world music (&style) wednesday: PASSA PASSA

in 2007, new york art, architecture and cool kids mag, prophecy magazine published my piece on jamaican dancehall culture, passa passa: kingston's toughest hood hosts the greatest show on earth. the rhythm of the caribbean has been a constant in my life. my parents were born in guyana, south america. my bro, sister-cousin, and i were all born in new york city in the 70's. on the one hand my parents were both good assimilationists--the picture of hard working caribbean immigrants. on the other hand, they were way into disco and partying, and through food, language, and music, they instilled in me a great caribbean pride. living in europe makes me feel more american than anything. in the states, i feel a deep well of difference between my caribbean self and my african american self. (like a triple consciousness.)

anyway. back in '07, my best friend was jamaican, my boyfriend was an italian in whose presence i somehow felt very caribbean, and the passa passa parties, those wild street shindigs that would take over tivoli gardens every wednesday night into thursday morning, captivated me. i watched the dvd's, learned the dances, and new all of the dancers' names. so when a friend from TRACE magazine approached me about the piece, it was like writing MY story. i spent hours on the phone to kingston with dylan powe of the swatch international sound system, whose afternoon soundcheck-turned-street party started the whole craze. he explained the term passa passa, thus

"if you sleep with your sister's man, it's a passa passa, if it's a whole mix of different people, it's a passa passa."

and i broke down the event, thus-

"week after week, 3 years running, the party at 47 spanish town road reads like an erotic urban ritual featuring choreographed dances like the 'dutty wine', the 'chakka chakka' and 'the wackie dip', as well as simulated, but endlessly creative sexual gymnastics.'"

passa passa's notoriety comes from the outrageously sexual explicitness of the music and dancing. the jamaican government, run by very conservative people, are not feeling this. they've tried, so many times ban to this or that song; attempted to prohibit dances, footloose style. but music, sound system culture, has long been jamaica's most profitable export. at its peak, fashion dignitaries like tommy hilfiger were known to have attended. now the market has been saturated and there's a passa passa knock off for every day of the week (famous fridays is the newest) in every hood in kingston (and some in japan and italy as well).

the other night, i logged on to youtube to see if 'the greatest show on earth' was still in business. not only was it still in business, but one specific peculiarity remains. passa passa parties begin at about 2am and go until about 9, 10am. what about work, you say? well, what about it? for powe, so many jamaican 'yute' were jobless that those who couldn't work, would 'wuk'. 'wuk' is jamaican patois for work, and can also be used with sexual or party connotations. i noticed that these days, the crisis has not helped the situation. and this is a HUGE departure from the work ethic mythologized in the states as the main difference between us (caribbeans) and them (african americans).

when i spoke to powe, he'd hoped to make passa passa into an established economy for ghetto youth. he'd particularly hoped to use it to attract tourists. if the following video is any indication, mission accomplished. the tall italian in this video is enrico of jamaica dancehall tours, who's looking more and more to me like the interviewee of my article's follow-up.



bust how partygoers disrupt rush hour traffic with their own 'wuk'.


*downloading the article is totally a pain in the ass. i apologize, but i have yet to get a handle on this file hosting thing...

how to change the world 2

today is st. nicholas day, the day sinterklaas visits the netherlands (holland and belgium alike), accompanied by 'zwarte piet', his helper in blackface. i've been told that 'black pete's' skin is painted black not to approximate blackness, but because it's his job to slide down the chimney and invade people's homes. also may have something to do with the fact that sinterklaas and zwarte piet come from (oh so ironically) spain. spain, italy, and greece, i've noticed, are northern europe's darker others. or maybe, it really is just about the soot. and if it were [just about the soot and not some racialized thing] then damnit, why is it zwarte piet's job to kidnap the children who haven't behaved?

anyhow, i lived in belgium for a while; moved there in the midst of an 8-month long distance relationship with The Belgian--a rich, handsome divorcé, with salt and pepper hair, 7 motorcycles and a 7-year old girl child. i'll always have very fond memories of her. here's why: her cousins confronted her on the state of her dad's union. "so, your father's girlfriend is black, right?" "no." she answered with authority. "she's not black, she's just brown. AND she's american!!"

besides this being the most adorable expression of burgeoning antiracist sentiment since this little boy, it just goes to show that one positive interaction has the power to override the potential negative effects of any manner of fucked up racist cultural propaganda. 6 december '07 may have been kind of uncomfortable (for more reasons than just zwarte piet, as it was clear by then that the relationship was doomed), but i danced with her to zwarte piet's rap video and even bought shorty a gift for the occasion. because you know what? she'd given me more than a clown in blackface could ever take.

written on the body

i've got, it seems, the best of both worlds these days. i'm established enough abroad to have some stability (health insurance and all, baby), but i'm still living outside any boxes. i can do whatever the hell i want. and i LOVE getting into all manner of creative things. writing!! translating!! photos!! dancing!! got color, rhythm, life or poetry?? i'm on it. in it. all fucking over it. i'm the epitome of what my she-ro barbara sher would call, a scanner.

when my black german friend, julia, asked me to model some of the pieces from her song lyric-inspired line of jewelry, really, i didn't think it'd be much more than a few photos taken in her living room with a camera phone. but y'all know me. most people go to paris, go to a concert, and have a great time. i end up on stage at the concert, and in VIP with ball players.

of course, saturday i walked into this cavernous all-white professional photo studio on calle joaquin costa in the raval, and had the good fortune of working with felipe, a crazy einstein lookalike of a german, who also happens to be one of barcelona's premier photogs.

a projector covered my skin in song lyrics in german, spanish and english. including, 'the world is mine', 'i saw god and she was black', and i walked out with a ring bearing the title of a song by concha buika, 'jodida pero contenta' (screwed but happy).

"writing makes an exact man", as sir francis bacon once said. so 9 hours bathed in lights, cameras, and inspirational words, and i scored more than a cool ring and a photo op. i got my creative juices back. and just in time. got lots of cool projects on the horizon.