Welcome to the club, Messrs Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Popcaan, Lexx, et al
Like it or not, the young men and, to a lesser extent, women who make up the denizens of the night, killing their fellow Jamaicans — be it man, woman, or child, young or old — without conscience or hesitance, are more likely to listen to dancehall artistes.
It could be that the dancehall has always provided succour for them, articulating their pain and the abject squalor in which many of them have their origins. Or it might well be because so many of the stars themselves are from the ranks of the gun hawks.
Whatever it is, we heartily welcome the voices of top dancehall heroes Messrs Rodney “Bounty Killer” Pryce; Andre Hugh “Popcaan” Sutherland; Christopher George “Mr Lexx” Palmer; Moses “Beenie Man” Davis; Rudolph “Romeich Major” Brown, and Skatta Burrell who have appealed for the bloodletting to stop.
Is there any sector or group of Jamaicans, except for the politicians, perhaps, who are not totally fed up with the brutality and the wanton slaughtering of fellow Jamaicans?
What could possibly explain the killing of 112 people in 23 days?
We are with Popcaan in his lamentation, late in the day though it is: “I would love to know what causing these war and senseless killing, it nuh look good!! It’s sad and frustrating. Man them killing kids for what reason? Killing so much woman for what reason? Killing 60-year-old woman,” he said in a tweet Sunday. “Man them affi fixtings!”
Said Romeich Major: “We done know [how] the badness go enuh because some time people don’t understand street life; you have to defend your life to stay alive! Ok kool but all them killing yah with children and so much woman. Come on!
“All crime is wrong but there is no way you can justify crimes of children and woman,” his post read. “Me a beg the man them please, me know time ruff and the system was made mostly for rich to get richer but [there] must can be a better way for uno fi find than all these killing. Me a beg uno!”
In a tweet also over the weekend, Mr Lexx encouraged individuals to plead with anyone they know committing wrongdoings to cease and desist. The entertainer said that, while the issue of crime was largely the Government’s responsibility, individual Jamaicans also had a part to play.
In response to the recent case of a nine-year-old autistic boy being abducted and murdered in Montego Bay, music producer Skatta Burrell and veteran artistes Beenie Man and Bounty Killer joined those mourning the bloodshed that gave us over 1,400 murders last year.
Beenie Man said it succinctly: “We can’t tolerate this level of violence and crime in our country. It a get out of hand. Caan even say it a get from bad to worse because it reach worst.”
We encourage more Jamaicans from all walks of life to raise their voices against the murderers and monsters walking among us. Apparently, the country can no longer rely on its political leaders to mobilise the people against the criminals. It is now up to the people themselves.
Let us flood the security forces with information on where the guns and the gunmen are hiding. We need to see more operations like that at the National Stadium East field on Mountain View Avenue, St Andrew, where at least eight guns have been unearthed — no doubt based on information from patriotic Jamaicans.