Jamaican Dialect Talks on ZQI

Radio broadcasting began in Jamaica in 1939. The first transmission was from an amateur radio enthusiast, John Grinan aka VP5PZ. Mr. Grinan convincing the Government to use his equipment to operate a public broadcasting station. Starting that November, they began weekly broadcasts. PM Dennis Glick diversified the programming to include news, and live music. In 1940 it changed calls to ZQI, as it was known for a decade. The Jamaica Broadcasting Company took over the operations in 1950 turning it into a commercial station using the call sign RJR "Radio Jamaica and the Re-diffusion Network." In the white paper A History of Jamaican Creole in the Jamaican Broadcasting Media [SOURCE] author Michael Westphal described those early broadcasts: "There was no independent news section and articles from the Daily Gleaner [newspaper] were read out one by one." More here, here and here.

While it survives today as RJR, it's eccentric public radio tenure was more interesting. In 1941 ZQI aired a series of "Dialect Talks" about the WWII situation in Europe which was entirely scripted phonetically in a Jamaican dialect. For an American I find it as difficult to read as Ridley Walker.  A sentence like "Bwoy Hinglan' week me son, but all'wen "Itler t'row dung de body line bowling Hinglan' was gettin' right behin' de ball an' showin' de Jarman dem de face a de williow." It was written by "Oliver Kirkpatrick under the pseudonym "John Canoe." But, frankly I'm not sure what they're saying. Thankfully it has a glossary.

Some of the scripts were later bound into a book titled Country Cousin: A Selection of Dialect Talks; it was published by Gleaner in 1941. Kirkpatrick published one other text, a folk tale children's book Naja the Snake and Magus the Mongoose. He also published some poetry in Bitterroot Magazine. (That tiny bibliography actually comes from another book, Caribbean Writers (1979) by Margret and Donald Herdeck and Maurice Lubin.) The introduction to Country Cousin was written by Philip Manderson Sherlock, a well-known intellectual, Caribbean scholar and at the time, Secretary of the University of the West Indies. He wrote:

"Books and the radio do not work against each other; rather, they reinforce each other, the written word giving permanence to the spoken word; and the radio reaches it's public at once; working like a flash of light; the written word spreads more slowly, but not less effectively; and it is fitting that talks that have been so successful over the air should be recorded more permanently."

Sherlock is the lynch-pin in this tale. He wrote introductions to many other notable Jamaican books of that era including Louise Bennett's first book of poetry Dialect Verses which was also published by Gleaner. Though it was founded in 1834 as a weekly, during WWII the Daily Gleaner was an 8-page daily news paper. Culturally, The Gleaner was more like ZQI than RJR. ZQI was very BBC, using a lot of foreign content, so the "dialect" program stood out among the rest of it's programming, which was targeted at the colonial audience. RJR aired more local productions. However, it still was required to broadcast 10 hours of BBC programs, and 1.5 hours of government programs weekly. RJR also broadcast cultural programs in conjunction with the University of the West Indies. Whether Sherlock broadcast on ZQI is unknown but it's certain he did perform on RJR no later than 1957.It is likely the connection between the three goes back all the way to ZQI.

This Station Rules The Nation

Two companies have historically controlled broadcast media in Jamaica.   The first began in 1949: Radio Jamaica Rediffusion Limited (RJR).  The company inherited ZQI (formerly NJ2PZ and VP5PZ) from John Grinan.  RJR was established as a privately owned  subsidiary of Rediffusion of London. As you'd expect, it reflected the still largely colonialist view of the UK. (Image from hamgallery.com)  there was also a shortwave station called VRR but we won't get into that.

Throughout the 1950s RJR aired primarily American and British popular music. In 1959 the radio dial diversified when Prime Minister Norman Manley enabled the creation of the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation (JBC.) This company was government owned and managed by a board of directors. While both stations played a little local music, they played it safe avoiding anything political. You can read more about that era in the book Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control  by Stephen A. King. More here.

The important take away here is that indigenous music was being kept out of the playlist and when it was aired.. limited to the most milquetoast of tracks and on the off hours. So Jamaicans made their own radio. They rigged up portable sound system on cars and drove around neighborhoods. This scene created Count Matchuk. Winston Cooper, better known as Count Matchuki was the first Jamaican DJ. He added spoken segments to recorded tracks in the style of jive-walking US DJs. He became familiar with that sound in New Orleans, probably from hearing any one of the three Poppa-Stoppas among others. More here. This same technique was emulated by U-Royamong others. More here and here.

There is some conjecture that this led to the development of rap music. [Side note: in 1970 U Roy (Ewart Beckford) released the single "This Station Rules the Nation."]  But even while that new genre rose to prominence radio in Jamaica remained constricted. JBC radio was founded in 1959 and until the 1990s that was it.  In that modern decade we saw the addition of Irie FM, Power 106 FM, and Love FM among others. There are now a total of 20 radio stations on an island only 4,000 square miles in size...smaller than Connecticut.