- 2 days ago
Tony discovers Jamaica is a nation of generous and vibrant people.
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00:03Ah, Jamaica, one love.
00:06Lush island paradise, cheerful locals cracking coconuts for tourists on all-inclusive beach
00:11resorts to the lilting sounds of reggae.
00:16Or is that struggling Caribbean nation hobbled by poverty, corruption and violence a pawn
00:21in the great game of one-time colonial powers?
00:24Both?
00:25Neither.
00:26One thing's for sure, though.
00:27Trust me to try real hard to make the other Jamaica show.
00:37I'm Anthony Bourdain.
00:38That's right.
00:39I write.
00:40I travel.
00:41I eat.
00:42Look out now.
00:43And I'm hungry for more.
00:45Ooh.
00:47You got this.
00:49Yeah.
00:53No reservations.
01:08It's confusing enough that over the past few decades Jamaica has sent out some mixed messages.
01:13More confusing is the fact that some of the most contradictory of those messages can be
01:17true.
01:19It is a beautiful place, except for where they're spit mining bauxite.
01:23The people are, generally speaking, genuinely friendly, proud of their country and their
01:28food.
01:29But on the other hand, they do have one of the highest murder rates in the world.
01:35Principal exports include the Rastafarian-influenced music of Bob Marley, coffee, bauxite, marijuana,
01:41as well as some of the most violent speed posses British and American law enforcement have ever
01:46seen.
01:49I've come here to neither praise Jamaica nor hurt it, but to get a more realistic view
01:54of the place.
01:56But, Tony, where's the Jamaica-free travel brochures and those commercials with One Love playing
02:02in the background?
02:04There's a big floating banana and the jet skis and the tennis courts.
02:08Yeah, where are they anyway?
02:10Oh, here we go.
02:14Oh, that's serious.
02:19I tried to find voices less frequently heard.
02:22Rastafari is a resistant movement.
02:24Resisting against oppression and colonialism and imperialism and all the things that go
02:29with it.
02:30And I did find one activity which the sensible among you will avoid at all costs.
02:35There's a tiki bar just a few yards down, right?
02:41It seems that all roads in Jamaica lead back not just to Kingston, but to its central, almost
02:47spiritual crossroads, Coronation Market.
02:59When visiting a place for the first time, it always makes sense to start with the market.
03:04One gets a sense of the who, what and why there.
03:08Concepts all too familiar to staff reporter for the Jamaica Gleaner, Robert Lalla.
03:15He brings a more objective view to most Jamaican issues, but this place is an exception.
03:21So much shared history, most good and deeply personal.
03:25This place has a sentimental hold on a lot of Jamaicans.
03:29It's a part of our personal history.
03:32A lot of us have family members who would have sold in the market at one point or another.
03:36For instance, I remember my father taking me here for the first time when I was about
03:39four years old.
03:40I went back to school and I told all my friends about it.
03:42It was very exciting from back then.
03:45The market itself is a series of contradictions.
03:48The produce is as fresh as the garbage is old.
03:51Like markets everywhere, vendors can go from nice to ball-busting in the same sentence.
03:57One gets a representative cross-section of what's growing in Jamaica and what's good now.
04:03Like chicken foot soup.
04:05That's always good here.
04:07It's very popular.
04:08They cook it at home.
04:09It says bunga peas and chicken foot.
04:16Oh, that's good.
04:17That's good.
04:18Markets everywhere have always been easy targets for gang activity.
04:22But Coronation is exceptional.
04:24In the 1980s, the market marked the dividing line between two rival political territories
04:29in Kingston.
04:30During that time, every election brought a new wave of turmoil and violence.
04:35Things have calmed down since the pitched battles of the bad old days, but even today
04:39you still see barriers and blockades.
04:43Statements of political affiliation as if in warning.
04:52This is an area in contention.
04:54I mean, who runs the market?
04:56That's a touchy question.
04:58I mean, around here you have gangs disputing territory all the time.
05:02So I mean, okay, officially who runs the market?
05:04Officially the government runs the market.
05:06But as with markets in New York, in fact, until recently, unofficially you fall into one sphere
05:12of influence or the other.
05:14Who actually sells produce here?
05:15The common practice is that a lot of the Higglers here, they live in rural areas like St. Elizabeth,
05:20Manchester, that kind of thing.
05:21They come in at the beginning of the week, and they stay here, they sleep here,
05:25right on the stalls that they sell from.
05:27And they stay here for the week and try and sell what they can.
05:30And then when the produce is up, then they go back home.
05:36For my area of immediate interest, my allegiance has always been to the Jamaican beef patty.
05:42Oh yeah, two.
05:44I've had a number of spicy meat turnovers called Jamaican beef patties before,
05:48but the real thing puts them all to shame.
05:51Jamaican beef patties, that's one of those things you just gotta have, yeah?
05:55Yeah, that's definitely right.
05:56You can't come to Jamaica without a beef patty.
06:01Oh yeah.
06:02It's probably our most popular snack out here.
06:05Much better than what we got in New York.
06:07This is authentical.
06:09Yeah.
06:11To paraphrase a local expression, if you can't find it in Coronation Market, you can stop looking.
06:23Red Hills Road is a busy artery at any time of day,
06:26linking downtown Kingston to the relatively prosperous Red Hills community.
06:31But the night brings out a particular kind of entrepreneur.
06:34An artist, an artisan really, whose products have an appeal that transcends all divisions in Jamaican society.
06:41It's called drum pan chicken, for the grills made from 55 gallon oil drums.
06:46And the stuff itself is that Jamaican classic, jerk chicken.
06:51Basically, you see something like this all over the Caribbean.
06:54Yeah.
06:54From what extent are they?
06:56What's special about Jamaican style?
06:58Well, we're known for our spices and how the spice of the chicken gets.
07:01It's very well seasoned and we're known for that.
07:05A wonderfully mutated descendant of the seasonings once used for dried jerky,
07:09the jerk in jerk chicken refers to the blend of spices.
07:13Usually including cinnamon, cloves, scallion, nutmeg, thyme and garlic.
07:17But always scotch bonnet peppers and the nearly omnipresent allspice.
07:21A peppercorn type spice known locally as pimento.
07:25Yeah.
07:26Well, okay.
07:26I'm definitely going to need some of this.
07:27Let's see.
07:30I've got chicken ready.
07:31Oh, beautiful.
07:31Good, good, good.
07:32All right.
07:34This is one of Robert's favorite drum pan chicken stands.
07:38But with dozens of similar operations out on a good night, competition is tough.
07:42That looks awful juicy.
07:44So you think your chicken is better than anybody else?
07:47Well, I'm not going to do, but I know that's my number one taste.
07:50Yeah.
07:51What makes it number one?
07:52What's special about your chicken?
07:54That's our season and no powder.
07:55Fresh.
07:56Ingredients.
07:57Right.
07:58Also, I'll tell you, you're cooking that chicken just right too, man.
08:00It's nice.
08:03As elsewhere in the Caribbean, you pull right up in your car and order up.
08:07The guys behind you, let them wait.
08:10So I go to eat here, Richard Poore?
08:12Everybody comes here.
08:13It's very popular on a Friday night and on a Saturday night.
08:16People actually leave their homes, get dressed up and come out here, fire the cards on the
08:19side of the road, come here and get the chicken.
08:21Eat it in the street or you take it home with you?
08:23It depends.
08:24If there's no rain, stand up right here and eat it hot.
08:26That's the thing.
08:27I like to get it very hot, fresh, so they eat it on the spot.
08:31I've had a decent amount of grilled chicken around the Caribbean over the years, but tasting
08:35this, I get what all the talk is about.
08:38Fresh herb over dried.
08:40Nice, moist, properly and freshly cooked chicken makes all the difference in the world.
08:45Yeah, man's proud of his chicken.
08:47And I'll tell you, it's cooked really, really nicely.
08:54All right, that was really, really good.
08:56And the chef just told me everything that he puts in it and how he makes it.
08:59But I'm telling you, I could promise you that if I were to try to do exactly the same thing
09:04the same way, it's not going to taste that good.
09:18You can't go to Jamaica and avoid the beach altogether.
09:22What a leg of this hot sauce.
09:24You have to like dose it.
09:25But this ain't exactly Club Med.
09:27You can eat that by yourself.
09:28Well, what I can't, I'll feed to my camera people.
09:30They love leftovers.
09:34No reservation.
09:41Okay, pop quiz.
09:44Biggest money making financial sectors in Jamaica are...
09:51And...
09:52Bingo.
09:53But funny thing about those network lawyers.
09:56You know, really one of the wonders of television is that you really can't mention the elephant in the room.
10:01Not directly.
10:03Like, network policy would prohibit me from discussing or doing one of the most popular activities on this island.
10:10And of course, I always abide by network policy.
10:14So that leaves us with like the beaches, man.
10:19Just because I'm like not stoned immaculate doesn't mean I can't go to the beach.
10:23This is your brain.
10:25This is your brain on the beach.
10:28Hellsher Beach, the city beach, where Kingston kicks back on Sundays.
10:32In my experience, every island in the Caribbean has a city beach.
10:37So I guess this is the Kingston version of Coney Island.
10:39Locals go on the weekend, bring the kids.
10:43I'm not riding the pony, by the way.
10:46No pony ride this week, my friends.
10:48Yeah, no ponies.
10:49This will be one episode where Tony does not get on the pony.
10:53It's a local thing, Hellsher.
10:55Lined with fish shacks like Auntie Merle's here, serving up grilled fish and cold beer.
11:05Local film producer Sarah Manley's been coming here her whole life.
11:09Mostly.
11:09And as is tradition here, our meal starts by deciding what to eat.
11:13What do we have here?
11:15Snapper?
11:15And parrot.
11:17And parrot.
11:17I'm a big snapper fan.
11:20As freshness is clearly not an issue, it's really only about portion control.
11:24That's pretty big.
11:25You can eat that by yourself?
11:26Well, what I can't, I'll feed to my camera people.
11:28They love leftovers.
11:30Let's get some grilled lobster also while we're at it.
11:32Okay.
11:33So how long have you been coming to this beach?
11:35My whole life.
11:36I don't even remember the first time as a child.
11:38Yeah, one of the things I've noticed, you know, my time in the Caribbean, locals generally
11:43don't go to the beach.
11:44People who live near the beach.
11:46It's true.
11:46The whole lives don't go to the beach.
11:48Except on Sunday.
11:49Yeah.
11:49Sunday is a beach day.
11:50But when you live near the beach, it also means you work near the beach.
11:54Yeah.
11:59The crew at Auntie Merle's is certainly working hard.
12:04The gear is basic, but the fish first ring.
12:10You get your fish here one of four ways.
12:13You got your fried, very popular at Hellshire Beach.
12:17You can have it steamed, brown stew, or festival style.
12:22Brown stew, what's brown stew?
12:23Brown stew.
12:24It's very popular.
12:26It's like stewed fish, you know, but it's the whole fish.
12:29It's simmered in sauces, so it has like a gravy.
12:34I see you've got a lot of little sub-entrepreneurs as well.
12:37Yep.
12:37Cold beverages.
12:38Mm-hmm.
12:39There used to be a person that wandered around selling oysters.
12:43He's still here.
12:44What every good beach needs, an oyster guy with his tub of home-brewed hot sauce.
12:50Mm.
12:52Mm, yummers.
12:55What do you think?
12:56I think it's good.
12:58They're tiny.
12:59They're sweet.
13:00Mm-hmm.
13:04Appetizers finished, it's time for the entrees.
13:07Yummy.
13:09Fresh fish eaten on the beach.
13:11Always a good thing.
13:12Oh, that's serious.
13:13Yeah, so you can use a spoon and like scoop it all up and pour it all over the fish,
13:18you know?
13:19Those are really hot.
13:20Those are the peppers.
13:21And the seeds are like...
13:22Nuclear?
13:23Yeah.
13:24Mm.
13:26That's good.
13:27That's good.
13:29I'm liking this hot sauce.
13:31It's good.
13:31You have to like douse it.
13:33Yeah.
13:34Try some lobster there.
13:37Mm.
13:38Mm.
13:39Nice.
13:41I forgot how different and how good these lobsters are.
13:44Different from what other lobsters?
13:46The Maine lobster, you know, the clawed lobsters that we got.
13:49The last bit of business is about the Bami, a very Caribbean cake of cassava root.
13:55And another Jamaican specialty, this one I'd never heard of, called festival.
14:00So festival's like a fritter or a beignet.
14:02It's a...
14:04Yeah, I know.
14:05It's deep fried.
14:06It's like, you know, a flour dough deep fried.
14:08Raw.
14:09A sweet johnny cake.
14:10A sweet johnny cake.
14:10Yeah.
14:11They're really light.
14:18I have a regular theory on this show that food tastes better when you're not wearing shoes.
14:22It always tastes better on the beach.
14:24You've got your feet in the sand.
14:26Big stuff that would taste just okay, back in the city, really, really good.
14:32Every great cooking culture in the world, actually, deep fries a fish.
14:35It throws hot sauce on it.
14:37It's a constant.
14:38Well, the way to eat this food here, really, is you come and you order, then you swim.
14:44Because you eat it with your hands.
14:45Uh-huh.
14:46But there's salt out over you, you know?
14:48And you're hungry, yeah?
14:49Really hungry.
14:50Good stuff.
14:51But a lot.
14:52A lot.
14:54As soon as the cameras are off, they're gonna jump in the water.
14:56That is a great idea.
15:03Down, down, down, into a crap-slit shoot into hell.
15:07It's like shooting a shower.
15:09Why?
15:10How?
15:10And why never again?
15:16No reservations.
15:25I knew there was more to Jamaica than just good food, good music, and beautiful beaches.
15:29In my zeal to go beyond that, I urged my producers to look deep into the country, culture, and traditions,
15:35in search of something off the beaten path.
15:38Yeah.
15:40Perhaps they took deep and off the path too literally.
15:45I certainly erred by not paying close attention to what they'd come up with.
15:49Where are we going, Tony?
15:51Hell if I know.
15:52Something about a cave.
15:54Nice cool morning.
15:55Good caving weather.
15:56Which is how I found myself in the worst, hardest, most dangerous, misery-inducing, physically demanding, and frankly stupid escapade
16:04of my television career.
16:06Beaten path?
16:07How about heat stroke-inducing hump up and down muddy jungle hills?
16:10I yearned for a beaten path, any freaking path.
16:14My legs are killing me, and my heart is pounding out of my chest.
16:19I had imagined our guides Jan and Stefan from the Jamaican Caves organization to be more the brawny, heavy-on
16:25-the-safety-equipment-adventure tourism type.
16:27So Tony, how do you feel about going into this cave?
16:29Little trepidation?
16:31I think I'm okay with it.
16:32It's an extremely wild and natural cave.
16:35Oh, excellent.
16:36I'm not too concerned.
16:39Good.
16:40Looking back, this is like that moment in the horror movie where the character goes, what could possibly go wrong?
16:48Our trail gets slippery here again, guys.
16:50Yeah.
16:51Yeah, hang on to trees whenever possible, but watch for ones with big spikes coming out.
16:55The footing is unbelievable.
16:57We're nowhere near the cave and we're already swimming in mud and sweat.
17:01Ho, ho, ho.
17:03You okay?
17:04Yeah, man, I'm cool.
17:05And the terrain just gets more and more hairy.
17:08Yeah.
17:12Careful, Tony, it's really slippery.
17:14I should tell you, by the way, that I'm still at this point expecting like a cave with guardrails and
17:19maybe a gift shop.
17:20But no, I'm ready to stroke out.
17:23The effort of the hike, the heat and humidity, it's hard on me.
17:27I'm freaking middle-aged for God's sake.
17:30Heads up, when you come through bamboo, it has a tendency to poke you in the eye and it's very
17:33painful.
17:38Jungle and mountains, not enough.
17:39How about the cross the river part?
17:42There are two ways to cross the river on a log.
17:45There's a safe way straddling the log and slowly making your way over.
17:49And then the not-so-safe way.
17:53Have I mentioned, by the way, and I'm not lying, that our guides advised against even dipping a hand in
17:57this water as it's the toxic runoff of a nearby rum factory?
18:03The last hill was, of course, the steepest.
18:05And arriving at our destination brought no relief.
18:09Yeah.
18:10Nobody's sitting on the dirt.
18:12Nobody's sitting on the dry rock or sitting on the log.
18:15There are some domestic cats that have adapted out here because they have a food source here.
18:19There's a parasite in their feces.
18:21They're fine as long as you don't sit on the ground.
18:24Anal-seeking parasites.
18:26Sure.
18:27Why not?
18:29And you want me to go where?
18:31Okay, we're at the entrance pit to one of the most magnificent and wildest caves in Jamaica.
18:36Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bats down there.
18:38As every step progresses, you will feel increasing heat, humidity, and it smells like a barn down there.
18:45Tremendous life experience.
18:48Bat feces, eh?
18:50I think this ranks with the ATV and the Sicilian cliff jump.
18:55Among the all-time good ideas.
18:58The truth is, nothing in my past experiences had even remotely prepared me for what was ahead.
19:05I made a point of being among the first ones down.
19:08Just so I could get this bird's eye view of Diane, who got me into this mess, hung up like
19:13a frog in biology class.
19:14It's stuck in the woods.
19:16Oh, look at her struggle.
19:18Sawed off at the ankle.
19:20Give her a flare, a pistol, two rounds.
19:25I'm actually enjoying this part.
19:27Pull your right foot down a little more.
19:32There's a tiki bar just a few yards down, right?
19:36Right?
19:36I'm not sure if it's open on shoes here.
19:38How do you know I expect an umbrella in my drink?
19:41We finally begin our descent into what some might call a fecal wonderland, but which me and my crew are
19:47quickly finding to be hell.
19:49What looks like mud is actually a soup of bat and roach feces.
19:55Every step is treacherous and a fall can easily drop you two stories or more.
20:01And Jan cheerfully supplies a steady stream of encouraging anecdotes.
20:05You will see more roaches in here than you have ever seen in your life.
20:09Oh yeah?
20:10I'm from New York City.
20:11Millions of roaches in here.
20:13Really?
20:13Great.
20:14I look forward to that.
20:16As promised, the roaches were plentiful.
20:18They were also gigantic.
20:20They crunched under hands and feet as we went deeper and deeper.
20:24The temperature getting higher and higher as we got closer to the bats.
20:28Whoa!
20:29Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
20:32Our whole purpose in coming is falling apart as the equipment is failing.
20:36Hold on.
20:37I'm totally fine.
20:38Hang on.
20:40It's like shooting in the shower.
20:41And the simple act of trying to frame a shot means leaving yourself perilously off balance
20:46and in danger of toppling off a cliff or into a soup of bat and roach feces.
20:51Watch out here.
20:53Watch out a lot.
20:54Yeah.
20:55Every step is treacherous with occasional unpredictable drop-offs.
21:01Lose your light for a second and it's time for a panic attack.
21:07There's always the awful knowledge of how much rock and earth hangs over us.
21:14And nothing can give you a sense of the stench and oppressive heat.
21:19I'm not sure why I kept going.
21:21I suppose because I didn't want to look like a on TV.
21:24But I wasn't up to it.
21:26I know that now.
21:27Let's go.
21:29Like the boxer once said, I should have stood in bed.
21:37That didn't sound good.
21:40And yet Bat Boy and his friends love this.
21:43This is another day at the office for Jan and Stefan.
21:46Why does this place matter?
21:48Caves are essentially biological islands the same way that the Galapagos would be.
21:52Because the invertebrates that live in the caves cannot travel over land from one cave to another.
21:57Ah, so you basically have, well not unique species, but unique.
22:01But there is that potential.
22:03And probably that is the case.
22:05That some of the caves have species which have evolved from earlier species that have gotten in there.
22:11Which are now only found in that cave.
22:14My tour here is over.
22:16It's back to the light for me.
22:19But there was one final character in this episode.
22:25Hey, hey, you hear that?
22:30There he was.
22:31All black.
22:32A descendant of a pampered house cat, no doubt.
22:35Now surviving happily on a diet of roaches and bats and himself a host for virulent, butt-seeking parasites.
22:42Here kitty kitty.
22:44Go see Diane.
22:46That's right, Diane.
22:49I'm told that this cave was, in fact, the safest of the 27 major cave systems in Jamaica.
22:55And I guess I should have known that there are no tourist caves here.
22:59But as I staggered back through the heat in a cold sweat, barely avoiding heat stroke to burn every scrap
23:04of crap encrusted clothing on my body,
23:07I trust I've shown anyone looking for a cheap cave thrill while on Jamaican vacation that you should probably stick
23:13with a chaise lounge and a split.
23:17Coming up next...
23:18So this is what we eat every day.
23:21If Anthony don't like it, talk to Anthony.
23:28No reservations.
23:43It's possible that this section of Kingston known as Raytown has seen better times.
23:48But no one living here can remember them.
23:52More than an irony of fate that the boundaries of Raytown are defined by a cemetery, a mental hospital, and
23:58Jamaica's largest prison.
24:00When Alan Hope was born here in 1952, it was a place of poverty and despair, much like the trench
24:06town where Bob Marley grew up.
24:08But the man I'm meeting today is now known as Muta Baruca, Rastafarian icon and Jamaica's original dub poet.
24:16Good to meet you.
24:17The old neighborhood?
24:20Yes, yes.
24:21After finding his path as a Rastafarian in the early 70s, Muta Baruca began combining the power of words with
24:27his love of Jamaica's music.
24:30His writings, performances, and radio shows are dedicated to standing up for oppressed peoples everywhere, and for the Jamaican poor
24:37in particular.
24:39Like virtually everyone I spoke to in Jamaica, Muta Baruca's personal roots run right through Coronation Market.
24:45Everybody I've spoken to in Jamaica has some personal memory in Coronation Market.
24:49Coronation Market is the market.
24:51My grandmother used to sell in there.
24:57I walked towards the prison.
24:59What I'm going to tell you about now, this is the main prison.
25:05Ah, blessed man.
25:06In the face of such hardship, I'm curious about the creative path that he pursued.
25:11Where do you think you started to fall in love with language and words and poetry?
25:15In Sun Technical, in high school.
25:17Was it one teacher?
25:18Well, one teacher that turned me on to poetry.
25:21And I wrote a poem, and she liked the poem, and she ticked it and she gave me a big
25:25mark.
25:26It was a nature poem.
25:27Birds are a lovely thing to see, just to see them flying free.
25:31Birds with many colors, it's wonderful to see them fly for hours, you know.
25:35And then we had a teacher, Marcus Garvey.
25:37You ever hear about Marcus Garvey?
25:39Of course.
25:39Marcus Garvey's son used to teach at a school.
25:43And in other days, Malcolm X's book used to ban.
25:46It was banned?
25:46Every book that said black planet was banned in Jamaica.
25:50Them have this feeling that if you're talking about black consciousness, you're going to anti-white.
25:57But what we used to do now, we take the cover for the book.
26:00And put a, you know, maybe Agatha Christie cover on it.
26:04You know, go to school and read it, but it's an autobiography of Malcolm X.
26:10The world's perception of Jamaica has certainly changed in Muda Baruka's lifetime.
26:14I know you've traveled all over the world, and I'm sure you've seen this, that everywhere you travel in this
26:20world where people are not happy with the way things are, you see two t-shirts that everyone's got.
26:25Che Guevara and Bob Marley.
26:27Are you comfortable with that?
26:29That for them, it's really Bob Marley and Bob Marley's music.
26:31What we say, if there was no Rastafari, there wouldn't be any Bob Marley.
26:35You see, so it is the Rastafari movement that is pushing the philosophy and opinions of Bob Marley.
26:42Aside from the political and spiritual aspirations which Rastafarianism express, Rastas are some of the original proponents of the small,
26:50slow, local, and organic food movements we've come to take for granted in the privileged world.
26:56Mind you, their almost exclusively vegan diet isn't my usual fare.
27:03But I enjoyed my first exposures to the Rastafarian product line, so I'll keep an open mind here.
27:14Rastas refer to their food as being ital, which means, I gather, vital or something. I don't know.
27:20First of all, what does ital mean?
27:22Well, ital is really our next level to natural.
27:24When you say ital, it's Rastafari, we have to say natural.
27:28But it's like food unprocessed, you know, without chemicals or anything.
27:35Yeah, I just made a drink a while ago.
27:37It's for everybody here, just for us.
27:40With your appetite.
27:41This is something I do every morning.
27:44It's like our food porridge.
27:46This is pumpkin seed, sesame tahini, coconut water, ripe banana, papa, and mango.
27:54Sounds like it's good for you.
27:56Well, it's supposed to be.
27:58It's supposed to be.
27:59But apart from good for you, it's nice.
28:01I think it's nice, really.
28:04That is good.
28:05It is good.
28:06Not for the camera seeing, but it is good.
28:08No, no, that is good.
28:10On the plus side, the Rastafarian diet is rich in fresh greens, whole grains, local fruit, which as mom always
28:16said, are good for you.
28:18The downside from my perspective would be.
28:20So this is what we eat every day.
28:23As I say, if Anthony don't like it, don't .
28:29I had to say, this is not bad.
28:31Not for the camera.
28:33Not for the camera.
28:34What's not to like?
28:35Fresh green stuff, a lot of garlic.
28:37You have that sweet component.
28:40Believe me, I understand the chemistry and the philosophy behind it because you keep all the nutrients and the vitamins
28:44in it.
28:44And of course, it's the latest trend in food is raw vegetarian food.
28:48Generally, I don't care if it kills me slowly because it tastes really, really good.
28:53So, now the hard questions.
28:56Everybody in the world who sees this, use the word Rasta, Rastafara, Rastafarianism, if you ask them, what does that
29:03mean to you?
29:05A guy with dreadlocks is probably selling ganja.
29:09A guy with dreadlocks that's smoking ganja.
29:12One, it's not everybody who locks his Rasta, and two, it's not every Rasta smoke ganja.
29:18I'm a living testament of not smoking.
29:21Rastafari is really a black power movement with a spiritual nucleus.
29:27It is founded out of the oppression that was meted out of black people who came here as Africans and
29:33then was turned into slaves.
29:35You know, so the idea is formed and fashioned around liberation for black people.
29:42But the spirituality of Rastafari is not unique to Rastafari.
29:46So that is why a lot of people all over the world can connect to it.
29:50Before we're done, I've got one burning question I've been dying to ask a real Rasta for years.
29:56White kid on a skateboard, blonde hair, dreads down to here, you've seen them.
30:00I mean, you've seen them on TV, a bunch of idiots skating around California, mommy and daddy are rich, never
30:05been to Africa, they're not going to Africa.
30:07Yeah, definitely not. But them Rastafari...
30:08Can they get in?
30:09They're not...
30:09Get in rear. Get in rear, that's what I have to get in rear.
30:13What do you do with that?
30:13Black people running up and down all the place to them is Roman Ketali.
30:16What do we do with that?
30:18It's a crazy mixed up world here, man.
30:21You know what I mean?
30:27Jamaicans may be laid back, but the Jamaican music scene is anything but.
30:31It's extremely competitive.
30:33Right now in Jamaica you probably have more artists than a consumer.
30:35That's one of the reasons why, as a young artist, it's also hard to stand out.
31:00See Sanjay.
31:05See Sanjay work.
31:11Sanjay Ramananda is laying down tracks for his next single.
31:14The long range marketing plan for this release is pretty typical for the Jamaican scene.
31:22Within the next 48 hours, he'll mix two songs, press a few hundred records and get them to every dance
31:27hall DJ he knows.
31:28If he's lucky, they'll play his music for thousands of people at one of Jamaica's nightly dance hall events.
31:35I do not understate.
31:37Every night until nearly dawn I fell asleep to thump, thump, thump.
31:41Ah!
31:43Professionally he goes by just Sanjay.
31:44How did you get started?
31:45I was watching TV one day and watching some videos on TV and I remember just watching it and thinking
31:51I could do better than him.
31:52And then I just went and I wrote like three songs that day and then it just stuck with me
31:55ever since.
31:56In my life I've had a few friends, even some true friends that I can call in times of need.
32:03The pairing of a pop sound with a much more aggressive track on the same release tells me there's a
32:07lot I don't know about the local music scene.
32:12The key to this phenomenon is dance hall. Like the term hip hop, it's come to refer to both music
32:17and lifestyle.
32:19What is dance hall?
32:21Dance hall is the youthful expression of our culture.
32:24Dance hall would be the younger brother to reggae music from the sound system toasting culture.
32:31What's toasting?
32:33Toasting is when you speak over instrumentals, you get the crowd lively.
32:36Similar to how rap started, the DJ kind of shouting out to the crowd.
32:40More than that, dance hall is now an economic web of promoters, record labels, and sound system operators who define
32:46and control the Jamaican music scene.
32:49How dance hall came about it was this. The guys who owned studios, because Jamaican radio didn't play a lot
32:54of the music at the time.
32:56They had a sound system attributed to the studio. That was the outlet for the music.
32:59Radios at that time only played American music. So these sound systems also served as a communal radio.
33:05Because at the time, radios weren't available to everybody. Obviously in the ghetto, they were expensive.
33:08Like a block party.
33:09A block party, yeah. Most of these dances, the premiere dances in Kingston, are actually street dances like the Passa
33:15Passas and the Dirty Fridays.
33:17Wait a minute, if you're throwing a street party, how do you make money off of this? Who's making money
33:21and how would you make money?
33:22The bar.
33:23It's all about the bar. So you get a cut of the bar?
33:30Me as an artist?
33:31Yeah.
33:31No, no, definitely not.
33:33What are you getting out of this?
33:33We have nothing. I mean promotion.
33:35You get promotion.
33:36Artists get promotion.
33:37So you're hoping they're going to either hire you or buy your records?
33:41It gives you a level of exposure.
33:49The next step in the process brings us over to Sonic Sounds and back to a form of distribution all
33:54but dead in the United States.
33:57The 45 remains king in Jamaica. It's fast, cheap, DJs here still actually use turntables and unlike CDs, vinyl is
34:06reusable.
34:06So who's buying these records?
34:09For the most part, the European markets like Germany and certain other places and Japan.
34:18This is a very unsentimental process. Here's how it works.
34:23We make your record.
34:28If it sells, that's nice. If it doesn't sell, we do this with it.
34:37Then, we make someone else's record.
34:40So that's your music right there.
34:44Hot vinyl.
34:45But you said that this is a demo market.
34:48Yeah, in Jamaica, we're not consumers of music. We don't purchase our own music, you know.
34:53You hear it at parties, you hear it at streets.
34:55Exactly. We're like a promotion culture.
34:57People look to see what's hot in Jamaica, which is why it's so important to stay relevant at these street
35:02dances and on 45s.
35:14The dance-all scene is, well, what you do at night here.
35:21There's no rootsy, laid-back Rasta vibe. This ain't about standing up for your rights or praising Jah or anything
35:27like that.
35:27Like reggaeton, its mutant cousin, dance-all is the hardcore beat behind lyrics concerning, for the most part, acquiring possessions,
35:34getting respect on the street, beating down perceived enemies, and enjoying the physical charms of varied, if not multitudinous, bitches.
35:43There's a whole culture to these street dances, you know. The only direct economic benefit is from the bar, but
35:48I mean, you know, you have dancers that make a career out of it.
35:51Because, you know, they go to these street dances night after night and they dance, they make the DVDs, because
35:55there's a DVD being made at all these dances and those DVDs get shipped all over the world.
36:00Sanjay's here to see and be seen, but this crew doesn't know him, so his music has no chance of
36:04being played tonight.
36:06No surprise.
36:07It's extremely competitive. Right now in Jamaica, you probably have more artists than a consumer.
36:12That's one of the reasons why, as a young artist, it's also hard to stand out on a certain level,
36:16you know what I mean, because it's so crowded.
36:18You know, you really have to make that extra effort to stand out from the rest of the crowd and
36:22the rest of the park.
36:27This is a very competitive scene, filled with performers and songwriters hoping to live out their dream.
36:33Few, very few, making.
36:45When Jamaicans picture heaven, I imagine it looks something like the Blue Mountains.
36:49Cool, green and surprisingly profitable.
36:53We boast a very high quality coffee and it's also a high priced coffee.
37:13Lowland Jamaica is crowded and pretty hot much of the year round.
37:17Hidden in plain sight though, is a world of cool breezes and thick morning fog.
37:24Comparing to Kingston, here it's a totally different world.
37:29Where it's usually five to six degrees cooler at any given time.
37:39The Blue Mountains have always offered escape to Jamaicans.
37:42Runaway slaves called Maroons lived in them for centuries.
37:46White planters built summer homes there to beat the heat.
37:49And in the late 20th century, a long standing cash crop rose to become a standard of excellence and a
37:54reliable source of hard currency that involved neither strip mining nor making colorful drinks for tourists.
38:00And I ain't talking about weed.
38:02The Blue Mountains could easily be considered as a microclimate of Chewbacca with its own weather pattern.
38:08The mountain's particular microclimate turns out to be among the happiest places on earth for the pathologically fussy Arabica coffee
38:15bean.
38:16We ought to know that if you should take this plant, for example, a Blue Mountain coffee plant and take
38:22it to Brazil, Colombia, wherever in the world, it will produce coffee.
38:27But it just will not produce the same quality coffee as it will here in the Blue Mountains.
38:34We're rolling out!
38:36We're rolling out!
38:39Junior's family has been working on the Creighton estate for a long time now.
38:42He joined me for some conversation over a cup of the local brew.
38:46$17 each in Japan, by the way.
38:49Coffee's been produced on this property for how long?
38:51Nearly three centuries of coffee production.
38:54And this property in particular?
38:55Yes, we are basically, I've been a predominant producer of Blue Mountain coffee.
39:00One country got an early lock on the market for Jamaican coffee.
39:03You were into Japan early.
39:05The 1950s, yeah.
39:06I think they're the number one consumer of Jamaican coffee?
39:08Exactly. 85% of Jamaican coffee is, in fact, exported directly to Japan.
39:15And what percentage to the states?
39:17Roughly around 7% and 8% to the rest of the world.
39:21Is there enough coffee for the demand?
39:22No, there isn't.
39:23So basically, more people want Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee than you have the ability to supply.
39:29That's not a bad position to be in.
39:31Well, it really isn't.
39:32We boast a very high-quality coffee, and it's also a high-priced coffee.
39:38So it's not a bad position to be in.
39:40Now, you're a coffee-producing culture. Are you a coffee-drinking culture?
39:44No. No?
39:45No, we're not.
39:46I never see anyone drinking coffee.
39:47No, we're not. We're not a coffee-drinking culture, but we're actually high-producers.
39:53This weather is probably a lot more familiar to Jamaicans than it is to people who see the travel videos.
40:00It's been raining for how long now?
40:02Roughly around six weeks, continuously, on and off.
40:08It was a special treat that Junior's family cooked me up the classic Jamaican Sunday dinner right there on the
40:13estate.
40:14A family institution throughout the country.
40:17All the basic, beloved elements were represented.
40:21Rice and pigeon peas, country-style chicken, ackee and saltfish, fried plantains, and breadfruit.
40:30This is the real thing.
40:32Sunday dinner is still a big deal in Jamaica.
40:35Here in Jamaica, if you miss every day of the week, you don't miss Sunday.
40:39Definitely.
40:41You have to cook on a Sunday.
40:43This, the ackee, I love.
40:45You've never had it before?
40:46I've never had ackee before.
40:48What is ackee?
40:49It's just a fruit.
40:51When it grows, it has this yellow outside.
40:53But then, once it starts to ripe, the orange part opens, then you see the yellow part with some black
41:01seeds in them.
41:02Right.
41:02So when you're preparing them, you cut off the black seeds, then you just cook them.
41:07You add saltfish or whatever.
41:09It's all a national deal.
41:12So, yeah, who do we have to thank for this?
41:13Who prepared this meal, by the way, or is this a group effort?
41:16It's a group effort led by Auntie Pam.
41:20Yeah, she's the chef extraordinaire.
41:23I think it seems to be comfortable with our Jamaican food.
41:28I was a little bit, you know, hesitant about, you know, if you enjoy the food.
41:34Oh, no, this is really, really good.
41:37This is right in my comfort zone.
41:38Okay.
41:39So good.
41:39Thank you so much.
41:41Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful food.
41:43You'll be very happy.
41:44I'm happy that's you.
41:45I'll just enjoy it.
41:48I can't see.
41:54The sad fact about the Caribbean is that in most countries, all the traditional industries have disappeared.
42:00The populations serve a single god, tourism, neglecting the less profitable means of making a living like fishing, farming, manufacturing.
42:09Jamaica is a rare exception, and not only still farms and fishes for its own food and exports products for
42:15hard currency,
42:16but has influenced the whole world with perhaps its most powerful export, a musical culture and liberation theology which people
42:24respond to everywhere.
42:26A long history of colonialism, oppression, corruption, political infighting, black-on-black racism have resulted in a kind of optimistic
42:34fatalism,
42:34beneath which lies a determination to bow to no one.
42:38The food, the fun, the beaches are, of course, as advertised.
42:43And if the service and accommodations of the old British Empire are what you're looking for, that's here, too.
42:49There's plenty of bad stuff laying beneath the surface of those commercials, but even more good.
42:55A little respect pays real dividends here.
42:59Just keep your ass above the ground.
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