JARIA to prohibit non members from performing in Europe
September 7th, 2011 | By
Soon local Jamaican artists who are not members of the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association will be prohibited from legally performing in Europe. Former Third World keyboardist and JARIA chairman Michael Ibo Cooper delivered the message during his keynote address at the launch of Abijah’s single and video Where is the Love.
The new move resulted from a forged alliance between the local body and the French reggae music fraternity. Music stakeholders in France invited JARIA to regulate future touring in the country. Cooper stated that JARIA’s french counterparts are formulating a system to prevent Jamaican artists and musicians who are not JARIA members from performing in Europe.
“They are agents for all of the European promoters and they are going to see to it, that no European promoter employs a Jamaican artiste without being a JARIA member[...] They say, they want us now to be like the quality controller for the artistes coming (to Europe) because them have a lot of trouble with the Jamaican artistes so dem want somebody to advise them as to which artiste to carry. And they have choosen our organization,” Cooper announced.
“The French came here for Reggae Month and they saw what we were doing and invited and paid for our delegation to go there.[...] he continued.
“our delegation went to Europe to find that these French people have joined JARIA and in a few weeks time, we are going to have probably, a bigger JARIA membership of Europeans than Jamaicans. Believe it or not. I want you to understand how the people them love weh we a do and we nah respect weh we a do,”
