Jamaican Music vs American Music (My take)

Image owned by Nicholas Raymond

While Reading the hearing section in NHS, I couldn't help but notice how Ackerman highlighted the way different cultures have different beats. Specifically when she highlighted the different types of beats that kids would grow up with in places like Jamaica, China, and Africa. 

This stuck with me so much because I also noticed the different beats that come with cultures back when I was much younger. Since both my parents are from Jamaica, I grew up living in a small Jamaican community while living on Nantucket. As a result, I heard a lot of Caribbean music growing up and noticed the unique beat that it had in comparison to all the American songs that I would hear on the radio. For me, it was like each Caribbean song was playing the same sort of traditional Jamaican tune while all the American songs felt like they were more varied in how they were played. I don't know, maybe it was just because I tuned out most of the music around me because it was always so loud and just not my style at the time. My parents would always go on about how (insert song here) was a classic but to me it always sounded the same and was always on so it was hard to tell what was a new hit and an old classic.

There's also the fact that It was pretty hard to appreciate your culture's music over the radio when Pokemon and Cartoon Network were the only things that mattered back then for a kid. By the way, speaking of Jamaican Radio, if you want to REALLY appreciate Caribbean music, you should probably just look up songs on YouTube because the Radio DJ will be screaming over the music and cutting in every other 20 seconds. That's just how it is with Jamaican Radio, sometimes you just have to hear pass the DJ and focus on the music you know? But anyways, I think a lot of that lack of appreciation probably came from growing up in the US rather than Jamaica. None of my friends or teachers were talking about Jamaican Radio or what songs were popular over there. Most of the people I knew only talked about American songs and meme songs that were popular at the time. So in a way, I never really grew to like my parent's culture's music because it just wasn't popular with my new culture's music. I don't even have an accent or anything like that despite the fact most my family does. I guess what I'm trying to say is that although I agree with Ackerman's take on different cultures learning different styles of music, in my case at least, that process can also eliminate or dampen one's connection to their original culture as well. Thank you for reading my TED Talk.