Three months after the earthquake that devastated our neighbouring island of Haiti, 22-year-old Haitian writer/filmmaker Claudel ‘Zaka’ Chery takes FIRST on a short tour around Grand Rue, a main street running through the heart of the commercial district in Port au Prince.

Zaka is part of a collective of Haitian artists who have been chosen to work on The Trembling Heart, which is a limited edition book of sculptural artwork – just 20 copies will be created. The book is intended to serve as a historical testimonial of the cataclysmic events in Port-au-Prince following the earthquake and its’ aftermath.

Each page will be executed by some of the most respected contemporary artists in Haiti today. Jean-Euphele Milce (Alphabet of the Night, Pushkin Press) is writing 20 original short stories based on personal experiences of the cataclysm of January 12 2010. The accompanying pages will be wrought from metal (Sculptor’s of the Gran Rue, Guyodo and Cheby) Wood (Lionel St Eloi, Jean Frederic and Nathalie Fanfan) and Beads (Myrlande Constant, Drapo Artist).

During the creation of the work interviews with the artists and studio sessions will be broadcast online to build anticipation for the auction of the completed work. The proceeds of the auction will be split with 50 per cent going towards a permanent residency programme for Haitian and Caribbean cultural exchange and the remaining 50 per cent divided amongst the participating artists.

In its completed form the giant book will be a freestanding work of art which will stand on sculptural legs and be targeted for inclusion in museum collections around the world.

For more information about the Trembling Heart Project contact: Melinda@rocktower.org

More from FIRST’s trip to Haiti:

PHOTO-ESSAY: Into the Trembling Heart: Five hours in Port-au-Prince
MORE PHOTOS: Port-au-Prince: In Living Colour

Readers of this blog should by now be familiar with the wisdom of Sherman Escoffery, husband, father, jerk specialist, kite-flyer and panty importer.

Sherman doesn’t actually live here anymore – he’s in New York City – but like any other Jamaican in big foreign, that gives him the confidence to pontificate about happenings in the backward place where he sends his remittances (thank you, really).

Latterly he’s become a noted commentator among the Diaspora about reggae and the government he couldn’t vote for – because he making too much money to actually live here. Published on FIRST, his ‘Jamaica nuff problems’ post also made ‘Letter of the Day’ in the Sunday Gleaner, while ‘Cancer in Jamaican Music’ has exposed him to others who like to hear the sound of their own voices.

Today, live on air you can hear his latest reggae-related rant, this time on the Reggae Nation show, audience of you, the producer and possibly Sherman’s sympathetic family. Listen, consider and then attack him either here or via @DatNiggaSherman.

Listen at 6:00 pm DST (7:00 pm Jamaican time) tonight: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/e2-reggae-nation

How did you get on the show?
They read the Cancer In Jamaican Music and I once quoted Michael Manley so they thought I was deep.

What will you rant about?
How the radio DJ’s and groupies who say that they are radio DJ’s only play music from artist they are sleeping with or extorting.

And why should anybody care?
Because it means that LA Lewis or Goofy could be the top dancehall DJ’s if they spend enough money or give ******* the right sex.

Previously by Sherman:
Jamaica nuff problems…by Sherman
The Cancer in Jamaican music
This is Stone Love at The Tropics Nightclub in 1985…

While FIRST has mixed feelings about the decision of the United States to cancel the visas of some of Jamaica’s best-known entertainers the incident is also a mixed blessing. Okay, as @afflictedyard reckons, America’s behaviour maybe “fascist” and “petty” but as @BigBlackBarry was saying last night, this might be actually be a necessary sacrifice to help the music renew itself.

Regardless of the Dudus extradition matter, its almost certain that the five artists were targeted as a retaliation for the stance of the Golding administration, even if it could be argued that these artists were already flirting with the proverbial no-fly list. There have been bans and there have been other visa cancellations – of which this was the most high-profile. And of course, the obviously bored officials at the U.S. Embassy can only be helped by instances like Trooper’s brilliant but self-destructive rant on ‘YouChuuuuube’.

“I was just having a conversation last night with a friend when it dawned on me that maybe the rest of the world who love reggae might actually be trying to save it from Jamaica. Even though we invented it, we are the ones that are now trying to destroy it with all the fuckery that is going on. There is something in the Jamaican psyche that whenever they put out something good we turn around and try to destroy it as if to prove to the world that we can do it again or maybe its a need for competition, we build and destroy instead of building and then building better,” said @DatNiggaSherman.

The music is also in a creative drought – one symptom of the sickness affected the Jamaican music, irrespective of the worldwide decline of the recording industry. Artists just aren’t prepared or educated enough about the realities of the business. Instead they’re cultivated only as one more machine in the riddim production line.

Jamaican artists are declining in wealth and opportunity caused by our declining worth to the foreign market not helped by their unprofessional reputation. We have long been no more than an accent to lend flavour to another average track by a larger foreign artist, as functional and generic as the video that accompanies it.

It’s hard to think back and imagine when last a Jamaican album had genuine musical influence on the overseas market while even successful singles are based on old riddims e.g. Junior Gong’s ‘Welcome to Jamrock’ and Buju Banton’s ‘Driver A’. And then when VP had an album as great as Sizzla’s ‘Real Thing’ they were unable to make it crossover.

We can criticise the US and yes, let’s not take this as bait, but perhaps it’s high time the players in Jamaican music start asking themselves a lot of questions; and for these high profile artists to become more streetwise and gain an understanding of modern business beyond simply having a MySpace page.

Related posts:

Three questions for Jamaican DJ’s from ‘bigblackbarry’
The Cancer in Jamaican music

The Jamaica World Cinema Showcase will present three movies each night, for the generous price of $1,000 (pre-sold) $1,200 at the gate. And the price includes free wine, as much as you can drink!

Beginning tomorrow the show runs for three days until Saturday at Finnigan’s Winery, 5 Cranbourne Avenue, Kingston. The event also includes the FIRST-related DiMaggio: The Last Don (Friday at 10 pm).

For more information call: 1-876-260-2084. Here’s the schedule:

Thursday, April 1

7:00 pm: Aaltra: 92 mins, Belgium, Benoit Delepine (Comedy)

8:45 pm: Licensed To Kill: 80mins, HK, Arthur Dong (Documentary)

10:10 pm: W.A.R. Stories Walter Rodney: 80mins, Guyana, Mykal Cushnie (Documentary)

Friday, April 2

7:00 pm: Real Ghetto Youth: 80 mins, JAM, Omaal Wright (Grassroots/Urban Drama)

8:45 pm: Black Dynamite: 84mins, USA, Scott Sanders (Blaxploitation/Action)

10:10 pm: DiMaggio – The Last Don: 80mins, JAM, The Rickards Bros. (Documentary/Comedy) (that’s us!)

Saturday, April 3

7:00 pm: Single 97mins, CAN, Richard Atkinson (Docudrama)

8:45 pm: Young People Fucking: 91mins, CAN, Martin Gero (Comedy)

10:10 pm: Medicine For Melancholy: 88mins, USA, Barry Jenkins (Romance)

Once in print and in-between online there’s a few things you may have missed that we think you ought to check out:

Fit birds. We’re superficial and so are you dear readers. Easily the most popular thing to do on this site is admire the beauty of Jamaican women: beginning back in 2008 with Miss Jamaica Yendi Phillips. Click here and scroll to the bottom of this post to view links to links to all our photo shoots (and they’re still young eh!).

Sherman Escoffery AKA @DatNiggaSherman. Definitely the least beautiful thing on the site, Sherman represents the disenfranchised, patriotic Diaspora who get more frustrated each time they return to JA. Still, he’s got a point, or so the Sunday Gleaner thought so after they deemed this, his latest effort, worthy of their ‘Letter of the Day’ last weekend.

Our print archive: printed four issues deep 2004-5 we’re still pretty proud of it (any investor with balls enough, email info@firstmagazine.net and we’d love your $ to do some more). Click here to download the redux versions of the four issues in PDF format.

Thursday Night at the Fights: that insane ‘community boxing’ event that used to be held in Denham Town. We went down there several times, inspiring this photo essay and latterly, the video, some of which also got broadcast via BBC. Any news on whether they managed to start it back?

Not sure if enough of you have seen this recent video of ‘Gad Reds’, one of Kingston’s more characterful studio-hanger-ons, found at Downsound during the filming of DiMaggio: The Last Don. He’s a star and more so when that far gone…

The Trouble with Clovis: love him or hate him, and they do in equal amounts, we rate Clovis Brown as Jamaica’s #1 shit-stirrer next to Mutty. It’d be a far poorer country without either of them. Anyway, Clovis explained to us one day what makes him tick, tick, tick…

We upped some pretty damn delicious food features with our chef friend Julius. We called the feature ‘Food Lust’, and the photos don’t lie, from beef tenderloin to steam fish, the dishes DID taste that good. He’s not your usual caterer

Some of favourite spots that we enjoy across the island, taking in the likes of St Bess, Portland and not forgetting the capital, but most of all its intended for our international readers: get out, see the island and relax…and then buy us a drink in thanks.

Death in Tivoli Gardens, a photo essay. Simply because we can’t forget that killing like this still happens in Jamaica, and often.

Artist Christopher Irons interviewed by Annie Paul: he bites the heads off chickens, say no more…

Call us miserable but some things really need to be said about the music, it’s been bad for a while and it’s getting worse. In fact, have we already reached the point where all new artists are either generic ex-dancers or ‘i-insert-authentic-Rasta-name’?

It wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that our music is what makes us known around the world: good or increasingly bad. The retarded spectacle of a deejay in tight pants preening onstage with his mantourage burning out gays. It won’t sell and it will get you banned…

We’re embarrassed and so should everybody. And yet the few with talent and originality that manage to breakthrough despite the backward local industry, often end up throwing it all away, like Sizzla after his classic Real Thing album.

Three questions tweeted from our equally curmudgeonly friend @bigblackbarry to be asked of all deejays, producers, journalists and whomever else we should hold responsible for 99.9 per cent of the sickness that passes for music locally:

1. When dem a do di battyman tune dem an pose up wid gunman, it neva occur to dem seh visa can tek whey?

2. When dem a stick up promoters an doan show up fi dem dates it neva occur to dem seh it ago dun?

3.  Wen dem a do a riddim album a month an saturate the market till di music jus a last fi 2 weeks, it neva occur to dem seh it woulda dun?

Talked about but rarely seen (last time thanks to a bizarre power outage), DiMaggio: The Last Don will be screened again this Saturday at Moving Mountains, a three day music showcase featuring local and international dance deejays, high up in the Blue Mountains at Strawberry Hill Hotel.

Showtime on our day (Saturday, March 21) is 10:00 pm, hosted by Island boss Chris Blackwell and $1,500 entrance. For Saturday or Sunday a day pass costs up to $5,000 or $8,000 for the weekend, food-inclusive. They’re also offering tickets in a prize draw and not forgetting the menu, just some of it…

• Foil Roast Snapper with Vegetables and Okra Cooked Live on Grill
• BBQ or Jerk Chicken Cooked Live on Pimento Wood
Jerk Pork
• Marinated Grilled Vegetables (Garlic tomato sauce)
• Plain White Rice
• Roast Breadfruit with garlic butter

For more information on Moving Mountains check out their Twitter page or link them on Facebook.

Previously on First People

March 11: Marlon ‘Biggy Bigz’ Reid and A Picture Called Death
February 23: Rosina Casserly (on Jamaica)
February 16: Devon Gordon’s Art of Extreme Patience

Tonight at Medusa’s the legendary Silverhawk Sound makes a return to the musical landscape.

For the uninitiated, Silverhawk was the original mouthpiece for the creative powerhouse team of Steely and Clevie, and one of the first Jamaican sounds to voice and play dubplates as a clash tactic when most sound systems were still using live deejays in the dance.

According to Hawks’ Road Manager Palmer, this grew from Steely’s ritual of taking pre-released records to August Town to play on a little system in the community for the residences to hear it first.

With such a creative musical force behind Silverhawk, it wasn’t long before the sound became renowned for its incredible collection of specials from anyone who was anyone in reggae and dancehall.

Then, in 2000, Silverhawk suddenly locked up the crates as Steely and Clevie returned their full attention to their production work at Studio 2000. That is, until 2009 when Steely expressed a real interest in relaunching Silverhawk; a concept that was sadly never realised by the producer before his untimely death in September 2009.

Tonight in Kingston, however, the no-iPod purists will have something to celebrate as Clevie’s beloved Silverhawk powers up again thanks to his former business partner Cleveland ‘Clevie’ Browne who made sure Steely’s got his wish.

The event begins at 6 p.m. at Medusa’s bar at 96 Hope Road. In the meantime, check out this 80 minute dubplate mix of Silverhawk juggling strictly Shabba & Ninjaman:

Download via Megaupload.