Vasilis’ portrait of Queen Nanny of the Maroons is a powerful celebration of all the cultural warriors of Jamaica, like Michael ‘Freestylee’ Thompson, who are committed to fighting for freedom from oppression in all its forms.
There’s another queen in the news. Not one imposed on us from abroad. She’s royalty born and bred a yard.
Miss Pat book pretty-pretty cyaan done. A Maria Papaefstathiou, one graphic artist from Greece, design it./Miss Pat buk priti-priti kyaahn don. A Maria Papaefstathiou, wan grafik aatis fram Griis, dizain it./Miss Pat's book is absolutely beautiful. It was designed by Maria Papaefstathiou, a graphic artist from Greece.
Fi di lickin a di spoon, nuff Jamaican artist a go lose di spoonful./ Fi di likin a di spuun, nof Jamiekan aatis a go luuz di spuunful./ For the licking of the spoon, many Jamaican artists are going to lose the spoonful.
“Plantation a plot fi tie wi foot, wi a plot fi run weh an plant fi wi owna future.”
It’s time for Jamaicans to recognise that even though reggae originated here, we don’t own it. Just like how parents don’t own their children!
It was not only the gender barrier that Miss Pat levelled. When she moved to New York she was taken under the wings of her much-admired Aunt Edna, “a courageous woman who had left Jamaica in her thirties to break the shop cycle.” Miss Pat alludes to the fact that shopkeeping was the destiny of many Chinese families in Jamaica.
Two Fridays ago, I celebrated my 70th birthday. Well, that’s merely my chronological age. I’d like to believe that my biological age is much, much younger. Fun and joke aside, I’ve been reflecting on some of the lessons I’ve learned over the last seventy years that are particularly relevant in these dread times.
It was Winnie Mandela who inspired Andrea Davis to create International Reggae Day. When the Mandelas came to Jamaica in 1991, Winnie gave an animated speech to women in which she acknowledged the militant reverberations of reggae music in the anti-apartheid struggle. Songs like Peter Tosh’s 1977 Apartheid motivated South African freedom fighters in the bush.
The Bob Marley Estate cannot possibly police the use of the reggae icon’s image across the globe without retaining a veritable army of intellectual property lawyers.
Jamaica Woman Tongue 