Charly Black believes artistes can do more to help stem the tide of domestic violence by delivering positive messages through their music.

His latest single, Domestic Violence, addresses the issue of gender-based violence.

“Artistes can help in many ways — we can go out and keep campaigns and rallies, but the most important part is to send the message in the music. Since December, I have been getting a lot of sad, disturbing news about these domestic violence situations, so condolences to all those people who lost their loved ones as a result of domestic violence. Many great artistes have talked about the issue but most men, especially in Jamaica, don’t listen to certain kinds of songs. I see it fit to send the message even though it may not be a number one song, no disc jockey don’t have to play it, but it is a priority, number-one message for the country,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Domestic Violence is produced by Jermaine “Crawba Genius” Henry on the Crawba Productions label, and was released in November 2019.

“I wrote my Domestic violence song years ago, and 18 months ago, I got the instrumental from Crawba and I released the song last year. I am just hoping that the message gets out,” said Charly Black.

In recent weeks, there have been several highly publicised incidents of fatal domestic killings. There was a murder/suicide involving a Jamaica Defence Force Corporal and his common-law wife. The soldier, Doran McKenzie, is believed to have chopped his 34-year-old common-law wife, Suianne Easy, to death, then turned a gun on himself.

Another case involved a 30-year-old man, Andre Bromfield, who was charged with murder following the shooting death of a woman at a food store on South Race Course Road, Mandeville.

There was also a stabbing death of a woman in St Elizabeth by her lover last week.

A young boy, Galen Buchanan, was allegedly killed by the estranged lover of his mother. His body was found in the Kingston Harbour in the vicinity of the Manley Meadows housing scheme in the eastern end of the capital.

According to the Jamaica Women’s Health Survey (2016), one in every four Jamaican women has experienced physical violence by a male partner. Many of these women are mothers, whose children are watching and listening to horrific acts of violence that should never be a part of their childhood.

“We all have a role to play to stop domestic violence, we can only do that if we raise awareness and show people that there is a better way,” said Charly Black.

The platinum-selling Charly Black, whose given name is Desmond Mendize, achieved diamond certification in Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Belize, and Guatemala for Party Animal.