Tweet
Voice’ Finalist Tessanne Chin Won’t Get Jamaica’s Votes But Has Its Support
Commentary
By Colin Channer
Tessanne Chin on “The Voice” finale. —NBC
Jamaicans are passionate about music and elections. So of course we’re in a frenzy about Kingston-born Tessanne Chin‘s chances of winning “The Voice.” We want her to win. We think she will win (her version of “I Have Nothing” reached No.1 on the iTunes charts). But only those of us who live in the fifty U.S states, including Puerto Rico and D.C., are eligible to vote (phone, text, online and iTunes voting is open only to people and accounts in that geographic area).
The last time I saw my people this crazed about elections was in 2008, when Obama got their overwhelming support (Jamaicans couldn’t really cast a ballot in that contest either). To us, Tessanne is more than her talent, more than an exemplar of range, timing, and vocal control. She represents an idea that is deeply emotional. It’s the sense that we’ve always been good, great even, but have often had to accept second or third position, because that’s just the way of the world.
“The Voice,” like all talent shows that involve fan voting, is a populist revel. And it’s easy to dismiss such programs. Mostly I do. In fact, when I’d read in the Jamaica Observer some months ago that Tess had auditioned for “The Voice” I was a bit annoyed. My sense was, “Why is this news?” I slipped into an automatic position against her. I wanted and expected her to not go very far in the competition. I’d written her off as “an uptown singer,” good enough but able to have a moderate career because of privilege, because of Jamaica’s only partially dismantled connection between what you get to do and how you look.
To some Americans, Tessanne may be seen as a Jamaican, or a Jamaican with some Chinese ancestry and other ethnic links. In Jamaica, some people who view the world through a racial prism see her as a “browning”–a lighter skinned Jamaican whose color translates crudely into class privilege.
Popular music in Jamaica is one of the few spheres dominated by the black majority, downtown people. So uptown “brownings” in Jamaica have a complicated station in the local reggae/dancehall scene. Perhaps because of this those who’ve been successful like Tessanne, Sean Paul, Shaggy and Junior Gong, have had to work through suspicion, insults, slights.
What the world saw on stage last night, and has seen for the last three months, is a brilliant, diligent singer, who has served a tough apprenticeship in one of the most competitive music industries in the world. She’s come through trenches dug by machismo. She has sung reggae, dancehall and commercial pop as if all of them are her birthrights. And they are. She has amazed all who’ve heard her, shamed all who’ve judged her background and graciously ignored those who’d like to make her some unclassifiable extra-ethnic exotic for their own needs and reasons.
She’s great and she’s Jamaican and is confident but not arrogant about her talent, for she was raised right, is a good girl from a solid family, and knows that pride is not the same thing as boasting. She is proud in the sense that she knows what she can do—reach any note she can imagine via thousands of routes. But she is not boastful. She is down to earth, what we call in Jamaica a roots (and yes, it’s always in the plural).
Yes, people, Tessanne is a roots. Bob Marley was a roots. He was also a browning. And his voice started in Jamaica and reached out to make a soul connection round the whole wide world.
Tessanne, 28 year-old woman with the baby face and mummy arms, the voice you sing in means as much to the planet and your people as the one in which you speak.
Jamaican-born novelist Colin Channer is the father of Addis and Makonnen. He’s also a professor of English, the founder and artistic director of a literary trust, and the author of such books as “Waiting in Vain” and “The Girl with the Golden Shoes.”
Commentary
By Colin Channer
Tessanne Chin on “The Voice” finale. —NBC
Jamaicans are passionate about music and elections. So of course we’re in a frenzy about Kingston-born Tessanne Chin‘s chances of winning “The Voice.” We want her to win. We think she will win (her version of “I Have Nothing” reached No.1 on the iTunes charts). But only those of us who live in the fifty U.S states, including Puerto Rico and D.C., are eligible to vote (phone, text, online and iTunes voting is open only to people and accounts in that geographic area).
The last time I saw my people this crazed about elections was in 2008, when Obama got their overwhelming support (Jamaicans couldn’t really cast a ballot in that contest either). To us, Tessanne is more than her talent, more than an exemplar of range, timing, and vocal control. She represents an idea that is deeply emotional. It’s the sense that we’ve always been good, great even, but have often had to accept second or third position, because that’s just the way of the world.
“The Voice,” like all talent shows that involve fan voting, is a populist revel. And it’s easy to dismiss such programs. Mostly I do. In fact, when I’d read in the Jamaica Observer some months ago that Tess had auditioned for “The Voice” I was a bit annoyed. My sense was, “Why is this news?” I slipped into an automatic position against her. I wanted and expected her to not go very far in the competition. I’d written her off as “an uptown singer,” good enough but able to have a moderate career because of privilege, because of Jamaica’s only partially dismantled connection between what you get to do and how you look.
To some Americans, Tessanne may be seen as a Jamaican, or a Jamaican with some Chinese ancestry and other ethnic links. In Jamaica, some people who view the world through a racial prism see her as a “browning”–a lighter skinned Jamaican whose color translates crudely into class privilege.
Popular music in Jamaica is one of the few spheres dominated by the black majority, downtown people. So uptown “brownings” in Jamaica have a complicated station in the local reggae/dancehall scene. Perhaps because of this those who’ve been successful like Tessanne, Sean Paul, Shaggy and Junior Gong, have had to work through suspicion, insults, slights.
What the world saw on stage last night, and has seen for the last three months, is a brilliant, diligent singer, who has served a tough apprenticeship in one of the most competitive music industries in the world. She’s come through trenches dug by machismo. She has sung reggae, dancehall and commercial pop as if all of them are her birthrights. And they are. She has amazed all who’ve heard her, shamed all who’ve judged her background and graciously ignored those who’d like to make her some unclassifiable extra-ethnic exotic for their own needs and reasons.
She’s great and she’s Jamaican and is confident but not arrogant about her talent, for she was raised right, is a good girl from a solid family, and knows that pride is not the same thing as boasting. She is proud in the sense that she knows what she can do—reach any note she can imagine via thousands of routes. But she is not boastful. She is down to earth, what we call in Jamaica a roots (and yes, it’s always in the plural).
Yes, people, Tessanne is a roots. Bob Marley was a roots. He was also a browning. And his voice started in Jamaica and reached out to make a soul connection round the whole wide world.
Tessanne, 28 year-old woman with the baby face and mummy arms, the voice you sing in means as much to the planet and your people as the one in which you speak.
Jamaican-born novelist Colin Channer is the father of Addis and Makonnen. He’s also a professor of English, the founder and artistic director of a literary trust, and the author of such books as “Waiting in Vain” and “The Girl with the Golden Shoes.”
Paul Marin -19 is one thing, 20 is a whole other matter. It gets even worse if they win the UCL. *groan*. 
05/18/2011.MU fans naah cough, but all a unuh a vomit?-Lazie 1/11/2015
ne t'en fais pas chérie, My heart will go on beating for you (your music)... but nevah realize seh yuh need fattenin up...
Comment