- Chester Connell’s commentary on Boom 106.9 FM, Monday 26 August.
The power of music as a change agent. In his highly lauded work, Distinction, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues. Quote: Nothing more clearly affirms one’s class. Nothing more infallibly classifies than tastes in music.
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste from 2000 to the resent, For the past, basically 25 years, a quarter of a century. The minivan subculture. And it is a subculture—a powerful subculture in the context of a small, developing, undeveloped Caribbean island with the attendant history of slavery.
The minivan subculture in Saint Vincent has been allowed to do this societal steering blaring—not the messianic messages of Marley, but Jamaican mashup music, driving a mindset that neurochemically chauffeurs homophobia, where two men cannot sit in the front of a minivan.
Man nah batty man. Two men can’t sit in the front seat. This is what occurs in Saint Vincent and in the Caribbean brain, which is being destroyed, and simultaneously, the message of the kick in the backdoor mentality from Antigan misogynists. The indoctrinated nation of young Vincentians is complete. Those ten-year-olds in 2000 are now 35 years old, full adults almost ready to move into middle age and their tastes. Allah. Bourdieu. From his work distinction for the lowest common denominator, those ten-year-olds who were ten years old in the year 2000. And their tastes—their tastes for the lowest common denominator—spiritually, psychologically, economically, politically, sexually, and mentally have been affirmed; they have been prepped, peppered, and positioned.
Their prefrontal cortices are ready to accept the butchering of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as the new normal.
Follow the leader, Follow the leader, Repeat. Louder, Stop, Vote. Repeat. Follow the leader, Leader, Leader. Follow the leader. Music. It has powers to enrage the savage beast. And that is exactly what the minivan subculture is doing. And today, in 2024, we see the arrival of the arch founder, the one most famous across the world for the music, which wasn’t the minivans but is now in living flesh. Oh my God, Political Pirates of the Caribbean are coming up.
