Melville Cooke

Attitude gal!

First commandment of many in 'Dutty Wine' by Tony Matterhorn

It is not actually the 'Dutty Wine' dance that caused the recent rash of indignantly righteous articles that popped up after 18-year-old Tanisha Henry died on Sunday, October 29. It is the name of the dance.

Given front page treatment by The Gleaner, the story took the 'Dutty Wine' smack into the faces of those who don't go to dancehall events. After the enquiring headline 'Dance of death?' it did not matter that the cause of said death had not yet and has not been determined. The Dutty Wine was to blame and the laughable consideration from some quarters if it should or should not be banned began.

I would not want either of my daughters to do the Dutty Wine, for the same reason that I do not want them to be parading their asses in the company of other asses on roads meant for driving (a lot of that done by asses) in the name of making the people who run Carnival richer. But when they have reached to 18, what I want is immaterial. At best all I can do is put in requests.

Disconnected from reality

So even the public consideration of a ban shows just how much those who live in the realm of newspapers, radio and television and drive through the real world are disconnected from reality. So if this dance is determined to be deadly and should not be done, what then? Shall we have a ADWTF (Anti Dutty Wine Task Force) or Operation Queen Fish, complete with Operation Dutty Wine Stop and Neighbourhood Dutty Wine Watch (meetings held to review tapes of community events)? Shall we have raids of dances, a van with a single high, grilled window on hand to carry in all suspected Dutty Winers for processing?

And if it is banned, it certainly should not be exported. So would we have a CD player set up at the international airports, Matterhorn's 'Dutty Wine' set on repeat and a sharp-eyed person watching for any suspicious movements, much as Sponge Bob and Patrick came under pressure with the 'groovy goober' song?

If we as a nation cannot stop people from carrying in guns and shooting other people with them, how the hell does anyone propose to stop people from doing something that only requires a warm body and hot music?

It has not occurred to those who live in the realm of newspapers that those who love dancehall, Dutty Wine and all, could not care less about their pontifications and judgement. In fact, said pontifications and judgement are very likely to end up unread around two pounds of snapper, chicken back or pig's tail, before or after eating.

But it is the name, the 'dutty' part of it, that has attracted the attention of those of oonu who consider oonuself above the base and bassline. For 'dutty' is not associated with the earth, but 'dirty' and how dare anything that is connected with the groin region be dirty? After all, this is a country where many ladies have had an Immaculate Conception and Holy Childhood and aim for graduate degrees at the University of Norfolk, despite nine-month swellings to the contrary. And many who feel that they have arrived would rather forget their days of 'dutty tough' and when they used to eat 'dutty gal' (the tinned delicacy, that is) and sometimes know nothing about Boukman Dutty, who set the train of events that became the Haitian Revolution in motion.

Overwhelming

In all its loud, sometimes overwhelming, grandeur, what I love about dancehall (apart from the 'hot gals') is its stripping away of pretences (homosexuality and oral sex apart, of course). So deejays before selector-turned-performer Matterhorn have used dutty - there was Major Mackerel with Dutty Bungle, Sean Paul with a Grammy- winning Dutty Rock and Shabba Ranks who often introduced himself on stage with "A me man! Big dutty stinkin' Shabba!"

On the other hand, the various alcoholic drink companies which will contribute the fluid to liven up parties and occasionally lively up the morgues over the coming festive season mask their intentions with the rapid-fire command to "drink responsibly." What they sell is the real 'Dutty Wine'. Shall we see front page stories when drunk drivers kill themselves and others - and it is scientifically ascertained?

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.