Sto­ry and pho­tos by

Nigel Teles­ford

Ja­maica’sMin­is­ter of Cul­ture, Gen­der, En­ter­tain­ment and Sport, Olivia “Bab­sy” Grange OJ, CD, used the plat­form of the Ja­maica Cre­ative Ca­reer Ex­po, held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Is­land Mu­sic Con­fer­ence, to high­light the coun­try’s cre­ative econ­o­my as a strate­gic na­tion­al as­set.

In a brief yet en­gag­ing ad­dress, Min­is­ter Grange em­pha­sised that “the sec­tor must be un­der­pinned by strong cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions and mod­ern gov­er­nance frame­works,” sig­nalling a shift to­ward deep­er in­sti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion.

“The cre­ative econ­o­my is no longer in­for­mal,” she de­clared, un­der­scor­ing the gov­ern­ment’s in­tent to pro­fes­sion­alise and struc­tural­ly sup­port cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers. “It is strate­gic.”

Draw­ing on her ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ence as an artiste man­ag­er, Min­is­ter Grange spoke with pas­sion and fa­mil­iar­i­ty rather than bu­reau­crat­ic dis­tance. Her fram­ing of the gov­ern­ment’s role was equal­ly de­lib­er­ate: not in­ter­fer­ence, but in­fra­struc­ture.

“Gov­ern­ment must en­sure that the in­fra­struc­ture is in place to en­able the in­dus­try,” she said—a dis­tinc­tion that mat­ters in a re­gion where cre­ative com­mu­ni­ties of­ten ap­proach pub­lic pol­i­cy with skep­ti­cism.

Most strik­ing was her di­rect em­pha­sis on own­er­ship.

“The fu­ture of mu­sic is not on­ly about per­form­ing or pro­duc­ing—it is about own­er­ship,” she stat­ed, point­ing to pub­lish­ing, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty as the en­gines of sus­tained wealth cre­ation. By do­ing so, Min­is­ter Grange aligned cul­tur­al pol­i­cy with glob­al in­dus­try re­al­i­ties, sig­nalling an un­der­stand­ing that eco­nom­ic pow­er in to­day’s mu­sic busi­ness lies not just in vis­i­bil­i­ty but in rights.

Her ref­er­ence to sport as “phys­i­cal cul­ture” fur­ther ex­pand­ed the frame, po­si­tion­ing cul­ture it­self as na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture.

While Ja­maica’s Cul­tur­al In­sti­tute was launched late last year, Min­is­ter Grange’s re­newed em­pha­sis sug­gests that the next phase is not about an­nounce­ments, but con­sol­i­da­tion. In­sti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion, pro­fes­sion­al­i­sa­tion, and gov­er­nance ar­chi­tec­ture are now cen­tral to her min­istry’s agen­da. Across the Caribbean, gov­ern­ments are in­creas­ing­ly re­assess­ing cul­ture not as a sym­bol­ic as­set, but as a de­vel­op­ment lever ca­pa­ble of dri­ving ex­ports, em­ploy­ment, and glob­al in­flu­ence.

Just last month, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Michelle Ben­jamin, de­clared her in­tent to evolve and en­hance the cul­tur­al sec­tor to be­come a greater con­trib­u­tor to the na­tion­al econ­o­my—echo­ing a broad­er re­gion­al re­cal­i­bra­tion.

The Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment’s part­ner­ship with the Is­land Mu­sic Con­fer­ence il­lus­trates a co­he­sive ap­proach to con­nect­ing gov­er­nance, in­dus­try ex­per­tise, and mar­ket re­al­i­ties in shap­ing the coun­try’s cre­ative econ­o­my.

While serv­ing as Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter, Grange’s ac­tive en­gage­ment through­out Tues­day’s pro­ceed­ings—in­clud­ing in­ter­ac­tions with stu­dents both in the au­di­ence and on­stage—re­in­forced her com­mit­ment to the sec­tor.

Pan­els on In­flu­encer En­tre­pre­neur­ship, New Rules for Mar­ket­ing, The Pow­er of Glob­al Ra­dio Play, Break­ing In­to Pub­lish­ing, and The Pow­er of the Pro­duc­er in­formed a packed au­di­to­ri­um through­out the day, with Min­is­ter Grange re­main­ing present un­til the very end.

Found­ed by di­a­mond-sell­ing glob­al su­per­star Orville “Shag­gy” Bur­rell, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with renowned artiste man­ag­er Sharon Burke and me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Ju­dith Bod­ley, the Is­land Mu­sic Con­fer­ence con­tin­ues un­til Sat­ur­day at the Courtleigh Au­di­to­ri­um in Kingston.