The power and the downside of dancehall music

[Sir X]

In response to my Sunday column, 'The fascinating case of Vybz Kartel', a journalist from Zimbabwe emailed me the following,

"Read your article on Adidja Palmer, better known as Vybz Kartel, with great interest. Though I have not sampled any of his music, I was particularly taken by the following this man has here in Zimbabwe.

"When I began following his trial, my mind raced in all directions trying to figure out how such a singer could hold the minds of young people captive while celebrating something else. Your article is truly liberating and helps us to recalibrate our thinking as people of the developing world.

"Should we continue to celebrate fame, criminality, sex, drugs, and the dehumanisation of our women through music at the expense of real and pressing issues such as the welfare of our security guards, health, education, and protecting the legacy of musical greats such as Bob Marley who championed the fight for human dignity? The youth here in Zimbabwe are also trapped in a similar fashion as those in Jamaica courtesy of ICT advances.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...music_16309756

[HL]

I hope Historian does not read this.........

[Sir X]

Its a symptom of a wider problem and to lay it all at the DJs feet is disgusting and ridiculous, our politicians have done a million times worse , yet we cant see a sentence !...Vybz ..not into his music but my question is who is Vybz to the Shhhty predicament wi in ? ...Who ?...kissteeeth ......police a murda man fi weed fi decades , a kill man fi less dan dat ...gun man born outta tribalism and graduate to Drugs Don...education get slashhhh because man a label it socialist, same thing with health care ...Suh wha wi expect when MD a label ganja whey dem mumma and gran mumma use as worse dan crack and alcohol and cant even come wid modern science say it a heal di nation , no cancer nuh inna it.....Bman tek ova parliment ......Unnuh really a put it pan Vybz and im decadent music ?.....di music dead lonnnnggggg timmeeeee !

Like Vybz dead before im born....nuff more Vybz a come ,look into Gordon house.

[Jangle]

While the "educated" amongst us continues to turn up their noses towards Dancehall music, the rest of the world continue to embrace it and adopting our culture. Just like how the white foreigner came to Jamaica, took our music and culture back to their homelands and made huge profits off our suffering. Reggae music took over 30 years to be played on a 24 hour rotation in Jamaica, the land where the music was originated. We are a nation of originators, but we have no clue on how to maximize on our inventiveness. Dancehall classes and studios have sprung up right across Europe. The sound system culture have been taken over by the Japanese. Even our dance moves, which ironically are originated by us, are taken and improved upon by these foreigners who come back to Jamaica and kick our butts in competitions.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4063580724687

[Assasin]

Dancehall music have no downside, it is the artists that take their baggages to the dance and some fans grab it up.

Go enjoy too good tunes and DJ chant too good tunes and leave in peace. Too much force ripe badman got involved.

[Karl]

So why doesn't one of broadcast media ...or a number of our

broadcast media houses embark on programming that introduce our young ...and indeed some of our not so young to our 'good music' from those by-gone eras?

Trus mi...a wudda li-sin tud 'station' cyan dun!!!!

[Assasin]

Also Mark I noticed you never ask, "where are the parents". AS a child I couldn't idolize any deviant DJ or musicians. It is a sad case when we have DJs and entertainers growing our kids.

[Bricktop]

Because young people don't listen to old dinosaur music...

[OJ]

If a carpenter shoot is neighbour, box down his wive, drink 2 bottles of Hennessy and drink and drive and got arrested.. would we say that carpenters are under trial. Or would we say that person is under trail. What if you are like me and you dont differentiate dancehall and you use the term reggae would reggae then be under fire.

[Islandman]

The difference is that music and other entertainment forms can have a subculture around them that carpenters and plumbers do not generally have.

Roots reggae came from the same origins as dancehall but it never had a violent subculture around it even though some reggae musicians were engaged in criminal activities. Similarly Hip hop has had a very poisonous culture around it at times.

It is not so much the music as it is the place and time that the music evolved.

[Historian]

Lol

I hope Historian does not read this.........

I just read Mark Wignall’s article, HL boss . Like other columnists such as the Gleaner’s Ian Boyne and Claude Clarke, Mark generally writes outstanding and certainly pertinent columns and, as a plus for Wignall, he is street-wise. This column is yet another in his decades-long list of relevant articles.

He has hit the nail squarely on the head!

(By the way, I have in the past often laughed at some responses to my dancehall criticisms, as in ALL cases my attacks have been aimed at CURRENT dancehall recordings and the people responsible for those products. A check of the archives will reveal this fact.)

I also strongly suggest that everyone here have a look at Islandman’s very accurate comment (towards the bottom of this thread). His summation has also hit the nail squarely where it should: on the head.

[Historian]

Re: Lol

[FONT="Verdana"][SIZE="2"](By the way, I have in the past often laughed at some responses to my dancehall criticisms, as in ALL cases my attacks have been aimed at CURRENT dancehall recordings and the people responsible for those products. A check of the archives will reveal this fact.)

....And by “Current Music” I mean the computer-generated garbage that has permeated dancehall, hip hop and pop music generally over the past two or more decades.

So, my message remains the same, and will always focus on the degeneration of our music (regardless of which societies we eagerly suggest are embracing it – in fact, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are also being widely embraced, but does that make them ideal for us?).

Quite simply (and attempted “politicization” aside), as stressed in many of my posts here, outstanding musicians are most likely to produce more genuinely musically creative stuff than some fat-assed guy sitting before today’s recording console creating and arranging music.

Thankfully, rock, jazz and country music have remained in the hands of real musicians and obviously musically-sensitized producers and engineers.