Commentary: Rich & Switch

Text: Mel Cooke

This arti­cle was first pub­lished in Decem­ber 2023 (RIDDIM 01/2024).

Trap dance­hall per­former Jahshii’s trou­bles in his home com­mu­ni­ty of Grant’s Pan, root­ed in spec­u­la­tion of his being con­nect­ed to the death of a man who ”dissed” his moth­er and esca­lat­ing with the killing of Jahshii’s broth­er and the shoot­ing up of a set of vehi­cles he was trav­el­ling with, are deep­er than they first appear. There is a com­plex web of loy­al­ty, street ”creds”, mis­placed machoness and the curi­ous Jamaican con­cept of ”rich and switch”.

I doubt that per­sons who have not been to Jamaica and seen some Jamaican dance­hall per­form­ers – dee­jays, real­ly – on their home soil enter a venue with a crowd in tow can tru­ly under­stand what an entourage tru­ly means. It is not the same as a some­what orga­nized group of sup­port per­son­nel, where it can be dis­cerned that the per­sons mak­ing up the gag­gle behind the per­former have some func­tion. Instead, it is a large crowd of (almost invari­ably) all men, proud of their asso­ci­a­tion with ”de artiste” and anx­ious to prove their loy­al­ty. And the size of the ”man­tourage” is often con­sid­ered pro­por­tion­ate to the sta­tus of the dee­jay. In oth­er words, the more men walk­ing with a dee­jay, the more rec­og­nized and pow­er­ful he is.

Of course, these per­sons must have a lot of time on their hands (as in unem­ployed) and seek­ing val­i­da­tion (as in gen­er­al­ly lack­ing in high lev­els of for­mal edu­ca­tion) to add to an artiste’s pack of prove sup­port­ers. And, in the main, most times they will be con­nect­ed to the low­er socioe­co­nom­ic com­mu­ni­ty the dee­jay comes from.

This link is not only Jahshii and Grant’s Pen. It is Shab­ba Ranks and Boun­ty Killer with Seav­iew. It is Cham and Sher­lock Cres­cent. It is Siz­zla and Judge­ment Yard in August Town. Mava­do and Cas­sa­va Piece. Kar­tel and the ”Gaza” area of Port­more. It is Josey Wales and Dad­dy U‑Roy and Olympic Gar­dens. It is Bob Mar­ley and Trench Town. Heck, it is Bass Odyssey and Alexan­dria in St. Ann. Or Black Kat and Chris­tiana, Man­ches­ter. Or King Jam­my’s sound sys­tem and stu­dio in Water­house. Look into the his­to­ry of many Jamaican Pop­u­lar Music per­form­ers from a poor back­ground and a com­mu­ni­ty that is fierce­ly proud of him or her, and expects that loy­al­ty to be returned in cash or kind (or both) forms part of the suc­cess sto­ry.

But it is a dou­ble-edged sword. In Jamaica there is a term called ”rich and switch”, where some­one who has new­ly acquired wealth – that is the rich – is per­ceived to have aban­doned and been dis­loy­al to the place they grew up in and those who are still in a state of pover­ty, find­ing new friends and hang­outs – hence the switch. And woe be unto the artiste who has got rich and switched. And it does not take much for this to be mur­mured into real­i­ty – not turn­ing up as reg­u­lar­ly as before, dri­ving in the area with car win­dows wound up and the air-con­di­tion­ing on.

Which leaves Jahshii, and many oth­er dance­hall per­form­ers, in a quandary. They seem to have made enough mon­ey to live very com­fort­ably ”uptown” (a rather vague term, space, but cer­tain­ly not with zinc fences, cor­ner shops and elec­tric­i­ty being bla­tant­ly stolen), but are com­pelled or com­mit­ted to hang­ing out in the home com­mu­ni­ty. And that can be a place where it is so easy to be caught between feel­ing at home and need­ing to prove that it is still home.

So this brings us back to Jahshii and Grant’s Pen, a sit­u­a­tion which echoes Mava­do and Cas­sa­va Piece a few years ago, when he inter­vened in an alter­ca­tion between his son and some­one in the com­mu­ni­ty. That end­ed in a sprint to the police sta­tion. For to be seem­ing­ly forced out is to lose ”street creds”, but to vol­un­tar­i­ly move out and not return much is to ”rich and switch”.

In the end, to not go is a case of very mis­placed loy­al­ties and focus, which is epit­o­mized by the Bee­nie Man song in which he declares a com­mit­ment to ”dis block” that he grew up on, will fight on and die for. He did not mean it, of course, as Moses Davis is a very long way from Craig Town where he says ”Aunt Zeta grow me”. Jahshii may have some grow­ing up to do before he real­izes that rich comes with switch­ing, for even if he has not changed, the mon­ey changes those on the ”block”. He would be well advised to leave Grant’s Pen to its own devices for a long time.

After all, there is a rea­son why the Bob Mar­ley Muse­um is at 56 Hope Road and not in Trench Town.