Below we’ve featured a letter which we received from Riina Asamoa, a hardcore fan of dancehall music who came all the way from her home country of Finland to immerse herself in Jamaica’s dancehall culture. In the letter below, she complains bitterly about the strict enforcement of Jamaica’s night noise law (Noise Abatement Act) by the police.

First Monday night of 2011 in Kingston, big night for our crew of 8 dancer girls from Finland. This is what we have been saving money for the whole year, and travelled days on snowy airports for: Mojito mondays, Uptown mondays and Hot mondays, Kingston nightlife and dancehall culture at its best. We are prepared and expecting to party all night.

We arrive at Susie’s around midnight and meet up with more friends from our little country, some sound selektors that are also here taking in the dancehall culture at its roots. There is a nice crowd and Supa Hype makes us feel welcome by bigging up our crew. Our eyes are burning from watching the dance crews do their thing, we’re loving every minute. At around 1am the police force arrives and locks off the party, but we’re not too dissapointed yet because we can just cross the road to Savannah Plaza and the famous Uptown mondays where we expect to see even more famous dancers in action.

We pay the entrance fee, buy our drinks, everything looks good.. until at 2am the police force arrives again, and locks off the sound. The promoter tries to negotiate with them since they do have the license to stay open until 4am but nothing helps, the party is over. You cannot imagine our dissapointment.. we are here for 2 weeks but this was our only monday night out.

From our country of Finland with a population of only 5 million there are more than 20 “dancehall tourists” in Kingston. Adding the Japanese, Americans and other Europeans it is a considerable crowd in the not-so-popular-with-tourists part of Jamaica. What differentiates us from the average tourist is that we spend our money with the locals.. our money stays in Jamaica unlike the money the tourists spend in all-inclusive American owned resorts. We stay in smaller local hotels, use taxis, eat, drink and party in restaurants and shop at local stores. Also to be taken into consideration is the promotional value we have on the export of Jamaican dancehall culture, many of us are influential promoters, radio selektors and entertainers promoting and booking Jamaican dancehall artists and dancers internationally.

If the police force continues to randomly lock off dances and ruin our holiday plans I am certain some of us will start seriously considering if it is worth all the money and trouble to come so far, just to be disappointed. I have now only adressed one particular night, but this is an ongoing problem that the local party goers and promoters suffer from even more than we do. Dancehall culture is a major attraction and strenght for Jamaica, thus it should be respected and treated as such also by the government.

We still love it here and sincerely hope the police force will allow weddy weddy wednesdays to go on and make it all worthwhile. Happy new year 2011!

Riina Asamoa

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