Letter of Day | Music is reflection of politics and society

THE EDITOR, Madam:

There is much discussion in Jamaica regarding the music and its association with violence, among other forms of major disorders. In fact, these discussions on the negative impact of popular music on the Jamaican society have been going on for the past two decades. History has shown us that the quality of music in our society, and also that of the African American society, is highly influenced by radical and progressive politics and associated groupings. I make the charge that the quality of the dominant form of popular music is Jamaica is a product of the renewed thrust of the market, the new individual and transactional society politics of the 1980s.

There were two peaks in the rise of black music in America. The jazz movements in the late 1920s onwards were influenced by the Garvey and black Muslim movements, as well as other progressive black groups and the New Deal political system. The second wave of progressive development in black music occurred in the late 1950s by the civil rights movement and related politics, and also during the era of the rise of radical black thinking and factions such as the Black Power group and the world revolutionary movements in the 1960s.

THE ROLE OF RAP IN VIOLENCE

Music in America began to reflect the values of the new thrust in conservative politics and the decline of the radical civil rights and black power quality of politics. This second wave lasted until the end of the decade of the 1970s. No one can deny the role of rap music in violence and other forms of social disruptions in America today, or its radical roots in the early decade of the 1980s. So what happened in the decade of the 1970s?

In Jamaica, the music in the late 1950s, influenced heavily by black music from America, and the emergence of ska in the early 1960s as a celebratory music, made a hasty retreat for the coming rock steady and reggae. The period of the late 1950s and early 1960s was characterised by a new national spirit that nurtured the rise of ska, and the radical and progressive politics of the 1970s contributed to an environment that was rich in quality, like a second Emancipation. The 1970s, characterised by revolutions and liberation movements in the Third World and that radical and progressive political leadership, were a major feature in that era of change. It was in this rich social, cultural and political environment that gave rise to and nurtured reggae music.

What happened after the decade of the 1970s? That period saw the resurgence of the West, new forms of capitalism and marketisation of society. There was a new form of raw individualism, ‘what is in it for me’, grounded in this concept of self-esteem. Mass culture and new forms of technology displaced the traditional forms of socialisation. The proliferation and imposition of the values of the West to traditional societies, along with the ills of globalisation, have destroyed the families and much about traditional ways of living. The society becomes transactional, destroying the very fabric of community.

Sadly, these values from the North are associated at a very high level of every imaginative crime. Man has tampered with traditional institutions and societies, leaving us with dystopias. The music is a reflection of the politics, and also the way in which this society is organised.

LOUIS MOYSTON

Kingston