I know the uproar that may attend the above utterance but having witnessed, for the 'umpteenth' time, the mediocrity that is the hallmark of our popular music scene, I feel compelled to offer my two cents.

This does not purport to be a review of Wednesday night's Rock The World show in New Kingston. That task fell to Debra Edwards. (See her review in this edition). Neither do I seek to blame the promoters (as is the first impulse in such scenarios) for what transpired on stage.

This speaks to a much deeper frustration, one that admittedly has been gnawing at me for some time, and to which I have alluded in various public and personal fora prior to now.
It is a deep-seated exasperation at hearing our deejays express the same lyrical themes in the same old, mouldy ways that they have been doing almost since dancehall came to prominence: A generous helping of violent homophobia. Add a dollop of aversion to oral sex. Slip in a bit of general misogyny. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

With precious few exceptions, this has remained the staple (of course, one is discounting the 'bad man'/gun tunes here) of our deejays' presentation, which was in evidence on Wednesday in the form of Spragga Benz and Beenie Man.
I'm the last person to advocate any form of censorship other than self-censorship (unless the artiste censors himself, I believe all other efforts will prove futile). But it cannot be that in 2007, the sum total of the Jamaican experience is refusal to tolerate homosexuals, the refusal to participate in one sexual act or another, and the view of women as sexual objects to be used and tossed aside according to whim.

I readily admit that there are artistes (Tanya Stephens, Assassin -ironically, from Spragga's Red Square camp, Twin of Twins -when they first appeared) who are moving the dancehall genre outside of this rubric, but for someone who, by nature of the profession, inhabits this dancehall - popular music milieu, that can't happen quickly or forcefully enough.

Yes, all that may sound high-minded to the average hardcore dancehall fan, but I just believe we can do better, and at a time when our popular culture is under increased international scrutiny, we ought to give the 'scrutineers' something more substantial to scrutinise.
Experimental rocker, the late Frank Zappa, once said 'Jazz isn't dead - it just smells funny.'

Transposing that to another genre, I say 'Dancehall is dead - and it's starting to smell.' Those who are interested in reviving it, please come forward. Otherwise, let's just bury the thing (mourn if we must), and move on.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World