Reggae’s Civil War
I traversed four Caribbean islands in the past two months and spied one common denominator: graffiti. Scrawled precipitously on a cliff suspended above the lush mountains of Saint Lucia, on the aluminum siding of a rum shop in French Saint Martin, on the concrete walls of a Trinidad office park, on accessible surfaces covering urban and rural landscapes across Jamaica, one of two words made its inevitable appearance: “Gully” or “Gaza.”
No island-hopping tagger is responsible—blame Jamaican music’s latest, scariest personal feud. “Gaza” refers to a swath of the working-class town of Portmore, home of Vybz Kartel, the man voted, in a recent poll, the island’s most popular dancehall artist.