I’m at a hurricane relief concert with the toast of Jamaica. There are gorgeous high cheekbones, cakey sweet herbs baking the air, and lots of white patrons. Three famous DJs are here—one from the UK—for a sound battle to raise money for St. Elizabeth’s recovery from a Category 5 storm. So many world citizens love Jamaica, a country with stakes in the global struggle that can still pretty up a honeymoon dream. I feel unsettled, grateful I can claim here but singing along to social unrest roots reggae songs as the island implodes under debt and an increasingly globalized economy. The cab driver who dropped me home from uni today kept reminding me of the traffic.

“Waterloo and Trafalgar too crazy this time of day,” he said, not knowing I wasn’t rushed. He was.

“Los Angeles and New York get this way every day, especially Friday. It’s cool man. I’m not going nowhere but home,” I told him.

As he attempted to cross town to avoid the inevitable, like a fly spinning toward fan blades, I asked him where he was from. He emigrated to Jamaica as a missionary in 2025 and decided to stay. The hard labor he started his visa with had been too strenuous to make so little. So he drove Uber, thinking the bones might endure better. Today, he was tired and antsy though.

“What do you do in New York?” he asked,

“I’m a writer. I write books.”

I haven’t written the book, but I know I want it to mean something to Jamaica. I want to pay Jamaica back and give little black boys a reason to big up Jamaica all around the world. Our biggest global export, the music, the vibes before vibes were vibes, is a load-bearing wall, and the unfailing way we make enough money to chisel out a decent, modest existence in a world otherwise negligent of our human plights.

In the middle of the party, I scanned the pretty faces, the brown-skin uptown girls in full force, the lawyers, the doctors, the UWI Mona elites and the Campion class alums, and fretted they were somewhere above me. For roots music to be so big, even the bourgeoisie, who it directly critiques, need to enjoy it. As my arms swayed and my thighs dipped into a lover’s rock, I thought of how hard it is to sell music about defeating power alone. Roots has to address and become about essential love, bonding across status lines.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know this is a serious event. And we love Jamaica! So if you love Jamaica, say REGGAE MUSIC! And the Prime Minister is here, ladies and gentlemen. Dave Chappelle is here ladies and gentlemen.”

At this point, you don’t have to care what the people high above stand for, as long as they continue to love Jamrock enough to donate, we might find it in us to dance all night.