Lewd lyrics mar Sumfest - Youngsters warm to music festival By Garwin Davis, Staff Reporter WESTERN BUREAU THE WANTON use of profanity in the presence of many young children and which characterised the performances of many entertainers at this year's Reggae Sumfest has angered many in both the music fraternity and wider society. With schools being on summer holidays, a large number of unaccompanied teenagers and minors (children under 10) attended the event and were exposed to what some people are calling the crudest behaviour ever seen in the eight-year history of the festival. Following the events of dancehall night where the use of expletives defined nearly all of the on-stage performances and repeated later by popular American acts, Snoop Doggy Dog and Ja Rule both taking it a little further with their marijuana smoking antics there are now calls for censorship of some form to curtail the behaviour of artistes. "The industry can do without a lot of what is currently taking place," says Desmond Young, president of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians during an interlude at Thursday night's event. "The 'bad word' cursing and the promoting of violence in front of children cannot be tolerated. I have personally talked to a lot of the young artistes about this but it is very difficult to get through to them." But if Thursday night was bad, then Saturday and particularly, Sunday night where Ja Rule was in full flight, really took the cake. With the Catherine Hall park largely filled with minors hanging on to his every word, Ja Rule carried out a set laced with profanities and to the point where many of the adults within the audience were looking at each other in shocked belief. "Is this music?" one woman asked, as her equally stunned companion looked on. The police on duty, apparently mindful that the crowd of mainly teenyboppers were going wild over the performance - remained at a safe distance. Worrel King, CEO of King of Kings promotion company and manager of Sounds Against Negative Expressions band (SANE) said that he too was perturbed by some of what unfolded and suggested that changes will have to be made to the makeup of the festival. He added that a few sponsors were not pleased with a number of things that happened and that the entertainers had to be held more accountable. Dub Poet Yasus Afari said that he was also disturbed by some of the news that came out of this year's Reggae Sumfest, noting that there was a general break down across society where a lot of people have to bear what he called full responsibility. "We have been saying all along that there is a direct parallel between the violence that is being advocated in the music and the violence that is being carried out within the society," he noted. "We also have to understand that the culture of the music has changed. "It started out with genuine musicians whose craft meant a lot to them. Now what we have are so called artistes with a mike and not much by way of substance. Also, we find that some of the things which are wrong with America are now being imposed on our culture." Afari said that there is now a mindset among some artistes that without the use of profanity and violence they are unable to make a name for themselves. "They need to understand that the youngsters will pick up those things faster than they would their school work," he said. "We have a responsibility to ourselves and the youngsters that they are exposed to constructive things and not things to corrupt their minds. Music is like food - just like how we have health food - we need to have health music." Reggae icon and pioneer, Bunny Wailer, who brought the curtain down on this year's festival, in a stinging rebuke of those he says would want to destroy the industry, noted that the vulgarity and violence which now characterised the industry had to be cut out. "Imagine a man like Bob Marley who carried the music worldwide and left us with the legacy of one love never having to resort to these kind of things," he said. "This is not the dancehall that I know- look at how they talk about the women-look at the things they say in front of the kids- we will not sit back and allow them to mash this up." Sumfest director David Lindo agreed that the crudeness of some of the acts particularly in front of the youngsters were inexcusable. "Yes, I will be the first to agree that we cannot tolerate some of these things," he said. "The same way we are asking the local artistes to behave themselves, we have to do the same with the foreign acts. We cannot have two separate rules and this is something which I have made quite clear."
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