This is an opinion piece. The author is the founder of Lumatix Music, which is discussed below. The views are his own.
I got into an argument online this week about Vybz Kartel and Bob Marley. It was the usual one: who is greater, who is "real" music, who deserves the crown.
I gave my answer and I stand by it. But the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I saw that the argument itself is the symptom. The disease is ego. I know, because I have done business in this industry and it cost me.
Where I'm coming from
I grew up in Franklin Town. My father was a DJ. I studied philosophy and literature at university, and I teach literature now. Assassin lived down the road from me. I am not looking at this culture from the outside.
So when I say there is no "good" art and "bad" art, I am saying it as someone who reads texts for a living. Art serves different purposes. Comparing artists on style alone gets you nowhere.
Marley and Kartel are doing different jobs
Take "One Love". It is universal and emotional. It gave people hope and unity in hard times. I would call it escape art, and I mean that as praise. You listen to Bob to understand Jamaica's history and identity.
Kartel works differently. He is a realist. His songs deal with the contradictions, the psychology and the everyday life of this society. You can treat a Kartel song like a literary text: you have to unpack the metaphors, the double meanings, the cultural references. I think what he does is harder than people admit, and I think time will be kind to him. Some artists give you songs to listen to. Kartel gave Jamaica a body of work to interpret.
Both men can be studied seriously. Nobody loses anything if both are great. Yet we insist on one throne, and that instinct runs through the whole industry.
What happened to me
I am a developer. I set out to build a music platform that would benefit every artist, including the unknown ones who are just rising and have nobody opening doors for them.
I was building it with someone in the business. I will not name him, because the name does not matter. The pattern does.
He did not want to pay for the platform. He wanted to own it. He wanted to launch it under his name, make money from it, and pay the developer whenever he felt like it. The work was mine and the cost was mine. The title was to be his.
It took me a while to understand what I was dealing with. It was never really about the money or even about the product. He wanted to be the owner. He wanted to feel big. The platform was just somewhere to exercise his ego.
So I walked away. I had to change the name and start again on my own.
It is not just one man
I wish that were a one-off story. It is how too much of this industry runs.
Everybody wants to be the boss, and nobody wants to be the partner. People want the credit without the investment. They would sooner own all of something that never launches than share something that works. The young producer does not get paid. The engineer does not get credited. The rising artist is told to wait his turn by someone who is afraid of being passed.
Jamaica has more talent per square mile than anywhere I know. Talent was never what we lacked. We lack people willing to build something they do not get to rule.
The same pride that makes our artists fearless on a record makes the business impossible across a table. That confidence is a gift. It turns into ego when it stops you paying people, sharing credit, or listening.
What I built instead
The platform is called Lumatix Music, and it is live at lugmaticmusic.com.
It is for dancehall, reggae and afrobeats. Any artist can upload their own tracks, go live from the studio, and earn directly from fans through virtual gifts, with payouts to a bank account, mobile money or PayPal. Artists keep 95 per cent of their payout share. There are sound clashes, dance-offs and sing-offs where the fans decide the winner. There is a marketplace to book studio time or hire musicians.
The point is simple. An unknown artist should not need permission from a big man to be heard or to get paid. If the fans rate you, you earn.
I am not claiming a website can cure pride. But it can take the gatekeeper out of the room.
The music was never the problem. We are.