Roots Archives Forum

@bwoyrough: Long time man...
check your pm.

bwoyrough wrote:thanks for the interest,
yes i went out to JA or the reggae film film festival, a great success and will happen again next year in February as part of Reggae Month.
I did try to get some info on the missing material and visited the people at the library there, i was told that it was vinyl that got stolen and not film, althought there may have been the odd film the main part was vinyl.
I did propose to start a campaign to get the reggae community to help restore the missing items(the letter was published in the gleaner in Feb.) but never received the info i requested regarding adresses to send the material to, will post up more info tomorrow.....

Repsect for your efforts here, it's important that this great musical heritage be preserved in its heartland.

That said, with all due respect, how can anyone be sure that the problems from last time were rectified? Is what little vinyl is left now safely stored? What will they do with new stuff that comes in? In my opinion they have to put a secure lock on the barn before people can feel good about sending replacement cows...

I was hoping to have got more info on what had happened and i wanted to find out exactly what had gone missing, but what i do know is that the place was just being used for storage as opposed to a official public archive.

I can say that there is a new film and music archive being created in Jamaica and we hope to be up and running sometime in 2009, more news on that when it happens but i am already collecting video material for this archive and anyone wanting to donate to it can contact me.

Anyone wishing to help preserve reggae history by way of donating audio material and to help make up for the missing vinyl, i know that the National Library of Jamaica(Kingston) would be very greatful of anything anyone has to offer, they are a well established library which already has a very large collection, plus there place is very secure, if anyone wants to help just drop me an email or contact the library directly.

One thing i want to mention, especially to any record producers and distributors reading this,
In 2004 there was a new law passed which stated that any audio or video released or made in Jamaica after 2004, that a copy must be placed within the National Library in Kingston.
So please anyone dealing with new releases, they are in great need of regular deliveries of the latest audio/video releases, not many people know about this 'legal deposit' law that was passed and the library don't want to come across as being heavy handed by pushing people to donate so they've ended up getting very little in way of legal deposit contributions, so please send your material to them.
I am hoping to do more in the way of publicizing this in the future...

I reading an article some time back... Tony Rebel and *Queen Ifrica have already given some of their materials to the Museum.


*I can't remember if it was Queen Ifrica or Queen Omega,, the article featured 3 artist, the 3rd, i've forgot.

Fuzzy logic aside, that makes it sound as though Scratch has left Switzerland and returned to live in Kingston... Is that true, I wonder? Is he there to restore the Black Ark? (OK, I'm not being serious there.)

from what i understand, it will be extremely difficult to replace the treasures that were contained in that building. i've heard it had row upon row of highly coveted blanks from the 60s, the stuff we find going for collector prices on ebay and spinning on collectors' turntables all across the globe. they are the prizes to most reggae aficionados and would require a tremendous financial investment to gain those records back.

i doubt there was any kind of cataloging of the collection, not a JA type of thing to do, outside the universities.

Exactly....

They should have treated them records like gold bullion because i'm sure they have a similar value to their weight in gold! going by todays ebay prices.

It's very unlikey they will ever replace the records, the best they can hope for i think is to get digital copies of the music, like Jammy said in an interview the other day that all his stuff he's ever done has been digitized, i hope he's backed it up! I can just imgaine the next headlines saying, "Jammys Hard drive Crashes!!" and all jammys history gone forever, lol!

Theres so many people willing to help donate but the government has not given any info as to where people should send material so not sure how they expect this to happen by itself.

But one thing we can be sure of is that some of those records will have been offered to European collectors by now or at least will try to be sold at some point.

I can just imagine the people who have them scratching off any JBC marks! big job...

At the end of the day the place should have been secure, it's their own fault for not treating this collection properly.

It is obvious that JBC didn't really care much about this achive or national treasure. From reading the article and all your posts, this has been hapening slowly over a 4 year period and no one made a fuss till it was significantly gone. This says they weren't using it or keeping track of it... It is to my understanding that alot of rudeboys(gun smugglers & drug dealers) have been getting involved with trafficing collectable reggae vinyl out of JA to somewhat legitimise there businesses due to the high compensation that can be made. Perhapse these type of characters are to blame..Or maybe it was some other European, American, Asian or other persons with a intent on selling off these tunes to make money. The reggae market is large.. Like the songs say "Reggae gone International"

This is truely a shame & tragedy. But, What goes around will come around. These records will resurface and they will be passed along to other fans & collectors of Jamaican music over time. The sad thing of it all is that there was a chance for the Jamaican community to preserve these tunes and legacy by placing them in order and making back-ups & now they missed that chance taking it for granted.

Also I would not be so hard on reggae collectors.. how does one string up a sound or put on a dance. With out having a collection of tunes to play for the people??? They all must have a collection.... As we move forward some tunes become tiresome to some while the same tune may be new to others. The selling of reggae tunes from the collectors gives the tunes a certian vintage & appeal while also creating a viable & sustainable economic market... This allows us to pass on tunes and vinyl with special individual history to it, so why shouldn't it but priced accordingly?? I for one Dj, collect, buy & sell reggae... I sell my tunes for what I feel they are worth to me and it truely breaks my heart to even sell them sometimes but I record the tune digitaly and out it goes to another reggae lover & that is what keeps this market alive....

If you see a seller pushing a any material that is stamped by JBC report it...

Respect & Blessings

reading all of your posts again this evening i wonder if this isn't the answer....yes, having the PHYSICAL copies in house is the best case scenario. but due to circumstances thoroughly flushed out here, the collection was neglected and thus thieved by an/some aspiring entrepreneurs! jamaicans, particularly kingstonians, know a good hustle! flat foot hustling, as i would say.

where was i? oh yes, i think what could culminate into an easily managed campaign is get JA collectors the world over to donate high quality .wav files of their collections. why not? it's the music first and FOREMOST, yeah? sure they'll get some 45s and other records in here or there, but they'll need someone to leave a collection in their will or something to get the quality of vinyl back on their shelves. maybe even high quality scans of labels and other ephemera?

why not? i know i and many others would contribute to that. it's easy to do and for a good cause.

as i say, not the best case scenario, but it's something all of us could contribute to. a lot easier to store digital files in the caribbean sun, also.

lol!! exactly,
they need to sort themselves out first and make public the results of any investigation and announce what they are doing to make sure it doesn't happen again, otherwise you might just be wasting your time helping. If there is no structural change to the security setup then the hard drives will just get stolen one day like u said. I think this whole incident has exposed a little more than a theft of records and i hope they learn from their mistakes.

They know there are lots of people willing to help in Europe and everywhere else, it's just a matter of them accepting help as well as having a system in place to accept donations, and maybe they don't want to have to rely on outsiders to restore their own cultural history. I'm sure they'd prefer to do it all within Jamaica if they can do.

I think it's like how some people are too proud to accept help or charity from others perhaps...