Dancehall is not ‘bashment’: Beenie Man says put some respect on the genre
The King of Dancehall wants y’all to put some respect on the genre’s name. Beenie Man has taken issue with the tendency that some people have of referring to dancehall as “bashment”. And in an interview on
“Bashment, a dat dem call dancehall, dem mash up the name a dancehall and call it bashment. How can you have a music name bashment?” he asked.
An obviously annoyed Beenie Man schooled viewers on what the term ‘bashment’ actually means, and appealed to them to stop the “disrespect”.
You know what is bashment? How yuh dress, how you style you clothes, how you look inna yuh clothes. How can you style my music as bashment? That is disrespect to my culture eno. Dat mean ya call it ‘passa passa’, ‘mix up’, you cya do dat,” he said.
“My music is dancehall, it has one name and no other name, dancehall. When you hear the yute dem a sing the cultural music it name reggae, it has no other name than reggae,” he added.
He said the term bashment has gained popularity, especially overseas, in a bid to obscure dancehall music.
“Dem push bashment inna your head because dem wah push another music, which come off a bashment, it wah sound like bashment, but it better than bashment,” he said.
But he is adamant that this will not happen. “There is no music better than the original, that’s why dancehall is always here. You have some man buss and sell 10 million but tomorrow you don’t hear bout dem, but you still have a Beenie Man, and a Bounty Killer, you still have a Popcaan and you still have a Vybz Kartel, and you still have 25 more million artiste from Jamaica coming up,” he said.
“Why is that? Because we are the original. Do not change the name of the music it is dancehall, it don’t name bashment, I don’t like when dem call it bashment.
Check out full interview here.
