<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The hustla philosophy of the Jamaican economy advocates the use of innovative and/or illicit methods to negotiate the harsh economic realities of the society. From two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Jamaica, I gleaned that local musicians applied this philosophy to support themselves and family. Most notably, local rock musicians used this mindset to survive their disadvantageous position on the periphery of the Jamaican reggae industry. They earned this status because their merger of “foreign” genres with reggae was perceived as undermining the cultural heritage of the Black populace. As a result, my analysis interrogates the attempts of rock musicians to secure work and legitimacy in a precarious and prejudicial job market. Institutionalized prejudices limited the popularity of local rock music and enforced repressive scripts. Despite these disadvantages, the Jamaican rock scene has made major contributions to the music economy by merging rock music with reggae and facilitating innovation and creativity within the contemporary Reggae Revival.</p>
</abstract>

The hustla philosophy of the Jamaican economy advocates the use of innovative and/or illicit methods to negotiate the harsh economic realities of the society. From two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Jamaica, I gleaned that local musicians applied this philosophy to support themselves and family. Most notably, local rock musicians used this mindset to survive their disadvantageous position on the periphery of the Jamaican reggae industry. They earned this status because their merger of “foreign” genres with reggae was perceived as undermining the cultural heritage of the Black populace. As a result, my analysis interrogates the attempts of rock musicians to secure work and legitimacy in a precarious and prejudicial job market. Institutionalized prejudices limited the popularity of local rock music and enforced repressive scripts. Despite these disadvantages, the Jamaican rock scene has made major contributions to the music economy by merging rock music with reggae and facilitating innovation and creativity within the contemporary Reggae Revival.

The Hustla Playbook: Negotiating the Business Politics of Reggae in the Jamaican Rock Music Scene

The Department of Literary, Cultural and Communication Studies, Faculty of Humanities

International Journal of Music Business Research

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The hustla philosophy of the Jamaican economy advocates the use of innovative and/or illicit methods to negotiate the harsh economic realities of the society....

The Hustla Playbook: Negotiating the Business Politics of Reggae in the Jamaican Rock Music Scene

Article Category: Research Article

Publié en ligne: 22 sept. 2022

Pages: 77 - 87

Reçu: 16 févr. 2022

Accepté: 13 août 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijmbr-2022-0009

Mots clés
Jamaican music scene, rock music, Reggae Revival, hustla culture

© 2022 Nadia Whiteman-Charles, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Hustla Playbook: Negotiating the Business Politics of Reggae in the Jamaican Rock Music Scene

Article Category: Research Article

Publié en ligne: 22 sept. 2022

Pages: 77 - 87

Reçu: 16 févr. 2022

Accepté: 13 août 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijmbr-2022-0009

Mots clésJamaican music scene, rock music, Reggae Revival, hustla culture

© 2022 Nadia Whiteman-Charles, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mots clés
Jamaican music scene, rock music, Reggae Revival, hustla culture