This song dropped in the summer of 1994 when my family had just moved back into Mandeville proper. I remember because I have clear memories of singing it with my siblings on the way to school along Bonito Crescent.
I can’t forget this song because it was my first recollection of tasting that feeling I’d later come to identify as injustice.
Starting in 1966, the Jamaica Festival Commission had a running competition – Jamaica Popular Song Competition – as part of our independence celebrations. In 1990, in recognition of waning interest in their activities, the title of the competition was changed from ‘Independence Song’ to ‘Popular Song.’ The hope was that the new widened scope for entrants would re-inject greater variety in the entries and by extension, public interest.
Many of us took this to mean the inclusion of songs that were more in-tune with the ‘dancehall’ sound which had cemented its place as the popular sound. A challenge that was perhaps bigger than it would appeasr given that Jamaica still had pretensions of its popular culture still being beholden to proper society. Practically speaking, this meant that much of the songs that won out sounded like something from the ‘old days.’ In my estimation this would have been prior to the 1980’s when the popular sound had not yet been redefined (or as some would consider it ‘assaulted’) by the likes of Yellow Man, Cutty Ranks, Burru Banton et al.
Back to the post-1990’s rebranding when the new-improved song competition’s emphasis was not on who had the most patriotic song but frankly, who could knock out the wickedest banger!
That year, without question, that plaudit was deserved by Snow Ball Brown’s entry. Chiquitita – the story of tourist women, Rasta-escorts, Dunns River Falls – was everything a hit song should be at the time: Good enough story to keep you interested. Check! Great groove to keep you dancing. Check! The critical element of unusualness. Double check! In this song it was two fold. It was present in his voice stylings (oouuuh chiquitita) and lord god… in his teeth. Or more aptly his lack thereof. (this was not helped by the fact that the title was chiquiTITA)
I remember it being played everywhere. And I mean everywhere! Radio, corner shops, boombox stereo-systems in car and vans, you name it.
More than perhaps anything else, it had the unquestionable marker of a genuine hit: kids everywhere – including my siblings and I – were singing it.
Despite all this, the prize that year was given to a song that no one remembered beyond the year it won. I’ll refresh memories now. It was Stanley and the Astronauts “Dem a Pollute the place.” Crap eh?
As has happened many times throughout history and recollections thereof; while official records show one thing, our popular memory collective shows a complete other. In the hearts of many people our song was Chiquita.
