By IPS Correspondents
BASSETERRE, Nov 26 1996 (IPS)

The government of St. Kitts and Nevis says it is getting serious about developing a policy that will make it a “hot spot” for cultural activity and wants its Caribbean neighbours to follow suit.

“Our little country has become very serious about the importance of culture in development,” said the Minister of Culture, Dwyer Astaphan. The twin-island state of St. Kitts and Nevis, with a population of less than 50,000, has meanwhile announced a 500 percent increase in its budget for culture.

“We want to turn our little country into a hot spot for cultural activity,” Astaphan told a gathering of regional cultural workers earlier this year. “And we want to do this, not as mavericks, but within the framework of our regional commitments.”

He underlined the regional commitment with an offer for St. Kitts to host the Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA) and to spearhead the much delayed Foundation for Arts and Culture of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

St. Kitts and Nevis also recently attracted specialists in various art forms to the Department of Culture and inaugurated an annual music festival.

According to Astaphan, regional governments should come to understand that culture is much more than song and dance, and more than the performing arts. They should recognise the need for their socio-economic development plans to be sensitive to and driven by local and regional cultural mores.

Astaphan’s opinions and actions have struck a cord with regional cultural workers, though many remain somewhat sceptical.

“It has been the experience of cultural workers in the region that the political leaders say all the right things but do not display the kind of commitment needed to translate those statements into concrete action and achievements,” said Barbados’ Director of Culture, Celia Tappin. But she added cautiously, “I’m actually going to allow myself to hope.”

So far, Astaphan and his Department of Culture have justified her cautious optimism.

When Caricom heads of governments met in Barbados in July, the government of St. Kitts and Nevis submitted a formal proposal to host Carifesta. A feature of this proposal was a recommendation to involve individuals and institutions from other countries in all phases of planning and staging the festival.

And when Caricom Ministers of Culture met in Basseterre two weeks ago — one of more than 30 regional events the government has hosted in its 16 months in office — the proposal was fine- turned and formally accepted.

The opening ceremony of that meeting provided another opportunity for the St. Kitts and Nevis government to underline its commitment to enhancing the regional cultural movement and to undermine the scepticism of those regional cultural workers who feel victimised by earlier promises not kept.

Prime Minister, Denzil Douglas announced that as of next January, St. Kitts and Nevis will abolish work permit requirements for Caribbean performing artistes. “Culture must of necessity be viewed as part and parcel of the overall national development process,” said Douglas, expressing the hope that other Caricom member states would follow his country’s lead.

“We ought, as policy makers, to demonstrate very clearly our seriousness in wanting to advance the arts and other cultural expressions in this region,” he added.

The St. Kitts and Nevis initiatives seem to have set the tone for what was by all reports a very successful meeting. Not only was agreement reached for the country to host Carifesta in 1999, but an offer from Suriname to host the hitherto irregular festival in 2003 was also accepted.

A Carifesta coordinator’s post is to be added to the Culture Department of the Caricom Secretariat.

For the most part, a statement issued by the Caricom Secretariat, could be a summary of the policy position of the St. Kitts and Nevis government, as reflected in Astaphan’s speeches over the past 16 months.

“We want the region to be vibrant in cultural activity, every day, every week, every month, every year. And every four years we all come together in a regional exercise called Carifesta to demonstrate not only to ourselves, but to the world at large, what our culture is all about,” said Astaphan.

The communique out of the St. Kitts/Nevis meeting said the region’s Ministries of Culture were concerned that Carifesta should be seen as more than a festival of the performing arts which took place every four years. They wanted it to be “a continuous process of interaction between Caribbean artists and the larger community, aimed at promoting the region’s arts and culture as a critical social and economic force.”

“We (St. Kitts and Nevis) are hungry for cultural exchanges,” Astaphan said. “Being very firm regionalists, and being aware of the importance of culture in the regional integration process, we wish to vigorously pursue the potential benefits of cultural linkages with friends in the region, such as Cuba.”

“Ministers took note of the potential for the cross- fertilisation of ideas and experiences through collaboration with the Forum of ministers of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean,” said the Communique from the Caricom meeting.

Tappin spoke for most of the Caribbean’s cultural workers and artistes when she complained that the region’s governments pay only lip service to culture. She and her Caricom colleagues are hopeful that with the lead taken by tiny St Kitts and Nevis, that situation may be changing.

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By IPS Correspondents
KINGSTON, Nov 19 1996 (IPS)

Small independent labels are tapping into the enduring popularity of 1970s Jamaican music by re-releasing vintage recordings from that era.

With innovative marketing and attractive packaging, these Indies are exposing audiences to a vast array of classic old songs and musical arrangements by artistes like Culture, the Mighty Diamonds, Johnny Clarke and Third World. Mostly compilation CDs issued by companies like Blood and Fire, based in London, they are selling well, indicating a significant market niche.

Blood and Fire owner Steve Barrow, says music from that period has always had a market. “It’s just gotten better and better,” he asserts. Sales are strong in the United Kingtom, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Demand for singer Horace Andy (most famous hit: Skylarking), the Congos (Row Fisherman Row) and King Tubby, a genius in the recording studio who died tragically years ago, is as strong in some places as for Bob Marley, the late reggae icon, says Barrow.

“They’ve heard Marley and all the other big names, but not the smaller ones,” he says.

The seventies were marked by political unrest and social upheaval and the music reflected that mood. Political violence, bloody elections, fashions, are all featured in the songs.

“Its got a special political content that remains strong and powerful,” says Randall Grass of Shanachie Records, based in New Jersey. This company has produced some of the best 70s reggae material, including Culture’s “Two Sevens Clash” Judy Mowatt’s “Black Woman” as well as an extended Bunny Wailer catalogue.

Grass believes the fact that seventies music was essentially message-music, like works of protest acts from the 60s in the United States, has played a significant role in its appeal.

Renewed interest in the music has given a second wind to artistes who were active at the time. Their work was critically acclaimed back in their heyday. Then, in the 1980s, they were victims of an anti-Rastafarian backlash. Many of the artistes wore their hair in dreadlocks style and were adherenets to the philosophy and lifestyle that deifies former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

During the 1980s, with the election of a conservative government, the mood on the island changed, so did the music. Reggae became Dancehall. Lyrics focussed on sex and violence, riding on computer-generated rhythms, became the craze.

Unable to make a living a home, some of the artistes from the seventies virtually abandoned the record studios and went on tour, doing one-off performances in England and various parts of the European continent where they had a cult following.

Several of these acts are reaping the rewards of their labour. Royalties are rolling in. Sales of re-released compilation CDs can reach 20,000-25,000 copies — a large amount for small independent companies.

Among those enjoying the benefits of this surge are Augustus Pablo, whose trademark melodica sound on hits have made him a seventies icon. Now 43, Pablo’s commitment to making good music has paid off.

“Them days wi used to make quality records in the 70s, because musicians used to create,” Pablo says. “Them never sell 100 copy, but everybody seem to want them now.”

Gussie Clarke, who began producing records in the 70s, agrees. “Music was made from the heart back then, not like now when everything is done for commercial purposes,” Clarke says. “You had much more musicians back in those days, so to them it was art, not just a business.”

Clarke is not listed as one of the period’s prolific producers, but his songs have become a catalogue owner’s dream, gaining more value with the passage of time.

Major labels have begun to follow suit. Recently, Island Records, the label credited with launching Marley’s international rise, released an anthology of the works of Toots and the Maytals and Burning Spear. Similar sets by Third World and English rockers Steel Pulse are reportedly in the works.

Interestingly, most 70s acts have not found favour at home. Live appearances of an Augustus Pablo or a Johnny Clarke are rare, though many younger artistes frequently sample their songs.

Though they remain ignored at home, the interest continues to grow abroad.

Johnny Clarke, a prolific hitmaket in the 70s, recently signed with the Peter pan Industries label in the United States to release his first album of original work for some time.

Barbara Pope of PPI says the rebirth of the 70s reggae was the driving force behind the signing. “It’s what’s coming back and the people like the product,” she says.

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By IPS Correspondents
NAIROBI, Nov 19 1996 (IPS)

None of the other vendors took it seriously when women descended from the Ngong hills near the capital to hawk ethnic Maasai beadwork.

Nor did they pay much attention when ethnic Samburu women from Maralel in Samburu district, in Northern Kenya who brought traditional artefacts to sell in Nairobi.

“At first, we were amused with the funny looking, old ornaments, containers and other tools the women had brought to the market,” confesses Kilo Muya, a vendor.

But the women had the last laugh when buyers snapped up their wares, and at higher prices. Today, the women’s low key venture has become a roaring international trade, luring many Kenyans to capitalize on traditional art as foreigners scramble to buy it, amid howls of cultural prostitution.

Held every Tuesday in the central business district and dubbed Kenya art mart, the market seems to owe its success to the fact that it charges 10 to 20 U.S. dollars for wood carvings, paintings and sculptures that would fetch 50 to 100 dollars in commercial art galleries.

Although it only offered ordinary craftwork when it kicked off three years ago, the market now offers rare artefacts from nomadic groups such as water and food containers, including imitations of earlier works. Some galleries even shop at the market.

Such is the market’s success that Kenyans, who are seldom seen in Nairobi’s art galleries and exhibitions which are patronised mainly by foreigners, are increasingly interested in cashing in on their country’s arts and crafts.

“It is a crazy world,the uglier the piece, the more it fetches,” observes Gicuru, who has been a hawker in Nairobi for the last eleven years.

Although he can not understand the expatriates’ passion for the artefacts, Muya has become an astute art collector and traverses Northern Kenya, walking from one homestead to the other in search of treasures.

The Samburu, Turkana, Banjun, Boran, Gabra and Rendille peoples who inhabit the vast, semi-arid expanse of the Rift valley are poverty-stricken and have no qualms about parting with part of culture.

These communities are mostly nomadic pastoralists, so much of their architecture is portable from house frames, interior decorations, exterior coverings, and storage and transportation containers of materials such as wood and fibre.

These have become Muya’s speciality pieces. “These things are hot,” he says, adding that an American art professor once bought all his stock and even asked for more. “Since then, I’ve stopped at nothing.”

Antao Fiori, an Italian Swiss who has just bought a very old Samburu milk gourd, decorated with animal fur and beads, tells IPS: “Some of the (artefacts) are not ordinary, they are too exotic.”

However not all Kenyans have welcomed the business boom at the market, as hawkers are now selling artefacts that have existed since time immemorial and been passed down through the generations.

“Commercialisation of our culture has reduced us to beggars, our dignity and pride is being sold to the highest bidder,” protests Dr. Macharia Mwangi, a lecturer in Egerton University’s faculty of arts and social sciences.

Mwagi cites the ethnic Maasais, who are arguably the most famous community in the country, and who parade themselves near gameparks or other tourist attractions in the pseudo-“manyattas” (cluster houses), to entertain tourists.

“This is a sad kind of cultural prostitution and the numerous Kenyan’s tourist brochures (touting) the Maasai in the same manner as they present wild animals in this country has not made things any better,” he says.

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