Ninja Man, one of dancehall's most controversial artistes, performing at Sting at JamWorld in Portmore on December 26, 2004.- RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER A de leaders dem a let
de people down
An dem a blame it pon de artiste
De selector an de soun
Capleton
I WRITE this response to Ian Boyne's 'Waltzing with wolves', which appeared in The Sunday Gleaner, June 5, 2005.
This is not for the purpose of engaging him in a discussion on dancehall and violence, but as clarification for those readers who go to dancehall through his unfocused eyes.
Boyne wrote, "A lot of middle-class people reading this don't know how chilling the violence-promoting lyrics are, because they don't go to the dancehall and don't live in inner-city areas where decent people are assaulted with this stuff almost 24 hours a day." By the way, the biggest sessions are the uptown events, filled with happy, middle-class kids. Are they gun hawks?
And seeing that the only reference that Boyne made to a specific entertainment event is the '10 Giants of the '80s' show, held recently at the Mas Camp Village on Oxford Road, St. Andrew, which included Assassin, Bling Dawg and Kip Rich among the entertainers who can do "without the negativity", three entertainers whom I have never heard using the violent lyrics that he spoke of, I suspect that he is about as familiar with his topic as a priest is with family planning.
ON THE SIDE OF THE LAW
He has not provided us with a single quote to help those who don't go to dances understand just how nasty this thing is. He just simply flung his comments around.
So I respond in the interest of correcting any misconceptions that Boyne may have sown, knowing that, as Garvey said, a lie which goes uncorrected becomes the truth.
I have covered Jamaican entertainment for four years (which is a short time), more so in the last two, but have been in tune with dancehall music from I could say "zunguzungguguzunguzeng".
I first heard a person dubbed a bad man and 'bigged up' in a song in about 1987, when Tiger asked in When: "Whe de bad bway police name?" And we all said "Laing!"
We followed another deejay's urging to "bus blank if" de gun pon yu hip, if yu know sey a no board, lick two blank if yu no fraid a Bigga Ford ... lick two blank if yu no fraid a Tony Hewitt".
So let us set the 45 (record, not gun) straight. It was the tough cops who got the big up from deejays first, not "the shotta, who has no education, no middle-class connections, no colour credentials, no good looks and no uptown address."
Boyne is incorrect in stating that "while in mainstream society the gunman (shotta) is despised, seen as vomit and waste, in the dancehall he is celebrated as hero, as kingpin, as a god not the devil, for he decides whether you live or die."
I have never heard, on record or over the microphone, in the last two years that I have been attending on average about three entertainment related events every week, a 'shotta' being honoured.
On the contrary, I have consistently heard selectors and deejays 'bun out' people who terrorise the community.
AN OUTRIGHT LIE
That statement by Boyne, in which he drops off the rhythm of truth in an attempt to hype his audience with verbal antics, is an outright lie.
What I have heard consistently getting kudos is the ability to "defen' yuself". I have heard selectors say over sound systems time and again something to the effect that "yu know sey yu a no bad man, but no man cyaan dis yu madda", or "if yu know sey no bway cyaan come tump yu inna yu face ..."
However, Boyne is partially correct in saying "the dancehall is the place where gunmen and dons are toasted and touted, where they get their obligatory big-ups and shout-outs." The correct sentence would read "the dancehall is a place where dons are toasted and touted, where they get their obligatory big-ups and shout-outs".
We need to examine why. On record, one very noted song in this genre is Warrior Cause by Elephant Man and Spragga Benz, which starts with the refrain "big up all de warrior from de present to de past/all who know dem die fe a cause". (Reneto Adams gets a mention, by the way, as a man who now "get introduce to it".)
And why do we have this 'donly' situation?
Peter Tosh sang "yu cyaan blame de yutes" and it is true. We have this tendency, with crime and music, which are firmly aligned (if only mentally), with inner-city Jamaica (I have never seen a cordon, search and detain operation in Meadowbrook or Acadia), to criticise and castigate the poor who pattern the powerful in society.
POLITICS AND CRIME
The first public 'big-up' I can remember dons getting was not in life, but in death. It was the presence of Michael Manley at the funeral of noted don, Burry Boy, complete with gun salute.
This was long before Tiger asked in When: "Whe de don fi Mandeville name?" And we all said "Skeng!"
I say that not to justify deejays and selectors bigging up dons, but to make the point that we want to address the effect without dealing with the cause. We cannot treat the soaring temperature without dealing with the virus. We cannot continue to wipe up the blood without suturing the wound, or we will die.
We cannot, as Boyne suggests, "use our influence to lead them to see the error of their ways and how their work is negatively impacting ghetto people" without showing them the error of the ways of those from whom they, consciously or inadvertently, learned.
And that is the part that we do not, as a society, seem to be interested in. I am aware that Boyne said correcting errant deejays will not solve the problem, but the hard fact is that there is no force powerful enough in this country to tackle the politics and business, that is willing to get off its knees and tax-breaks and do something about it.
When Ninja Man did Artical Don in the mid to late 1980s, the first dancehall song that I was exposed to which really 'bigged up' donship ("wha kin' a don?/Talking bout artical don/Wha' kin'a don'/Don whe don' mix wid homosexual ..."), there was a telling cartoon in The Gleaner around the same period.
Based on Seaga's unforgettable sardonic comment to the then 'Gang of Five' in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the cartoon presented the members of the party's hierarchy in full suits of 'donship'.
Furthermore, it is not only in the dancehall that the don is hailed. We live in a country where the political affiliation of major gangs, from the days of the 'Renkers' and the 'Spoilers', through to 'One Order' and 'Klansman', is accepted.
At every function I have attended (also in my capacity as an entertainment writer) at which a high-ranking politician of either stripe has been present, the host of the event has acknowledged his/her presence. Is this not also acknowledgement of the gang or gangs affiliated with their party and the dons of the areas which support that party?
Is not an urbane acknowledgement of the presence of a top-notch JLP figure also a 'big-up' for One Order? Is the welcome extended to a high-ranking PNP official not also a roll-up of the proverbial red carpet for Klansman? How then, is the dancehall different from Boyne's "mainstream society"?
MONEY SUPPORTING THE MUSIC
There is also another reason why the don gets respect in the dancehall. Corporate Jamaica, which is so highly moralistic about music now, did not support Jamaica's music when Toots Hibbert was mislabelled a ganja-smoking jailbird.
Neither did they sponsor Bob Marley, considered a nasty head Rasta boy from Back O' Wall; Yellowman, a dirty-mouth dundus; and Shabba Ranks, 'big, dutty, stinking Shabba' (his words).
A lot of the money that supported the music that they are now so happy to latch on to to sell cellphones and liquor (which is a drug) came from largely (but of course not exclusively), in the beginning ganja sales, then later cocaine.
People remember and acknowledge their direct benefactors, as well as those who have played a significant role in the business they are in.
So, when Boyne says "The private sector must burn the violence-promoting deejays in their pockets", it is laughable.
First, it was not the deejays who approached said companies. It is the companies which need the deejays, not the other way around. Watch how the Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest saga will play out.
When Boyne says about the deejays: "These guys are materialistic. They will co-operate for money" he should be aware that he is speaking about the wrong end of the equation.
So while Boyne is busy scaring you with wolves, I share with you, the sheep, some of 'what a gwaan' in that space between the speakers piled up in the sky that some of you may experience only as a distant or all too near thunder, knowing that those who frighten the flock into a particular direction are often herding them towards the butcher.
Melville Cooke is a
freelance writer.
