Krista Henry, Staff Reporter
Using music to heal the people, musicians in the Trench Town community have come together to host their first annual 'Trench Town Rock' festival.
The festival was hosted on Wednesday in Trench Town and saw a day's worth of events, starting with activities for children, including workshops. The day ended with a stageshow.
'Trench Town Rock' was organised by various music production houses in the community. It cost nothing to attend.
Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner on Wednesday while at the festival, singer and a Manifesto Jamaica ambassador, Janine 'Jah 9' Cunningham, was excited that done that will be done in the future.
According to Jah 9, Trench Town Rock was organised and conceptualised by production houses from the community such as Triple L Music, I-Manu-Manu Production and Trench Town International Music.
Positive energy
"They contacted me like last week and I got Manifesto Jamaica involved in the project as well, to help put on the huge stage show so that the Trench Town massive can come out and enjoy themselves," said Jah 9.
The effort came from the entire community as its members pulled together to make all the arrangements to prepare the space.
"We cleared a space on 5th-6th Street that was like a big open land that was full of garbage. It took us six days to clear it so that they could have this whole-day festival and its been really great," Jah 9 told The Gleaner.
"We've been building a positive energy all day. The children are on holidays so they are out, and you know in this neighbourhood persons can be really aggressive so its good for them to learn new things."
The free stage show featured a number of acts from the community, who spent the week preparing for the event, as well as acts such as the 'Inna De Yard' crew, Sangie Davis, Roots Uprising Band, Raging Fyah Band, Junior Reid, Jah 9 herself and many others.
"Trench Town has such a history of music so it's really good to use music to accomplish healing the people and bringing together the community," explained Jah 9.
Trench Town has been prolific for nourishing some of the most talented artistes to come out of Jamaica and is often referred to as the birthplace of rocksteady and reggae music. The community is probably most well known as the home of international hitmaker and reggae legend Bob Marley, as well as Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer.
The Trench Town Rock team hope to see the festival develop to include persons beyond the walls of the community.
"We really spent six days doing this project and we've got a lot of support. I know if we had more time we could have got support from persons outside of the community and get people involved. It's definitely something we plan to put on every year. Next year we plan to get more organised and invite persons like the Red Cross, the Cancer Society down here to educate people and get more of a musical strength. If you see what we've done already, it's really inspiring," said Jah 9.
An example of that inspiration comes from the fact that the residents of Trench Town want the now-clean area, between 5th and 6th street, to be made into a park.
Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer
In January, Orville 'Shaggy' Burrell presented $31 million to the Bustamante Hospital for Children, proceeds from this year's edition of the annual Dare to Care concert which he spearheads.
The charity aspect of Capleton's A St Mary Mi Come From, held on August 5 at the Gray's Inn Complex, St Mary, was emphasised at the event's official launch in July. However, Capleton's personal manager, Claudette Kemp, also pointed out that "Capleton has an ongoing charity event, not just August 5". As such, those who wish to contribute outside of supporting A St Mary Mi Come From are encouraged to do so.
On Monday, May 11, 2009, singer Richie Stephens handed over $500,000 to Olivia 'Babsy' Grange, minister of youth, sports and culture, as a donation to the Sisters-to-Sisters fund-raising effort which she launched in 2008. The donation was part of the proceeds from Stephens' Take Me Away concert staged two weeks previously. Although not staged this year, Take Me Away as well as the New Year's Day event Unity Splash, also staged by Stephens in previous years, have a very strong charity focus.
They are three of the many entertainers who have organised charity donations, with countless others making informal contributions. Still, the sheer magnitude and children's cause of Shaggy's effort makes it stand out.
It has saved parents as well as children. Ashley Anderson, who was shot in the head at her downtown Kingston home in 2008 and her father, Jason, who was present at this year's donation function, said he became suicidal before he realised help for his daughter was at hand.
Shaggy summed up his purpose. "When you look at one child being saved by this, it really warms my heart to know that we here have made a difference," he said.
Producer and film maker tries to make Hollywood knockoffs from the island viable
André Gordon • Gleaner Writer
Roll film, cut, that's a wrap! No, we are not on the scene of a Hollywood film -
Led by Jamaica-born Junior Heart, this new phenomenon has taken over the creative industry in Jamaica over the last 12 months. Collywood is much like Bollywood movies, or the Jamaican version of Hollywood. Collywood Productions is a division of Renk International, a United Kingdom-based record label which was founded by Heart in 1989.
After dubbing the company Collywood Jamaica, the Jamaican Hollywood, Junior Heart has made Jamaica his home for the last 12 months and has been shooting movies and developing the local film industry inclusive of film animation and digital distribution.
Heart was born in black River, St Elizabeth but migrated to the united kingdom when he was only eight years old.
He attended the City of London College before going on to film school where he majored in film management and production. His creative energies could not wait, however, so he dropped out of film school and started his first solo project, Renk records, in 1989.
Renk records later became known for being a pioneer in the creation of jungle music in the United Kingdom (UK), which became popular in 1994 when Incredible became a number-one hit.
A new day
That success brought Renk records to the attention of the world-renowned Emi Publishing, which bought a portion of the Renk catalogue for over £200,000.
This was the start of a new day for Junior Heart and a new chapter for Renk records.
Heart now had the capital for tours in Europe and Japan, markets which had seen steady growth in their consumption of jungle music.
Even though music was proving quite profitable for Heart, he was intent on a career in film. During a vacation in Africa, Heart learnt of the concept he now presents.
According to him, while in Africa he saw the emergence of a young music and movie industry and realised how Jamaican content was viewed by this immense marketplace.
Bold step
Heart's Jamaican heritage had always weighed heavily on him, and over the years he had made a ritual of returning to the island annually.
So after returning from Africa, Heart made the bold step to leave his life in the UK to pursue his dreams of becoming a film producer.
The Jamaican potential for successful cinema was what drove the decision, he said. He identified a global billion-dollar industry in Jamaican culture and yearned to reproduce it for local and international markets.
"I have always looked at Jamaica and thought that if we had a genuine movie industry we could harness the creative energies of the people and provide employment," said Heart in a recent interview with The Sunday Gleaner.
While praising the success of recent Jamaica films such as Better Mus' Come by Storm Saulter and RiseUp, which was directed by Mark Hart and Carlo 'Amlak', Heart was keen to point out that these were one-off projects and not a significant long-term investment in the industry.
What he wants to do is to work with the many players in the market to, not only share ideas, but to also advocate as a group.
"We need a constant flow of material to satisfy the growing needs of the international market, especially in Africa, Europe and Asia where a serious fascination with Jamaican culture exists.
"We at Collywood are concentrating on building our catalogue at the present but we will be launching our cinematic tours early in the New Year," Heart explained.
When asked for specific dates Heart would only divulge that Collywood had already booked a major hotel in Kingston to launch the local leg of the cinematic tours.
Following closely on the local tour, the Collywood team will hit the Caribbean circuit before heading off to Africa and Europe.
At the centre of the Collywood project is digital distribution and this is where Heart believes he has a competitive advantage in the international marketplace, having already inked a deal with a global leader in digital distribution.
"This is the business end of what we do," he stated.
"We intend to help other local film-makers to market and distribute content in a manner in which is beneficial to all parties. People want to see Jamaican content and we have the means to distribute to the furthest reaches of the world," Heart said.
Collywood has also invested in a pay-per-view feature on its website.
That feature allows viewers from around the world to pay and view the various movies, cartoons and soap operas that are being produced by Collywood.
While tight-lipped on the company's foray into the mobile market, Heart did say Collywood was already in talks with one of the giants in the mobile market to offer pay-per-view content much in the way one downloads ring tones.
"Local video content has not been introduced in a sustained way to the Caribbean market and we are ready to lead that charge," said a smiling Heart.
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