CULTURE is a crucial ingredient of human mental and imaginative development, but it is not to be concluded as a definite conclusion of what we are. With culture, many processes inhabit its realms and have dual manifestations. In respect to the masthead of this column, culture is addressed between popular culture and the greater twin- the profound essence of culture.
New definitions entered the stage of culture centuries ago at the request of royalty in need of court entertainment — whether it be song, comedy or mock drama — outside of the strict realms of religion and its rituals. Not to say that there were no symbolisms in these acrobatic acts and masquerades, but they were less strict and more open to normal responses than the ceremonial re-creations of the acts of faith and the old pageants of mythology.

MODERN INTERPRETATIONS: With the birth of the music industry and the technology to showcase musicians and actors, the term the ‘Entertainment Industry’ and popular culture emerged. This movement came with singers and bands, crooners, love songs, hair-raising musicians, and stage fashions, all of which embodied the term “popular culture” and also included movies. This was a business that enveloped persons driven mainly by the economics of entertainment. Promoters and sponsors must be convinced of their overall benefits, beyond that of the performers and their audiences.

I have had that experience working in that industry locally. However, it does not make them evil, considering that all expenses are initially divided by the sponsors and promoters. This is not to say that entertainment does not convey expressions of depth and social significance. It does — Bob Marley and the Wailers are great examples, but that manifestation is not of the majority. However, in its greater moments, they were enveloped and absorbed by the defining nature of culture, whether grassroots or by the stages of artistic and dramatic interpretation to engage the world.

CULTURAL REALMS: The characteristics of cultural spaces step away from strict religious systems and into interpretive archival portals and philosophies (religion is not exempted). These things question and interpret values and are mostly expressed through literature, music, art and theatre, or even costumed skits supported by poetry and rhythm. Cultural realms revolve around tangible and intangible heritage. Much of this effort is not discussed in terms of understanding today, as we struggle with influences of popular culture from other shores. Though aspects of it do unfold in discussions from inherited streams passed on and are engrained in the folk songs that we sang in school yesterday, they are unknown to today’s generation.

What is valued and is referred to as personal ‘culture’ is in most cases rooted in painted scenes in the consciousness that define chapters of experiences, whether by conversations with elders or by the musical memory or lines of familiar revolutionary poetry (such as Martin Carter’s ‘I come from the Nigger yard’). These aspects merge into reflections that nurture the strength of the individual’s capability to sensibly interpret the world that one is traversing through amidst the legions of luring, transparent phantom theories willing to misguide, distort and saturate with damning outcomes,

I can remember sitting in my father’s small joiner shop when I was about 10 years old, listening to his friend, ‘Uncle Moushea’, who interpreted for me the characters of the masquerade band. He was a flautist of the masquerade band. It was interesting to think of what their costumes meant and how these costumed players each reacted to the musicians. A lifetime later, I anxiously bought and read the book ‘The JUMBIES’ playing ground by Robert Wyndham Nicholls’ and realised that the masquerades of the Eastern Caribbean were tremendously different in influence from what we have here. Ours seems to have emerged from a unique source.

Popular culture -Entertainment will always be with us. It’s rooted in this age and will be managed to and fro as gigs go. But we must understand and comprehend that it does not, in most cases, embody the core culture of serious reflection that popular culture itself draws from, which is referred to as the cultural twins. So, my friends, balance the twins and there will be no confusion about priority preferences.