Graphic arts of diplomacy

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor

Two Fridays ago, for the first time in its long and distinguished history, the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs in Mexico City rocked and grooved to roots reggae. It was quite a spectacle.

Etana, the strong and beautiful one, was in the house, performing songs from her latest CD, Better Tomorrow. And Mike Dread, resident DJ and musical manager of Mexico's most successful reggae club, Kaya Bar, kept the audience high on positive vibrations. The occasion was the opening of a brilliant exhibition of the top 50 entries in the 2013 International Reggae Poster Contest.

This one-of-a-kind contest is the brainchild of Jamaican graphic designer Michael 'Freestylee' Thompson, who shared his vision of a Reggae Hall of Fame with Greek graphic artist Maria Papaefstathiou. Together, they've created a world-class showcase for Jamaican culture in just over two years. An incredible accomplishment! The magnificent display of posters at the secretariat vividly documents the way in which visual artists from across the world have graphically represented their own distinctive image of reggae music.

Jointly hosted by the Embassy of Jamaica in Mexico and the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, the exhibition was opened by Vanessa Rubio Márquez, vice-minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sandra Grant Griffiths, ambassador of Jamaica in Mexico. On holiday in Washington, DC, this January, Ambassador Grant Griffiths visited the Jamaican embassy. At the front desk were copies of the catalogue for the exhibition of reggae posters that had been held there last November with the generous support of Ambassador Stephen Vasciannie.

MEXICAN NYAHBINGHI

Immediately catching the spirit of the contest, Ambassador Grant Griffiths knew she had to take the exhibition to Mexico. She contacted Michael, who welcomed the opportunity to show the posters to a new audience, especially since the third-place winner of the 2013 contest, Lenin Baru Vásquez Felipe, is Mexican. In just three weeks, our enterprising ambassador and her formidable staff - Tanya Henry, first secretary, and Elizabeth King, attaché/executive assistant - managed to secure sponsorship for Reggae Month in Mexico.

The opening of the exhibition fell on February 28, which has been declared Jamaica Day by our Ministry of Education. Reggae Month extended into March. There was a free concert by the Kreation Reggae Band on the 1st, at which Etana made a cameo appearance with a soulful rendition of Redemption Song. March 3 was unofficial Rastafari Day at the embassy, featuring Nyahbinghi drummers. I gave a talk on 'Rastafari Reggae History Lessons', inspired by Burning Spear's assertion that "Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar".

The following day, I gave a lecture at the Matias Romero Institute on 'Glocal Reggae: Jamaican Popular Music and the Politics of Cross-Cultural Communication'. I focused on the way in which the globalisation of reggae has resulted in the adaptation of the music to suit local tastes. According to Wikipedia, it was Japanese economists who first used the term glocalisation in the 1980s to describe this process of blending the global and local.

JAPANESE ACKEE AND SALTFISH

I came home to a most entertaining manifestation of glocalisation at the reception hosted last Thursday by the ambassador of Japan, Yasuo Takase, and Mrs Sayoko Takase to mark the 50th anniversary of Japan-Jamaica diplomatic relations and the Japan CARICOM Friendship Year 2014. I missed the formalities because I went to hear Dr Glenda Simms deliver a stirring lecture for International Women's Day at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

I caught most of the cultural programme which featured Carlene Davis singing Elvis Presley very convincingly in Japanese. Then there was Miko, born in Kingston to a Japanese father and a Jamaican mother. She migrated to Japan when she was four. At 18, she has just started what promises to be a brilliant career as a singer. Peter Man performed in the 'japa-rege' style, singing in Japanese with Jamaican reggae tracks.

Nari, winner of the 2013 Bob Marley Song Contest in Japan, did a very good imitation of the master with the classic, No, Woman, No Cry. And Rankin Pumpkin, one of the original Japanese female DJs who has lived here since the 1990s, offered a spirited version of Bob Andy's Let Them Say, which she translated into Jamaican: "Mek Dem Chat". But the stars of the evening were, without doubt, Ackee and Saltfish.

These male DJs came to Jamaica in the early '90s, lived in Kingston's concrete jungle, and learnt the Jamaican language that they use to create their spicy lyrics. They have mastered the dancehall idiom, including the taboos. One of their lines that had the audience in stitches was, "Ha fi get some but mi nah taste it," a reference to the supposedly forbidden subject of oral sex. Afterwards, I said to Ackee, "Just think of it as sushi!" And he had a very good laugh.

The Government of Jamaica is currently advocating that UNESCO inscribe reggae music as an element on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. This shouldn't be hard to do. Reggae is a language of international diplomacy. And we have a global icon to prove it.

Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.