The ‘Payola Pride’ effect – Part 1
Over the approximately 18 years I have been involved full-time in entertainment as a print journalist, I have not received as many pay for a write-up offers in cash or kind as would probably be expected in a sector notoriously rife with under the counter payments. Certainly, they were far fewer (and of much lesser money value) than were rumoured to have changed hands, willingly or unwillingly, between those who could provide publicity and those who needed it.
Among the attempted payments which stand out are the of pushing a couple thousand-dollar bills (I am not sure how much in total) back and forth across a table at the end of an interview. They were slid to me while the entertainer looked me dead in the eye, I held his gaze while I pushed it back and we did a rather funny version of money football for a couple seconds until the cash remained permanently in his half. Another was the offer of a north coast hotel stay for a change of scenery (I said I had access to a couple bedrooms at home, so when I wanted somewhere a bit different, I relocated for a while – sort of like when people cannot afford new furniture – cash or ‘higher’ purchase – they change the room around every now and then). And, by far the most memorable one was the call for services at a particular late-night establishment on the lower end of Molynes Road, St Andrew.
There were about two or three other offers (including a $1,000 bill in Emancipation Park) and that was that. Nothing like the $1,000,000 I was very reliably informed was dangled as a chart-topping incentive, the car that was rumoured to have been driven off a St. Andrew lot and the lobster supposed to have been sent to a media personality came my way. There was the high roller turned supposed music producer who dropped his card on my notebook as he walked down the steps at the Courtleigh Auditorium and instructed “call me”. Who know what that would have led to if the card had not ended up in the trash?
Upon reflection, one of the things that struck me is that the offers came after I had finished the interview or very late in the interaction. This suggests that there was an expectation that I would ask and, when this did not happen, the interpretation was that I wanted them to make the first move. In turn, this indicates to me that payola is close to standard practice in this business of Jamaican entertainment and that a lot took place around me that I was very happily naïve to. In its strictest sense, payola refers to payment for electronic broadcast and about a decade ago the Broadcasting Commission proposed a range of fines for persons in Jamaica found guilty of it. The suggested starting figure of $5 million indicated two things to me – that the Broadcasting Commission was taking payola very seriously and there was a lot of money floating around, as it was expected that the offender could come up with the cash. The penalty got higher for repeat offenders, climbing to $15 million. Up to 2017, there was a wait for parliamentary approval.
I am aware that there is a school of thought which says one hand washes the other, so if you write or play for the artiste, then the artiste and their management will do something for you in turn. However, I am not aware of anyone in the print or electronic press who has proudly and publicly stated that they have taken money from someone in the music business for an article, song or video play, electronic press interview. If payola is fine, where is the public pride of those who have engaged in it?
In one of the very few other payola offers that were made to me, I had done an interview with three prominent persons in the Jamaican music business. At the end, one attempted to hand me a wad of bills. I said what I normally do in those situations, when courtesy is the best (and only) way to go. I looked him in the eye, while seeing the other two looking at me intently in my peripheral vision and said, “mi alright man.” He smiled and said, “Mel always alright.”
It was a satisfying moment.
Next two weeks: Part 2 of Payola Pride.
Mel Cooke covered Jamaican entertainment as a print journalist for almost two decades, overlapping with his MPhil research on dancehall and experiential marketing with the Institute of Caribbean Studies, UWI, Mona, where he is now working on a PhD while lecturing in the Bachelor of Arts, Communication Arts and Technology (BACAT) programme at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech, Ja.).
