Better Late Than Never: Musician Calls for ‘Bling’ Awareness

The music industry, once the vanguard of social conscience, is slowly waking up to the battles of yester-year, calling to curb its own appetite for diamond jewelry, a part of the Hip Hop culture, to battle Conflict Diamonds. After Kanye West’s recent ‘Diamonds (from Sierra Leone)’, an Electro-Dance icon is adding his voice to the battle.

In an article published Friday in the British newspaper The Independent, Faithless frontman Maxi Jazz writes a scathing criticism of diamond consumption. “Ostentatious diamonds are the fruits of a slave trade that is the ruin of countries such as Sierra Leone”.

He goes on to add a criticism of the KPCS, saying “it cannot establish itself as effective without proper governmental control. Amnesty International says that it is inadequate and open to abuse,” adding that it is “a strong idea built on weak foundation”.

He wrongly implies that the trade in Conflict Diamonds is legal (“why aren't conflict diamonds illegal?”) and that KPCS monitoring is left by governments as a “matter of the conscience of their citizens or the companies that make fortunes from the diamond trade.”

“While we continue to display and glorify our childish lack of self-esteem by adorning our bodies with things that others can't afford then children, mothers and fathers continue to be slaughtered,” he writes in his attack against his fellow music stars.

“Kanye West may be categorized as being part of bling culture, but he is not your average "hustla". His campaign to abolish the illicit diamond trade is refreshing.”

“I read a quote from the US General Accounting Office from November 2003,” he continues, “that al-Qa'ida used diamonds to "earn money, move money and store money". And despite this the world still allows the uber-rich of the diamond industry to police themselves.”

Jazz calls on the British Government to establish mandatory independent monitoring on rough diamonds passing through London, “rather than leaving it to the whim of those who profit from diamonds”.

“I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that African-Americans on MTV, whose entire video budgets probably cost less than their wristwatches, also appear to be ignorant of just how many child-soldiers are bullying child-workers in blood-soaked diamond mines in Sierra Leone. It is a mark of the pervasiveness of a modern-day slave-trade and our ineffective attempts to stop it,” he concludes.