“If You Don’t Make Money, Then You Don’t Make Sense”

Abstract

WEALTH IS TYPICALLY CONSTRUCTED AS PROSPERITY AND riches; an abundance of capital – land, cash, material possessions. On investment advice websites, wealth is defined in terms of assets and income.1 Wealth is a tangible concept that allows for growth: when you have wealth, you can generate more. Wealth is also subjective. How an individual constructs wealth is relative to cultural, social, economic and/or personal factors. We are concerned with objective and subjective constructions and representations of wealth in a sample of popular Jamaican music and its reflection of a historically rooted, ongoing colonial context that underlines the value of capital over all else. The statement “If you don’t make money, then you don’t make sense” is found in Mavado’s “Box a Money”2 and is one to which many Jamaicans and non-Jamaicans, rich and poor, can relate. In our deeply capitalist society, it is widely known and accepted that economic wealth is closely tied to social standing because it provides one with access to power. The influence of capitalism is rife throughout Jamaica’s history. With power, one has voice, agency and the ability to control one’s fate, the fate of loved ones as well as strangers. Wealth is, then, a marker of inclusion within society. This is why the concept of “sense” is also significant. Without wealth, one does not “make sense” as a member of society. Wealth provides one with access to “sense making” – rational thought that buys access to recognition as well as to power, progress and development. Social value or ability to “make sense” to the powers that be is linked to access to economic capital. “Making sense” can then be interpreted as being noticed