WHAT IS THE STANDARD?

A note on reggae, ownership, and the cost of culture

Reggae never asked for permission to travel.

It moved through bass lines, through sound systems and through people.
From Tenement yards to European fields, it carried more than rhythm it carried memory, resistance, and a way of seeing the world.

But somewhere along the journey, a question began to echo louder than the music itself

What is the standard and who gets to set it?

The Spread and the Shift

Reggae has always been more than sound. It is message, movement, and memory. A culture built on resistance and redemption, speaking to injustice while imagining something freer.

Its global reach is a testament to its power. But that same reach has opened the door to something more complicated: the monetisation of reggae without responsibility to its roots.

This is not new. Caribbean artists have long navigated industries that benefit from their culture while limiting their access, ownership, and control. What is new is how visible these tensions have become.

When Celebration Misses the Culture

Recent footage from a reggae festival in Europe has brought these tensions back into focus.

An installation an exaggerated effigy of a Black woman’s body, upside down and twerking circulated online. Distorted proportions. Caricatured form. For many, it was immediately recognisable as problematic.

Yet at the event itself, there appeared to be no disruption. No pause. No questioning. Until after the online community reacted.

Which raises the issue: if the problem is obvious to the culture, how is it invisible to those curating it?

The answer often lies in absence.

Absence of Caribbean voices in decision making.
Absence of cultural context.
Absence of accountability.

When culture is filtered through a lens that does not live it, representation becomes distortion. Out of an entire lineage of roots, resistance, spirituality, and political imagery, the chosen visual leaned into stereotype.

So again, what is the standard?

Respect, Power, and Public Handling

The same festival saw a public dispute with an artist, played out through statements and counter statements online.

Regardless of the details, the handling matters, especially given the previous context.

In most music industries, these tensions are managed privately, with an overstanding of reputation, relationship, and respect. Here, the decision to make it public suggested something else an imbalance in power, and care for how Caribbean artists are engaged.

This sits within a wider pattern.
Visa barriers.
Inflated travel costs.
Uneven negotiation power.

These are not isolated issues. They are structural. And they require sensitivity.

Who Gets the Platform?

Another moment that drew attention: a European artist performing reggae, met with comments describing the performance as a caricature.

Difficult to read, yes but not without context.

There is a growing frustration that spaces built on Caribbean culture are increasingly platforming non Caribbean heritage artists, while sidelining both homegrown and diaspora talent. Not entirely, but enough for it to be felt.

Enough for people to start asking questions.

Ownership and the Business of Culture

Who owns these festivals?
Who curates the line ups?
Who benefits consistently?

A pattern emerges: Carribean artists bring the audience, but the surrounding ecosystem does not always reinvest in the culture they represent. Cultural capital is generated, but not equitably shared.

Events like Reggaeland have faced similar scrutiny decisions around ticketing, programming, and genre blending raising questions about whether culture or commerce is leading.

None of this is about gatekeeping. Reggae has always been global.

But there is a difference between participation and extraction.

Beyond Expectation

So again, what is the standard?

When do artists begin to quietly warn each other about the spaces that do not serve them?
When do audiences choose not to attend, not to post, not to amplify?
What does it mean to disengage not just physically, but digitally?

And more importantly

When do we stop expecting better and start building better?

Because if the standard is not being upheld, then it has to be redefined. Not in reaction, but in intention.

Built by those who live the culture.
Sustained by those who understand its weight.
And protected by those who refuse to let it be reduced.

The question is no longer whether reggae will continue to travel.

It will.

The question is whether, in that movement, it will still recognise itself.