Dear Editor,

This marks 17 years since Jamaica officially began observing Reggae Month. Seventeen years of concerts, speeches, official ceremonies, and annual declarations about the importance of reggae to Jamaica’s identity. But if we are serious; serious about culture, serious about development, serious about outcomes, then one uncomfortable question must be asked: What, exactly, has Reggae Month achieved? Beyond staging performances. Beyond delivering speeches. Beyond ceremonial appearances.

What lasting structural outcomes exist today because Reggae Month has been on Jamaica’s cultural calendar for nearly two decades?

Jamaica, despite having greater cultural influence per capita than more than 90 per cent of the countries in the world, remains trapped in a cycle of announcements and optics. We excel at proclamations, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and headline-friendly launches, but we consistently fail at follow-through.

It is for this reason that I have little interest in joining the annual Reggae Month bandwagon. What is presented each February feels less like policy and more like performance: A stage-crafted spectacle of shiny lights, concerts without continuity, and ornate speeches that resolve into empty promises. Because when the music fades and the lights go down, when the stages are dismantled and the banners removed, there is nothing left behind — no institutions, no infrastructure, no sustainable economic pathways for creators, just a bag of noise.

This failure is even more troubling when placed against Jamaica’s international recognition. In 2015 UNESCO designated Kingston a Creative City of Music, acknowledging not only Jamaica’s seven globally influential musical genres, but the depth and originality of its music ecosystem.

Three years later, on November 29, 2018, Jamaican reggae was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. These were not symbolic gestures, they were global validations, clear markers that Jamaica possesses cultural capital most nations can only dream of acquiring. And yet Jamaica has failed to capitalise on them.

Today there is still no purpose-built, permanent national space where Jamaicans and visitors can reliably experience live reggae music. There is no national reggae performance hall, no structured live music circuit, and no cultural anchor befitting a country that brands itself as the birthplace of modern popular music.

In the lead-up to the September 2025 General Election, the minister of culture repeatedly announced plans for entertainment zones and venue rehabilitation. Announcements were made, headlines followed. But delivery? Nothing. There are no entertainment zones, no venues, no timelines, and no accountability.

Now contrast this with South Korea. Since the late 1990s the Korean State has treated culture not as ornament, but as strategy. It invested deliberately in cultural infrastructure and with training systems, export mechanisms, intellectual property protection, and purpose-built venues.

Today, K-pop contributes over US$10 billion annually to South Korea’s economy. By comparison, Jamaican authorities have no serious or transparent accounting of the economic value of culture in general, or reggae music specifically, to the Jamaican economy.

For Korea, K-pop is not merely entertainment, it is a central pillar of national soft power. Korea understands something Jamaica still refuses to grasp: Culture is not decoration; culture is industry.

Until Jamaica demonstrates a serious, sustained commitment to investing in its people and its culture, not just celebrating it rhetorically, Reggae Month will remain exactly what it is today — a performance; not a policy. And Jamaica will continue to squander one of the greatest cultural endowments the modern world has ever known.

Richard Blackford

Fine artist and author

Florida, USA

richardblackford@gmail.com