Frankie Campbell laments lack of respect for creatives
$90m package ‘a drop in the bucket, but happy for it’
Published:Thursday | December 23, 2021 | 12:10 AMSade Gardner/Staff Reporter
Like some of his peers, musician and Fab 5 band manager Frankie Campbell sees the Government’s $90-million special support package for members of the entertainment, cultural and creative sectors as a drop in the bucket. The package will see 1,000 grants of $60,000 each being distributed to eligible members affected by the pandemic.
“Ninety million [dollars] is what some of us would earn for a year,” Campbell told The Gleaner. “You’re talking ‘bout Buju Banton charging X amount, and some of the big boys are charging over US$20,000 per show, so when you give somebody $60,000, it will help. We’re happy for the help, but just imagine how fast $60,000 can go when you owe everything? Your rent, water, light, school fee, whatever; so it’s a drop in the bucket. But we’ve never been respected the way we should have been, for what we’ve done for Jamaica.”
The entertainment sector was shut down in March 2020 after Jamaica recorded its first few cases of the novel coronavirus. It was twice reopened under strict guidelines, but has been shut down since August as the Government has branded entertainment events as fertile ground for the spread of the highly contagious virus.
Campbell, who is also chairman of the Jamaica Association of Vintage Artistes & Affiliates (JAVAA), said older artistes are particularly being affected during this time.
“A lot of the old-timers were popular in their younger days and as you go on and get older, obviously your popularity wanes and your songs are not playing as much, and you’re not getting as many shows,” he said. “Some invested very well but most didn’t, so their children or other people help them. A lot of them struggle, and it’s not like you’re working with GraceKennedy or Sagicor for 40 years and when you’re done, you get a pension. Ninety-five per cent of us are self-employed, so we nav nuh pension, and they weren’t pushing that anyways. It’s just for the last decade or so they start pushing about pension, so we weren’t even aware that we should be putting aside something in a pension scheme; and some of us not even paying taxes, so we don’t even have NIS. It’s a rough road, but we’ve done a lot for this country and for black people worldwide and we must be respected for that.”
He raised recent comments by Member of Parliament Rhoda Moy Crawford that cricketer Chris Gayle is the most popular Jamaican in India, over the likes of retired sprinter Usain Bolt and reggae icon Bob Marley. Campbell said that despite the development in, and success of, the country’s performance in track and field, cricket and football, athletes “are not respected”.
He added, “At least them getting them statues and stuff. What are we getting? We nah get nothing.”
Campbell, through JAVAA, is hoping to change this through the pursuit of a Walk of Fame in New Kingston and a Hall of Fame in Trench Town to honour and highlight Jamaican artistes.