-track recording machines. They are dying — and in too many cases, they are taking their stories with them. What is even worse is the fact that there is no coordinated national oral history project, and neither is there any systematic archival infrastructure. In short, there is no serious state-funded effort to record, digitize, and preserve the living memory of our music.
And so foreigners have been writing our stories. Foreign academics who sometimes journey to Jamaica, sometimes only have a sparse telephone conversation with someone which they use to frame our movements. Foreign publishers profit from our narratives and foreign institutions house our archives. Ironically, we say this is our culture.
If we are not keeping score, are we truly owners?
Seven Genres. One Neglected Industry.
Jamaica has gifted seven genres of music to the the world including:
Mento, Ska, Nyabinghi, Rocksteady, Reggae, Dub, Dancehall; Kingston was in 2015 named a UNESCO Creative City of Music. Three years later in 2018 Reggae was inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Yet culturally symbolic recognition has not translated into economic architecture anywhere in Jamaica. For context, Tourism has policy. Mining has policy. Agriculture has policy. Logistics has policy; so where is the comprehensive National Music Industry Policy backed by capital deployment? Where is the Cultural Infrastructure Act? Where is the Cultural Investment Fund? Instead, individual artists “try a thing.” A few break through and in the process, they carry the flag while the nation applauds but does nothing else. This is the same policy framers who use Reggae and Dancehall music to attract more than half of the four million plus visitors who visits the island annually; but refuses to tangibly invest in the industry's development.
The Hard Question
Is the neglect accidental or is it simply historical bias? The fact is that much of Jamaica’s music emerged from the so-called “dregs” of society — from inner-city communities, from Rastafari camps, and from the margins of colonial respectability. Is that why it has not received the institutional blessing given to tourism corridors and industrial parks?
The irony is brutal: Again, the very music born in the margins now markets Brand Jamaica globally.
A Serious Proposal: The Jamaica Cultural Infrastructure Bond
In 2019, Jamaica floated a bond to refinance Wigton Windfarm Limited.
The capital markets responded. Why not do the same for culture?
A Jamaica Cultural Development Bond
It cannot be that the so-called thinkers are of the view that there is no money in Jamaican music, as many have made millions off the backs of Jamaica's music. Even if the government does not want to fund these developments with Taxpayers monies, why not raise the capital through the local capital markets by floating a US$750–100 billion bond similar to the approach used to refinance Wigton Wind Farms. Surely, the local investment market is able to do that. They could then use those funds to build a National Cultural Complex that includes:
A Jamaica Music Museum & Digital Archive
A 150-seat arthouse cinema for Caribbean film
A research and documentation center
Recording and preservation studios
Restaurants and retail spaces featuring Jamaican brands
An outdoor amphitheatre with 15,000–20,000 capacity
Performance rehearsal and training spaces
This is not vanity spending, it is infrastructure; and it would signal that Jamaica understands culture as industry. In addition to that, it says that we are serious about intellectual property. That we are prepared to own our archives and that we intend intend to monetize our global brand properly.
Such a facility could become the most significant anchor for Diaspora engagement in the domestic economy as well as serving to anchor Jamaica's Cultural tourism expansion while allowing the island to take a more meaningful slice of the Conference and festival tourism markets. It would facilitate Academic partnerships and anchor the realization of Licensing revenues. Even more significant, it provides for the greater contribution from the creative economy in providing employment at better wages than Tourism jobs does.
The Economics Are Not Fantasy
Reggae tourism alone attracts thousands annually to major festivals around the world generating significant income inflows. Jamaican music streams globally in the billions, while Dancehall influences global pop. Yet the physical and institutional home of this ecosystem is fragmented.
Culture contributes to the island's GDP — but without a central infrastructure, the multiplier effect remains stunted. A properly structured bond could be partially diaspora-targeted, offering modest but stable returns. These returns could be tied to ticket revenues, concessions, licensing, and events. In addition, the facility could attract private sponsorship matching.
Nothing about this is any different from financing a highway, port, or energy plant.
The difference is mindset.
The Real Issue: Cultural Sovereignty
When our elders die without documentation, when our master tapes sit deteriorating, when our contracts are written elsewhere, when our archives are stored abroad —
we lose more than stories. We lose leverage.
Yaawd Media exists because the vacuum is real If the State will not record the memory of the architects, then independent platforms must. But independence cannot replace national infrastructure.
The Bottom Line
Jamaican music is not folklore, it is intellectual property. It is export earnings, diplomatic currency, and it is generational wealth.
US$75–100 billion sounds large — until you compare it to:
Highway expansions
Energy projects
Tax concessions to multinational hotel chains
The question is not about affordability, but a question of priority. Do we finally treat culture as capital, or do we continue eulogizing and applauding contributors at their funerals while the archives burn quietly in cardboard boxes?
Author’s Note: Richard Hugh Blackford is a Jamaican fine artist, published author, and social and political commentator based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His work explores the intersections of culture, identity, and justice within the Caribbean experience.
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