Let’s away

And get our jewels and our wealth together,

Devise the fittest time and safest way

To hide us from pursuit.

— Shakespeare, As You Like It.

IT seems as if even in the days of yore there was swag and bling, albeit called by a different name. People then adorned themselves with baubles, bangles, and beads, plus a fancy hairstyle or wig to cap off the ensemble. But, aha! We took it, rolled it, skewed it, improved it, and took it to a different level. We now are the proud owners of bling.

Of course, bling is a specialty of black people, as very few white folks, Indians, Chinese, or Eskimos — I mean Inuit, which is their proper name — would be caught dead blinging out the way we do.

Swag and bling is a state of mind, an attitude, a way of life that decrees: If you got it, flaunt it — and even if you haven’t got it, flaunt it anyway. Some people are born bling, others acquire bling, while still some have bling thrust upon them. Bling is not real wealth, but the appearance of real wealth, giving true meaning to the saying all that glitters is not gold, just bling. Bling is an ephemeral state; real wealth lasts forever.

For some people, from they have a child the poor pickney is subjected to bling. From before the youth can walk or talk he or she is festooned like Christmas tree with earrings, toe rings, finger rings, nose rings, big chain (cargo), multi-coloured hairstyles, designer clothes, and expensive track shoes to match.

Dressed up like Puss In Boots — like poppy show — but making the parents mighty proud, for that’s a ‘Bling Baby’. But it’s at the first birthday party when you’ll see the vast array of bling, as both pickney and parents are dressed to impress and Laquisha, Shaniqua, Begisha, Tekisha, and Goldiggisha all parade their offspring like is dog show.

As they grow older the bling becomes even more pronounced as the gold and silver chains hang from their necks like when ship dropping anchor. It’s amazing the neck strength of those wearers as those chains must carry a good weight. Or are they hollow? Remember, all that glitters is bling, but not necessarily gold.

The clothes must be baggy, with the pants hanging down way below the waist and with the underpants, usually boxer shorts, showing above the belt line. The shirt is big, billowy, flowery like curtain cloth and always open, unless it’s a mesh tank top that hugs the mighty bling belly.

The hairstyles rival that of any woman as it’s either cornrows that are so neat you could take metric measurements off them, or they have all sorts of multi-coloured beads and trinkets twisted in.

More about swag and bling right after these responses to what I had to say about ‘Good women’.

Teerob,

Hmmm, interesting article. Yes, a good woman should be a role model, not only to her partner but her community and the society in general. If a person wants to cheat in a marital relationship, he or she is nothing but a cheater and should not have been married in the first place. It’s a betrayal of vows that you took. A person with a passion for cheating should probably live in one of those countries where he or she can choose, refuse, and juggle sexual partners.

Patricia

Tony,

I might have to fly over there and slap you. LOL. There’d be an uprising in the UK if there was an article in the paper about good women. We know that you write tongue-in-cheek and we still love your style and look forward to your wit and humour.

Michelle, UK

It’s many a time I’ve had to take a second look to determine whether it’s a male or female that’s dressed up so as swag and bling do have an androgynous veneer. Men with plait hair and earzrings (not earrings), sometimes in both ears, that’s bling. And let’s not forget the teeth, as no one has as toothy a grin as a man who is truly bling. Each tooth must display a different character, usually from a deck of cards, with gold being the metal of choice. Sometimes it’s a gun or a bullet that makes the tooth, the whole tooth. I really wonder what goes through those dentists’ minds as they affix those bling adornments. I heard that the dental school plans to introduce a course called Designer Bling. What stories they must tell at the dental water cooler.

But it’s the women of swag and bling who are the real eye-catchers. Just cruise by any of those dance parties and you’ll really see the meaning of bling. Oh for Versace, Donatelli, Ferrucci, Calvin Klein, Fubu, or those guys to pass by and check out our femme fatal futiles. Their eyes would pop.

“La bling, I must take this back to Milan, Paris, Rome.”

Even in the pouring rain they’ll line up to get into the venues as the bling outfit shall not go to waste. They’ll merely cover the fancy hairdo, kick off di boot, and bling out in the club as it haffi show off. Bling must also ring, as no bling outfit is complete without the cellphone ensemble, with multi-coloured instruments that glow in the dark and ring to the tunes and tomes of the classical melodies. The ultimate swag is to have two or three cellphones, even though no call can be made as it’s always the old, familiar refrain: “Mi phone card run out.”

The choice drink of swag is champagne, preferably Dom Perignon or Moet.

To complete the uniform, to be truly swag, the vehicle of choice has to be an SUV. But you have to really fix it up extra: Accessorise it with blue, purple, or green running lights that glow under it; 10-million-watt fog lamps that outshine stadium lights plus lights in the exhaust tail pipe; and rims that continue spinning long after the vehicle park and the owner gone to bed.

Remember that child’s prank where we’d point to a person’s vehicle and say, “Hey, Sir… your wheels spinning.” Well, it’s now a reality. All when vehicle park di wheel still a spin. That’s bling.

Superior bling is when there’s a TV or even two embedded in the headrest of the vehicle. TVs that are always on, even though there’s no one in the back seat. That’s boss bling.

If you check out most of those bling guys with the fancy wheels, dem nuh live nuh weh but those that really do, really live someweh. They inhabit houses that would rival Buckingham Palace — complete with lion pon di fence post, gold plate pon di latrine seat, and marble from Italy. A truly bling house is a wonder to behold as they really make you wonder. They put many great edifices of the world to shame. Some of our dancehall stars fall into this category. Some are huge, palatial, but bling is not necessarily about size. Just drive through Portmore and you’ll truly see some bling boudoirs.

To be bling you have to talk the language of bling. No standard English, not even our own patois, but the babble of bling. I overheard this guy talking on his ‘blingphone’ and listened in awe as I heard the language of bling. I could only hear his side of the conversation, which went something like this:

“Yow, fi real, loop me. Yu dun know, get jiggy, slam it pon di corner, represent. Yu dun know, yu waan see, yu dun know. Yow, bus me, yu dun know.”

Fi real folks, fi real.

Swag and bling continue even after the dearly bling has dearly departed. There is nothing as fabulous as a bling send-off, the mother of all funerals. The stretch limos, the fancy fandangles, finery, fashion fusion. The cacophony of the ever-present blingphones, the gold chains, gold teeth, gold diggers. Few tears are shed as the bling make-up cannot be ruined. The dearly departed belies the old adage that you can’t take it with you, for they usually do. They put the Pearly Gates to shame.

“I’m sorry, sir but you can’t enter here dressed like that, Lord knows.”

A bling funeral can cost millions of dollars so, as you can imagine, undertakers not only love overtakers, but also love those who overtake and outdo each other with those bling funerals. Don’t ever get caught in a bling funeral procession, you’ll never get out for days. They’re so fancy that it’s rumoured the royal family has sent scouts to observe them so that they can improve theirs in England.

“Look, Charles, oh look, it’s bling. We are amused, we are truly amused.”

Like I said before, swag and bling belong to black people as I am yet to see other races blinging out the way we do. What is also true is that bling is usually short-lived. Bling is not real wealth, but merely conspicuous consumption. Real wealth lasts for generations, as the great families of the world have proven. Bling usually lasts until the person departs, but usually he outlives it.

“Hey, whapppen to so and so who used to flash it and bling out?”

“Yu nuh see him a walk street and kick stone?”

Bling generally lives only for today, with no thought of long-term investment.

“Investment… wah dat? Is bling I bling, boss, just bling.”

“The toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” That’s Shakespeare’s definition of bling. Still, swag and bling are truly ours.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: I must touch on our football programme, which seems to be having mixed fortunes. Our Under-17 Reggae Boyz have qualified for their third World Cup and deserve all the commendations received by the team and coaching staff. The senior Reggae Girlz have already qualified for two World Cups and have a good chance of qualifying for their third. The senior Reggae Boyz are in a spot of bother, due mainly to incompetence and bad decisions by the previous coaching staff who couldn’t even qualify us from a very easy group. Now we have to qualify via a roundabout way, and I have my doubts that we will. This coach has left our talisman “Whisper” Richards out of the squad. We shall pay the price as the insanity continues.