Freakoftheweekonomics Part II: From Bauxite to Biggie

For Part I of this series, From Bauxite to Brixton, Click Here.

As I discussed in the last post on this subject, the discovery of mineral Bauxite in Jamaica in the wake of World War II had a definite effect on the everyday lives of Jamaicans, contributing to an inward migration to the capital, Kingston, and then, in the wake of poverty and unemployment, to an outward migration from Kingston to the UK and the U.S. It is this latter story that I will address here.

While Bauxite production actually increased in Jamaica throughout the 1960s, the newly independent nation's wealth was seen by relatively few. As in many post-colonial nations, the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a select few presented a persistent problem not corrected by independence. The companies operating the Bauxite mines were foreign, either American or Canadian. Further, the land these companies had purchased to mine was occupied previously by small-scale subsistence farmers, who in some cases received monetary compensation, but in many cases, did not as they did not necessarily own the land, held by the elites. Finally, while the Jamaican government did tax the industry, re-investment of these revenues only partly went to benefit the country's most vulnerable.

As a result of these inequities, Jamaica was a tumultuous place in the latter half of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Having foresightedly supported independence in 1962, the Jamaican Labour Party, the more conservative of the two dominant political parties (the Jamaican National Party was the other) won successive elections throughout the 1960s. Because these two parties fought very tough elections and needed the support of the working class citizens of slums like Trenchtown to win, 'garrison' politics reigned. The term refers to garrisons run by one of the two political parties throughout the 1960s and up through the present day. Essentially, a party would set up shop trying to drum up votes in one of the neighborhoods (West Kingston in particular), be assaulted by criminal gangs led by a "don" hired by the other party, and then in order to defend its interest, provide social welfare services and housing while also deputizing and bankrolling its own gangs to retaliate and protect its faction's turf. Although it had emerged earlier, this accelerated the rise of criminality and "rude boy" culture fantastically depicted in "The Harder They Come."

All this contributed to further emigration from Jamaica. An earlier wave of immigrants had sought opportunity in England. But in 1962, the UK passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, severely restricting immigration from the Crown's colonies. The Act, passed by the conservative government amid fears of rising 'coloured' districts inhabited by South Asian and Caribbean immigrants also coincided with Jamaican independence. This meant that even if Jamaicans were still part of the British Commonwealth, they were not wanted, not unless they were the lucky few to have an employment offer awaiting them in England. With the UK partially out of reach, at least until 1968 when the Act was amended, Jamaicans seeking opportunities looked to the United States. Fortunately for them, the U.S. passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 finally abolishing a national-origin quota which severely discriminated against immigrants from anywhere but Western Europe.

Alright, this is a music blog. What does that history lesson have to do with anything? Well, like in the UK, these Jamaican immigrants imported their musical culture. In 1967, Kingston natives Keith and Nettie Campbell immigrated to the Bronx with their six kids. The eldest, Clive, then 12 years old, had grown up listening to the sound systems and toasting coming out of dancehalls in Kingston, and along with his father, started throwing similar parties in the recreation room of his public housing building. Well, to paraphrase the Godfather, Part II, that boy's performing name was DJ Kool Herc, and the music he helped invent was called Hip Hop. Indeed, the massive blaring bass-heavy sound systems and toasting - talking over the breaks in songs - imported from Jamaican music of the late 1960s, proved to be fundamental building blocks of hip-hop.





Similarly, in 1975, Richard Walters and his Jamaican parents arrived in the Bronx from their home in South Wimbledon, England. Within ten years, Walters had reinvented himself as Slick Rick, going on to produce classic "Golden Age" rap tracks. Around the same time Slick Rick's family was making their way from the UK, Voletta Wallace immigrated from Kingston to Brooklyn. Her son, Christopher, as you probably have figured out was Biggie Smalls. I could go on, but suffice it to say that our culture has been enriched by the decisions to come to our shores made by the Jamaican parents of Grace Jones (immigrated to Syracuse, New York 1965) and Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr., stage name Busta Rhymes. (Also, to a much, much lesser extent, Canibus). Question: do you ever think that Biggie and Busta Rhymes bonded over their parents' shared national heritage?





Apart from these leading lights of hip-hop, I have to at least mention the birth of third-wave ska. Some trace the Boston and then West Coast ska cultures to one band, The Toasters. Toasters' lead singer Rob "Bucket" Hingley was himself from the UK, and was part of the Two-Tone ska scene in two bands there, The Klingons and I-Witness, before jumping the pond to New York. Within a couple of years of his arrival, Hingley formed The Toasters and helped solidify an emerging American ska scene, putting out an influential compilation, N.Y. Beat: Hit and Run in 1985 and gaining a ska residency at CBGB's. In 1985, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones formed in Boston, fusing their sound with some elements of the "hard-core" scene. Meanwhile, in Berkeley, California, a ska-punk band called Operation Ivy formed, the core members of whom would go on to become Rancid. Meanwhile, further downstate, in Orange County, California, No Doubt formed in 1987, as a band in the mold of Madness. I could go on and list the best and worst of third-wave ska, but for a while there in the mid-90s, there were a lot of horns in music. Also, who can deny this song?





So what am I getting at here? Well, I'll end where I began, with the transformative effect Bauxite had on the economy of Jamaica. I argue that without the discovery of this mineral in 1943, we might not have or, at the least, be aware of the musical styles we know as ska, rocksteady, reggae, dancehall, jungle, and dub. Further, given the contributions of Jamaicans in the UK to Punk and Garage, and in the U.S., to most of the hip-hop we know today, we should probably attribute at least some of the existence of these genres to this rock.



None of this is to discount the terrible situation Jamaica is in nowadays, but to shine some attention on this small island that has given the world so much culture. I wonder if a valuable mineral had been discovered in Barbados in the 1940s, whether history would have been different.