Dancehall Style Music is not Culture - Muta Agrees

[Tropicana]

The other night Muta did lick out and bun serious fiyah gainst the domination of foreign acts on the reggae Billboard charts (6 out of 10 reggae acts are not Jamaican) and especially 'gainst slackness in dancehall style reggae and the fact that this filth is being exported around the world as Jamaican Culture. He said that it is:


"Decadence that is not uplifting to ANY people."

I agree with him. Conscious music is being suppressed. and instead this trash is being given prominence.

Now, I knew things were bad but when im did lick out I really didn't know the meaning of some of the words he used. Muta noh easy!! Im did lick out 'gainst de whine up, cock out, spin out, dug out bizniz. Until Uncle Richie directed me to the Urban Dictionary I did not even know what dug out meant. Thought it was just something Muta was saying to be expressive. When mi did consult de urban dictionary mi was so SHOCK mi nearly pop dung.




Mi naw go look up no more words related to dancehall style reggae.

And when im did chat bout 'kin out, I honestly thought he was just being dramatic. How in the world could that be possible on ANY dance floor anywhere? Well yesterday Uncle Richie directed me to a dancehall website. Mi jus' had fe old mi nose and 'it de back button ...quick,quick!!




Dis a noh culcha....dis is disgusting filth...bottom a de barrel, lowest common denominator bizniz.

What a disgrace!! How can ANYONE with ANY level of self-respect behave like that in public? No wondah we can't prospah as a people.

Muta fi having de guts fe lick out 'gainst dis kind a slackness and nastiness.

[Tropicana]

Compare this to some of the conscious music Muta has done and to which he refers on the show. He discussed the resistance to his music by Jamaican illuminati and African Americans.

[Tropicana]

[Emperah]

ppl @ irie fm muss be listening to my show

de past few weeks when mi chat bout supm, dem come wid it aftah I know yeh sure

[Tropicana]

A true. Emperah...you are a real trailblazer...good fi you. Keep bunning fiyah. Clearly someone is listening.

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

And, in another surprising but welcome development for the Government, one of the country's most ardent anti-establishment radicals and Black Power nationalists, Rastafarian poet and celebrity, Mutabaruka, has emerged as the most ardent advocate of harsh measures against vulgarity and gun lyrics in our music.
For years when I waged a lonely struggle against slackness and violence in dancehall music while being publicly traced and abused by people like Ninja Man and Bounty Killer; and being sharply criticised by University of the West Indies (UWI) academics, Professor Carolyn Cooper, Dr Kingsley 'Ragashanti' Stewart and Dr Donna Hope, I was easily dismissed as an uptown fundamentalist, Christian and hypocrite.
I was projected as merely expressing middle-class prejudice against poor people's culture; being trapped by western notions of decency, good taste and good behaviour, while being contemptuous of assertive black people demanding their 'space'.
I had mistaken the black woman's liberation and sense of pride over her beautiful black body, which she now exposes with delight and relish, myopically seeing that as 'slackness'.
But they don't know how to deal with Mutabaruka. He has authenticity and no one can get away with saying that he despises black people and their culture.
Muta's strong and unequivocal call for cen-sorship and even punishment by the state has set the cat among the pigeons and has left the UWI defenders of dancehall in a quandary.
Those whom I have traditionally termed uncritical defenders of dancehall have been put on the defensive and are being shouted down. I will have to put up a defence of their right to state their position and to state it boldly, without our disrespecting them. I take exception, for example, to my friend Betty Ann Blaine calling them "perverts" and warning about "these intellectuals". I understand your passion, Betty, and your incredulity at the absurd lengths to which some persons go to defend their indefensible views, but they are not perverts just because they approve of what we see as slackness. They honestly believe that we are really terrified that the subculture is taking over our bourgeois culture and that we are trying desperately to maintain our cultural hegemony.
Not promoting violent sex
I also have to say that I reject the view that Rampin' Shop is promoting violent sex. Rough sex is not the same thing as violent sex, Dr Dunn. There is such a thing as violent sex, but Rampin' Shop does not fall in that genre. It is raw sex, not violent sex.
In this case I agree with my usual UWI combatants that the language is metaphorical and we must not get silly by literalising it. Note, too, that in Rampin' Shop, Spice is not merely the passive, submissive female on the receiving end of Kartel's daggerin' lyrics. It's not the usual domination/submission ritual. She also promises to do "damage" to him in response to his "threats". She "tek it to him".
This is no defence of Rampin' Shop.But we don't help our case by putting forward arguments that can't sustain serious analytical scrutiny. Rampin' Shop is vulgar and slack and should not only be banned from radio but from public spaces generally. It is offensive to public sensibilities.
Even the dancehall defenders at the UWI would have to agree - even without a poll - that most Jamaicans would find that song shockingly offensive, crude and irredeemably vulgar. In the name of democracy and public decency alone - even if contextually defined - Rampin' Shop should have no place in any public place - and certainly not in our buses and sidewalks through sound systems.
'Rampin' Shop' mild
What might really shock many people, particularly from the middle class, is thatRampin' Shop is mild - yes, mild - compared to other songs in the dancehall. And, if you ever hear what the sound system selectors say over the mike, that is what would give Esther Tyson a heart attack! Thank God, Sister Esther knows nothing of those songs.
I hear Kartel and his lawyer talking nonsense about free speech being jeopardised. But what about the freedom of decent ghetto people who want the right to rear their children without those children being assaulted by the filth and nastiness coming from the sound systems in their communities? What about their rights?
Uncritical dancehall defenders talk about parents' protecting their own children from the filth dancehall artistes spew out, but how can they do so when they are prisoners of their poverty in the ghetto, and can't afford to migrate to middle-class communities where they can escape the tyranny of all-day, all-night nasty music?
Decent people can't entertain friends in their homes or even have Bible study in peace because of others exercising their freedom to play filth and garbage.
If these people confined their nastiness and filth to Sting and Sumfest, that's OK with me. We know what dancehall night at Sumfest is about and what Sting is. If people want to have their X-rated dancehall events where they are not disturbing decent people in their homes, I am not for censorship.
Vulgar dancehall events
Just as how I would not campaign, in a pluralistic society, for all go-go clubs and massage parlours to be closed by the state, or lobby for porn magazines not to be sold here, or for Flow to shut down its X-rated channels, so I would not be spending column inches making the case for vulgar dancehall events to be banned.
Muta says producers who put out music promoting violence and vulgarity should be prosecuted. He feels government should not just ban songs like Rampin' Shop from the electronic media - for youth have cellphones, iphones and YouTube - but they should be banned, period. I wasn't even going that far. Muta feels producers should not be free to put out music promoting violence, misogyny and vulgarity.

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

"Now a days when you go to dance, you'd really love to hear a little classic, but the music that they play is so deplorable, that you cannot even play it for the children in the house. Let the good music play. Please selector let the music play!"

[Tropicana]

Dancehall Style Reggae Slackness is not Culture - Muta Agrees

Proverbs 14:34 "Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people".

Slackness and more slackness

Bob Marley's One Love is heralded as the song of the 20th century. Jamaicans are jubilant about this. We boast of the impact of such songs as Redemption Song in encouraging the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Millions across the world identify with the message in Bob Marley's songs. We agree that music has tremendous power and effect. Isn't this evident in how Jamaica has become known worldwide because of Bob Marley's music?

How is it then that the same voices that acknowledge the powerful effect of Marley's music now seek to deny the effect of dancehall artistes such as Vybz Kartel's lyrics on the minds and subsequent behaviour of those who listen to them?
Dancehall has moved from the space that reggae occupies, in its promotion of social and political consciousness, to the elevation and advancement of slackness. This affects our youth in a negative fashion. Dancehall is not just the music, but it is a culture

It is not culture it is filth.

which impacts dress, fashion and body language; it influences attitude. Dancehall dress leaves little of the women's bodies to the imagination. It is this mindset that is now affecting so many of our young people in school. They are following the dancehall culture of 'badmanism', 'hottie girls', 'nuff girls', 'nuff skin' and body parts exposed, 'nuff slackness', public wining and grinding, 'bling and more bling', and every thing else that the culture promotes.

It is not culture it is filth.

PARENTS ALSO MORE DULGING
There are parents who are indulging in this dancehall lifestyle and who, therefore, cannot guide their children to lead moral, self-disciplined lives. The children and the parents are now both indulging in the dancehall slackness. We see the effect of this in our schools. We see it when little children are taken to Passa Passa and adults delight in watching them wining and grinding their undeveloped hips in imitation of their slackness. Before these children can begin to know what innocence is, they have lost it. Their innocence has been aborted. This exposure to unbridled slackness from an early age has ensured that we produce a generation whose morality has been warped from the beginning. They will now believe that this slack and loose behaviour is the norm.

WOMEN AS SEX OBJECTS
We add slackness to slackness when the songs played on the sound systems and the images portrayed in the music videos all promote women as sex machines. These women represent themselves merely as objects of sex as is made clear by how they dress and by the sex-simulating gyrations they indulge in, which are termed 'dancing', with bottoms bouncing and going round like gigs and pelvic thrusts emphasising their genital areas. With such a constant diet being fed to the senses of the young, how can their consciousness develop in an innocent, childlike way?
Add to these stimuli, the images of 'upstanding' Jamaicans wining and grinding on the roads during carnival; women sandwiched by men from behind and before; women and men of all shapes and sizes, some totally unknown to each other, wearing the barest of coverings, indulging in unrestrained sexual conduct on the streets with the media promoting and covering it, with hordes of police (including high-ranking police officers) guiding the train. What are we saying to our young? We are saying that slackness is acceptable, that sexual behaviour is not a private matter; that sex can be practised publicly with society's approval.
Why, then, are we shocked when our schoolchildren display this same type of behaviour on the streets, at the transportation hubs, on the buses, on the school grounds? Why are we shocked when they want their sex acts to be video-taped and published? "Children live what they learn." They have simply taken a step further what they have been taught by the 'big people', the adults, around them. We are simply reaping what we have sown.
This is what some young teenagers say about the impact of dancehall on their behaviour:
"It makes me break out of my little shell. I am an innocent girl and dancehall music breaks that barrier."
"It makes you feel all gangsterish and cool. And the music teaches you how to dress."
"The lyrics are influential. They tell you to walk roun', smoke weed and buss gun. Many people, children in particular, look up to some of the artistes who feature these lyrics in their songs and they actually do some of these things because they feel that if their favourite artiste is doing it and they are 'hip' and admired, then why not do it too. Hence, dancehall music is influential, not only to me, but to the wider society."
"I have stopped listening to dancehall music now and that's good because it had such a negative influence on me. At one point, I found myself acting in the way that the songs portray a 'hot girl' should be."

ERODING SOCIETY'S MORAL FIBRE
It doesn't matter that the academicians say that dancehall is simply reflecting what is happening in the society - Jamaicans know and teachers can testify to the fact that this culture is helping to erode the moral fibre of this society. If we do not begin to accept that this is happening and do something to halt it, we are going to be seeing more of the slackness, badmanism, disrespect, lack of self-control and general lawlessness being played out in our schools. We are teaching our young the wrong things and, therefore, they are displaying the wrong, 'anti-social' conduct which they have learnt from society.

What hypocrites we have become! We need to begin to send clear signals to our young people about what is right and what is wrong. Our media, our music, our theatre, our government, our private sector, our churches, our schools, must decide what type of Jamaica our society wants to produce and if what dancehall promotes is it, then let dancehall reign!
"Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people," says the Bible.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...cleisure5.html

[blugiant]

ppl @ irie fm muss be listening to my show

de past few weeks when mi chat bout supm, dem come wid it aftah I know yeh sure

seeeth deh. tekk itt as a compliment dat yu revalent. imagine muta lissen to yuh

same ting widd ja newspaypahs woo read sum aff da tread pon yah ann use dem fe artikkle. couple thyme mii saw sum aff mii arguments aftah mii poas itt pon yah still mii doan mind.

[Wahalla]

I detest a lot of popular music and take the stance that the best musicians are dead musicians....But then I spent alot of time in the past as security at the door of various dance .... in the 80's and it was a lot of "Slacness"

But I disagree with Muta here.... Jamaican popular culture includes dance hall with all its iteration.... with its slackness, lurid dances...this is part of the Jamaican entertainment scene... part of the country consciousness... I find it crude

Now Bob, Jimmy ect are cannoised this was not always the case.... I am old enough to recall when the exact same arguments used the very same ones that Muta is using... They are not new, it is the identical themes from ancient Greece on the younger culture attitude of the



"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers." Attributed to Socrates in Plato The Republic ....But Dance Hall has always been slack...

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"Hesiod...

And Plato
"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" I think this is a direct quote, but can't find the reference at the moment.

While there seems to be a theory that in the 60's, 70's 80's it was conscious music...there was songs like "pum, pum" "sordering" "welding" "Hotel fee" "Stab up deh meet" " beef" "Wet Dream" Alot of Yellowman dance hall stuff was not recorded and it was crude..... In 1981 the Festival song winner could not be played on the radio and it was the only festival song that was number 1 on the Jamaican charts....


I agree with Muta point that if dance hall is is all waht u exposed to there is a problem....context....

At the root is a simple issue IMHO... family....the role of the father....

[Tropicana]

I guess the difference between the 60, 70s, 80s and today is that slack music was reserved for the lowest common denominator. It was not revered and exported as culture. I assume that the antics and carryings on were not as vulgar and lewd and there was enough respect for the innocence of children that they were not taken to these gatherings.

The whole thing is a disgrace and quite frankly it disgusts me. I hope that when I tell people that I am Jamaican, this filth is not what immediately comes to mind.

[Tropicana]

There you go Pepper. Thank you for your interest. I know I can always count on you for support.