Reggae inscription a significant milestone, says Jamaica culture minister

We consider intangible cultural heritage to be of extreme significance in a country’s identity, and so in Jamaica we are proud of the fact that this element of Reggae music is one in which we often describe as that which we eat, sleep, and breathe. Reggae is no longer only ours. The world has now taken it as their own.

Jamaicans have long recognized that this element means so much to so many, all around the world. With this inscription, Jamaica is of the view that it will invariably bring even more visibility to the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity and intangible cultural heritage as a whole.

The meaning of this inscription is significant in several ways, the value and significance of having global recognition of a musical form created in a small island nation cannot be overlooked, but even more importantly it is the Jamaican heartbeat. It is associated with many small communities, global peace movements and with the religious Rastafari community who have brought the music to greater prominence and visibility.

Of great significance is that the culture of Reggae is found in all that we do as Jamaican people, in how we relate to others in community and the world, in how we worship and praise God and in how we dress, dance and even what we eat, it is all influenced by this musical genre. The inscription brings to the fore all these aspects of the music and exposes to an even greater extent the 2003 UNESCO Convention and the elements of the representative list of humanity under which it is inscribed.

Jamaica and Jamaicans are proud today and we look forward to deepening intangible cultural heritage and visibility of the element through this UNESCO inscription. In Jamaica we celebrate February as Reggae month and in February 2019 the Government of Jamaica will honour our Reggae stalwarts at the 50th anniversary of the musical genre in a special event entitled Reggae Gold.

The number of Reggae music practitioners across the globe grows everyday and as a nation, Jamaica continues to support academic conferences in its jurisdiction such as the Jamaica Music Conference and the upcoming 6th Biennial Global Reggae Conference. These conferences include practitioners sharing with other Reggae stakeholders, students and the public. The music has also spawned a number of large music Festivals across the globe – most notably the Rototom Music Festival in Spain, attracting upwards of 100,000 music lovers and academics each year.

Special note should also be made of the ongoing digitizing and bimonthly updating of the national inventory, maintained by the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank is ongoing. Weare also committed to engaging fully, local communities’ inventories such as in Waterhouse and Trench Town which will be a part of the UNESCO Heritage and Creativity for Sustainable Cities community-based inventories project. We thank UNESCO for this initiative.

Again colleagues I again reiterate our deepest appreciation for the overwhelming love Jamaica has received for Reggae music which is a testament to its global impact and therefore I fittingly end with the words of Reggae icon Bob Marley ‘One Love, One Heart, let’s get together and feel alright’.