Golden Eye

Frank151: What do you see for the future of Jamaica?
Chris Blackwell: I think Jamaica has an incredible amount of natural assets, and it is about to really embark on the whole path back to where it used to be 250 years ago. Over the years, Jamaica has been known for the top of the line of a lot of different products—rum is one, coffee is another, ginger, pimento, ganja, music. All of them have been really top of the line, and haven’t been sort of passing phases. And I didn’t even mention sugar. Sugar most of all, that’s how Jamaica really became really rich 250 odd years ago. Back then Port Royal was a more important city than New York City. When the sugar declined, the whole basic core economy of the country declined. It was so steeped in agriculture that the government sort of came out of the trade unions around the sugar industry.

It’s only literally in the last couple of years that I think Jamaicans started to recognize that tourism is a real proper serious industry and the great opportunity in it. Jamaica has lagged a lot, and it’s partly because there’s been no attention given to it. The feeling has sort of been—well, Jamaica is so beautiful everyone will love it. But they haven’t really considered it a proper business where you have to market the place, you’ve got to do all the things necessary, which are now happening, like improvement of the roads, airports, etcetera. Make it easy for people to come here. I think with that, you’re going to see a return a lot to the whole agriculture side of Jamaica, foods and fruits that grow in abundance here.

We want to try and persuade people to make a commitment in a way to Jamaica. And the agricultural part, is that I think again now there is a movement towards organic food, or at least local fresh food. Jamaica is probably the only island in the Caribbean, next to Cuba, that could really do that. If you go to islands like Turks & Caicos or Cayman, they don’t really grow anything, everything is imported, everything is processed, everything is frozen, there’s no fresh food. Here there is an abundance of vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, everything is here. So I think that is really the future that I see for Jamaica, one where a lot of people start to live here, have a second home, or a little resort cottage, and also spend a lot of time here.

F151: What are the biggest obstacles for the next generations to reach these goals?
CB: Well you see, one of the good things about tourism is that it employs a lot of people. The service industry employs a lot of people, what is needed here is employment. People need to have an opportunity. Everything is sort of run down over the years so much, and that is what has held Jamaica back a bit. Because when there is no opportunity, no jobs, no ability for somebody to feed their family, naturally there is going to be a higher crime rate. Naturally, because people have got to live.

But I really see that turning around because there are a lot of investments by the Spanish into big hotels here. Big hotels are not my personal thing, but big hotels employ a lot of people, so I’m very positive about the big hotels coming in, because the most serious thing in Jamaica is to give opportunity. That’s the only thing that can sort of turn things around, and eradicate somewhat, some of the reputation that Jamaica still suffers from, that there is a high crime rate.

F151: What do you see as the future for Jamaican music?
CB: I can’t really say, except to say that based on the last 40 years there will be something invented which comes out of Jamaica. It pretty much has all the time, from the early '60s, Jamaica really had its own music. Before then, Jamaica would listen to American music. The sort of music that was popular here when I left in 1962 was actually mainly country music believe it or not, people like Jim Reeves, other country singers were really popular here, sort of classic old time country music. But Jamaica started to create it’s own music, and then started to build on that, and started to create its own electronic way of altering the music, Dub for example. Jamaican’s were the first to have a backing track on the B-side of the hit. Before there would be a hit, and then there would be another song on the other side. And the song on the other side would earn the same amount of money as the hit. Because when you bought a record you bought two sides of the record, so both sides would make the same amount of money. Jamaicans were the first to say, ‘that’s not fair, the people on the B-side are getting a free ride.’ So Jamaicans came up with the idea of putting the backing track on the B-side, which means if you like the A-side, you could sing along with it on the B-side. And from that, DJs started talking, and from that you have the whole DJ culture in Jamaica happen, that then went to America and the whole Rap culture came from that. So I would say Jamaica has been more responsible than anywhere else for any changes in sounds and effects of music in the last 40 years, because all these things were invented here, because they were done on the simplest little machines, and everybody was very unruly and untrained. If you recorded in England, everything had to sound a certain way  the BBC would like it. So it would be unheard of having something like a repeat echo, that all started here.

F151: Do you see technology playing a role in empowering the next generation of musicians coming out of Jamaica?
CB: I think it has been, I mean since digital recording came in, and it’s possible now to make a record in your home, that’s great for Jamaica. And the equipment is so much cheaper. One of the things I am working on here, and I’ve been working on for some time, is to try to get the government to take off all duty on musical instruments, on the basis that Jamaica has proved itself to be such a resourceful place, and the raw material is really the instruments.

F151: Where does Jamaica’s abundance of creativity stem from?
CB: My theory is that it’s based on the basic landscape and topography of Jamaica, it’s an incredibly stimulating place. Where we’re sitting right now, at Golden Eye, look what this has produced for the world, every James Bond book written by Ian Fleming was written here, and he said himself what Jamaica did as a background for him to be creative. That has stood the test of time, the James Bond movies have been going on for like 45 years, the last one was the biggest one yet. Again, just extraordinary.
 
F151: Can you talk about some of the projects that you’re involved in right now?
CB: Well, this right here, I’m developing Golden Eye, and this is sort of exhibit A of what I think Jamaica should be doing, as well as having the big hotels, they should have more smaller type places which are geared to being more community oriented. We’re selling villas and cottages here, and I’m really keen for at least 20 to 25% of the people to spend most of their time here. I want to try and create something where people can spend more time in a place like this. The internet has allowed people to really be anywhere and still be in touch. So let’s say you come here for 10 days, there’s no way anybody would even know you’re away. If someone sends you an email, it arrives the same time here as it would in New York. It means that you have an opportunity to live in a place that is idyllic, health-wise as well you can keep yourself fit and healthy and eat good food. And it’s not something that you have to just rush back at the end of the weekend, you can spend a little bit more time. I think more people will want to have this as part of their life, they might sell off their place in New York, Washington or Chicago and live here, or they may just keep that and have a place here where they spend time.

F151: How do you think Bob Marley would feel about his legacy today?
CB: I think he would be really thrilled, because there’s so many prophetic lyrics that he had. On the last record that I worked with him, Uprising, he has this song: “you’re going to tire to see me face, but they can’t get me out of the race.” Another thing he said was that reggae music would get bigger and cover the whole world. When he said that it really didn’t seem that possible, reggae music was selling in Europe in England, but it wasn’t selling in America except to Jamaicans. Now it’s all over the world, and he’s all over the world. I can’t imagine what he’d be doing now, I think he would be somewhere in between a Nelson Mandela and Bono type character. He was not somebody who ever stopped thinking and working, and he was very conscious all the time about the plight and the problems of the people who don’t get a chance in life. So he would have been very involved in that for sure.