Jamaican Music Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Jamaican Music Industry - Essay Example Several researches were done on the Jamaican music industry between 2001 and 2002 and according to them Jamaican music industry is indeed significant to the national’s economy as it accounts for at least 12 percent of the total gross domestic product. The most amazing thing is the amount of the music export, which usually surpasses the local proceedings realized from the sale of music within Jamaica. In 2002, exported music amounted to 100 million dollars (McChesney, 2009, pp. 195). However, the current state of the Jamaican music industry is unable to sustain the artists due to inadequacy of professional and experienced producers, as well as unappealing distribution sector. The music quality fails to live up to the standards and piracy has risen to the extent that it has become a threat to the industry as it eats away the advantageous end of the industry. Moreover, the royalties from oversees music societies remain uncollected; there is lack of adequate knowledge when it come s to foreign markets and, thus, the amount of uncollected royalties from abroad is hard to define (McChesney, 2009, pp. 200). The purpose of this paper is to provide the information concerning the development of the Jamaican music industry and to access the main features within the industry. In addition to this, the paper will also bring forth the potential consequences with regard to the cultural industries within Jamaica. The main challenges on the way to achieving this aim are inability to get the full disclosure of the potential consequences in the area of cultural industries due to the diversified cultures entailed in Jamaica (Dorfma and Mattelart, 2005, pp. 43). Jamaican Music Development Jamaican Music industry has quite old and rich history but it became successful only in the early 1970s. This success is largely attributed to the late Bob Marley. As such, he has been acknowledged for transforming the reggae genre into an internationally known and accepted phenomenon. During this newly established wave of success, many new artists came up from Jamaica; the industry began its journey with regard to growth and development all over the world. Jamaican music can be said to have sprung from Jazz music, which was a stronghold of the U.S. Since Jamaica is a former U.S. colony, Jazz music was brought into Jamaica in 1949s and at that time Jazz was the only genre (Rutten, 2001, p. 302). This dominated the music industry until the late 1960s when another genre sprung from Jazz that was called race music but later renamed as Rhythm and Blues. Due to the emergence of this genre, jazz music slowly started its journey to oblivion in Jamaica. Indeed, Rhythm and Blues began transforming the music industry in Jamaica. Kingston began holding dances where strong sound systems would be installed and as such, music would dominate the air (Dorfma and Mattelart, 2005, pp. 47). Everybody, from young to old could be seen dancing to the tune of Rhythm and Blues. People would tr avel all the way to the U.S to obtain the new records and this became the trend. During dance sessions, a popular track would be played for up to twenty minutes in raw. The first sound systems to surface were Duke Reid and Clement Dodd. The competition between them became fierce as each wanted to outdo the other. This was ideal as it catalyzed the growth of the music industry in Jamaica. These systems exclusively played records from the U.S as at this time