Slackness and hypocrisy

[evanovitch]

MICHAEL BURKE
So the Broadcasting Commission is to enforce the law that deals with wholesome lyrics in pop tunes. As you know, this follows the lambasting that Rampin Shop got from Esther Tyson, principal of Ardenne High School. Many have shot back with the argument that middle- and upper-class support of carnival in Jamaica is just as bad, or worse. <span style="font-weight: bold">The fact is that vulgarity in music has really got out of hand.</span>

Yes, it is true that the lyrics in traditional mento and calypso were subtle with sexual messages. What is a pity is that those who correctly speak out against the lewdness of dancehall did not speak out against carnival and avoid being labelled hypocrites. I was one of the first critics of Jamaican carnival. On May 14, 1990, my article in the now defunct Jamaica Record was, &quot;Confusing names and titles&quot;, where I voiced my criticisms of the Jamaican carnival.

I explained how carnival started in Roman Catholic countries as a celebration before the Lenten fast, which begins on Ash Wednesday. The word &quot;carnival&quot; came from two Latin words that meant &quot;to take away meat&quot;. At that stage there were parades, costume contests and wholesome fun. It was the &quot;worldlians&quot; who turned carnival into vulgarity in many parts of the world. It was the same sort of people who corrupted the Christmas and Easter observances out of their love for money and what they could gain otherwise.


In the 1990s I developed a name for carnival, which was &quot;<span style="font-weight: bold">stoopegoona&quot; an acronym for &quot;stoosh people going on nasty&quot;. </span>It came about while seeing the ugly and disgusting gyrations by people who should know better. And in my column in this newspaper, &quot;Why call it carnival?&quot; on April 8, 1999, I referred to the Jamaican carnival as &quot;stoopegoona&quot; and what that meant.

Further, on Nationwide with Cliff Hughes and Fay Ellington about nine years ago, I was on a programme with Byron Lee. And I told him on radio that as far as I was concerned the correct name for carnival was &quot;stoopegoona&quot;. In dealing with vulgarity in muisc and entertainment, the first should be carnival because in not doing so others will ask why.

Slackness, perhaps, has its roots in the pirate lifestyle of Henry Morgan and his pirate brethren. It might also have its roots in a type of physical slavery where the stud farm was glorified for the creation of more slaves, especially after the abolition of the slave trade. Slackness has been perpetuated down the years from the sexual liaison of the estate owner and servant woman. And the people would simply make music based on what was talked about and whatever issues they had in their minds.

Add to that mento music filled with sexual innuendos, as this was the only sort of lyrics available to slaves before 1838 and so-called freed men after that date. Then in later years through all sorts of technological advances slackness in songs grew. This was helped in no small measure by the discouragement of protest songs against governments, particularly in the 1960s and 1980s where entertainers turned to slackness instead.

Then in 1990 the late Byron Lee introduced a so-called carnival where upper- and middle-class people felt that they could shed most of their clothes and gyrate in what amounts to G-strings and bikinis. And it was considered acceptable because this is what happens in some countries which have carnivals annually. <span style="font-weight: bold">But the people who make up our so-called elite were not smart enough to realise that by so doing they no longer had a moral foundation to stand on in terms of hitting out against slackness.</span>

It's of note that Vybz Kartel remarked that Esther Tyson &quot;obviously has a lot of spare time on her hands&quot;. Esther Tyson runs one of the most successful high schools in Jamaica. But who has more spare time on their hands than a DJ? After they have made their millions they have absolutely nothing to do. Isn't that so, Kartel? In addition, Esther Tyson is a very strong support to her husband, a minister of religion who was shot and crippled by a gunman's bullet some years ago. Her husband was a youngster to me at Jamaica College in the 1960s.

Apart from sex, there is also a lot of violence in the music of the people. It is the symptom that indicates awful state of affairs in families or lack thereof. What is needed more than anything else are boot camps for the children who are problem students. The government alone certainly cannot do it, no matter which party is in power. It needs a concerted effort from all of us, and I am doing my part. And the music will not be straightened out until our lives are cleaned up, which includes the Jamaican elite. And I will refer to the Jamaican carnival as &quot;stoopegoona&quot; until that happens.

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[evanovitch]

Re: Slackness and hypocrisy

Music and miscreants

HEART TO HEART

Dear Reader,


If there are people who don't understand the power of music on the psyche and behaviour of human beings, they simply need to look around at the country, at every socio-economic level to see the manifestations. It is no longer values that dictate people's behaviour. It is people's behaviour that is dictating and defining the values, and the result is a growing and deepening culture of debasement, crudeness and violence.

While there have always been pockets of social and inter-generational rebelliousness and a counter-culture push by successive generations of young people, they all tended to reflect a minority position, and typically had a short lifespan. That counter-culture becomes dangerous when it becomes solidly entrenched and threatens the very fabric of societal norms and values. This is precisely what is happening with dancehall music and the miscreant elements that feed literally and figuratively off its energy and its proceeds.

Let me make my position on dancehall very clear. I understand perfectly that dancehall is an expression, much like reggae and other genres of authentic Jamaican music that emanated from the bowels of people's experiences. In other words, the lyrics spring from the &quot;livity&quot;. To write and sing about your own experiences is perfectly normal and acceptable. Our ancestors sang negro spirituals that reflected the pain and brutality of slavery. African Americans sang the blues, reflecting the hardships of racism and segregation and the pressures of day-to-day life. So dancehall is not new as far as the &quot;influencers&quot; or the emphases are concerned. What is new and troubling about dancehall, is that unlike other genres of Jamaican music, it doesn't just reflect the &quot;livity&quot;, it is dictating the &quot;livity&quot; using examples and descriptions that are unacceptable and inappropriate for public consumption.

Our ancestors would have been the most likely people to write and sing about sexual exploitation and violence. Many white slave owners were extremely deviant and cruel.

Female slaves were raped at will, many of them teenagers, who were forcefully separated from their parents and families. Black men, even husbands, were forced to listen to the cries of their women as they were ravaged by white men, some of whom were not slave owners, but soldiers and sojourners passing by. As sexually violent as slavery was, our ancestors maintained their pride and dignity in the quality of the negro spirituals they sang. Yes, the songs were about pain, suffering and abuse, but they were never done in a way that diminished their own self-worth or self-esteem.

Every single one of our country's reggae artistes could have chosen to write and sing about the anatomy of sex and the violence that can be associated with sex. Sexual abuse, and sexual violence have been features of Jamaican life from time immemorial. But singers like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and many who came before and after them refrained from going down that road, and even when some of the artistes flirted with more explicit &quot;sex&quot; songs, it was about &quot;inference&quot; and never about what was sexually explicit. Sex was by and large left to the listener's imagination and interpretation.

While it would be grossly unfair to broad-brush dancehall music as being totally bad, the fact is that the genre is becoming more and more associated with crudeness and violence, and some of the artistes are becoming bolder and bolder in pushing the parameters of basic decency. Singers of all races and religions have sung about sex and lovemaking throughout the ages. In the past, a minority have breached the acceptable ethic to include curse words and violent descriptions that really have no place in the musical art form, and were by and large prevented from public airplay by broadcasting standards, especially those to protect children. Not only has dancehall music pushed the barriers to the extreme limits of vulgarity, it has enamoured and enraptured the youth of Jamaica, and has been successful in attracting corporate sponsorship and media complicity. It is the combination of all the above that makes it so threatening.
While dancehall did not create slackness, it has taken it to new &quot;heights&quot;, or more precisely, new &quot;lows&quot;. The truth is that the Broadcasting Commission had no choice but to step in and put a halt to the seemingly bottomless pit of extreme vulgarity.

Anybody who disputes the influence of dancehall needs to watch how the children respond to the music. Even before they can stand up straight and walk, the little ones know how to gyrate in the most sexually and sensuous manner, and by the time they learn to talk, our children are able to recite the words of the songs, innocent to its toxicity. It was one piece of music that led to the bleaching skin epidemic that should now be at the point of being declared a public health crisis.

But while babies and toddlers are excused out of innocence, one is hard-pressed to understand how adults and even worse, some of the country's intellectuals, justify the deepening vulgarity of dancehall lyrics. It goes to show that intellectualism and morality are not always compatible, and that there are intellectuals who are without any moral scruples whatsoever. Some of them say they see no problem with adults having sex with children, and others say they have no issue with bestiality - after all, people have a right to do what they want! &quot;Sure,&quot; is my reply! Adults are perfectly free to do what they want behind closed doors, but when the slackness becomes the staple of the public's daily diet and when it begins to damage and destroy our children, then I for one am ready to fight!

With love,
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[jah_yout]

Re: Slackness and hypocrisy

they can't compare these guys with bob marley and peter tosh....they're comparing apples and oranges;

rasta prophets vs. armshouse prophets