No rampin! Dancehall, a product of reggae


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NO RAMPIN!
DANCEHALL A BY PRODUCT OF REGGAE

Entertainment is a form of enjoyment. Enjoyment should be a light-hearted affair, not to be taken too seriously. The players of musical instruments, singers and dancers are not to be taken seriously.

They are modern day jesters –highly paid at that- to provide entertainment to whosoever they appeal to. The minute one begins to take musicians seriously, and then you have ceded your thought processes to them. Case in point Bob Marley. I have always been asked which is my favourite musician/singer/rapper/dancehall and I really don’t have a favourite or a favourite song. I listen widely and then out the door it goes. But, people are sheeple and they cling to ‘celebrities’ like a toilet paper to ass.

Dancehall has evolved from Reggae and is in essence an up tempo version of reggae. The long in the tooth, the two headed Januses will look back at the good old days of Reggae music and say ‘ahh the good old days.

My point is: I there are very good reggae singers, why are they not producing good enough material which will be tagged as popular music! Music is like a cake and there are many slices to it. If dancehall music for all of its indecency is catching the cochleas of young people, why blame it ? Blame the clean, culturally inclined whose musical form is bereft of creativity.

I am not a music apologist.. I will criticize dancehall for what it is but like a cigarette, I will continue to puff on it than cast concrete aspersions on the genre.
The arguments for and against the banning of Kartel and Spice’s wicked sexual innuendo filled chune ‘Rampin Shop’ from free to air radio and television stations are getting interesting and very personal. But it also seems as if the purveyors of what is right from wrong also want it banned from cable. How noble

I am a rebel without a cause, a man who is so deviant and so exquisitely empty; it makes God in Heaven, if he exists, shakes his head. However, as deviant as yours truly is, he campaigns for rules and regulations or else, the society will become a slave to Murphy’s law. It is a highly enlightened being who can rise above petty bias, hypocrisy to call a spade a shovel.
Esther Tyson, the Principal of Ardenne wrote a seminal , well the seminal critique on ‘Rampin Shop’ –by the way, why does Kartel spell it like that- which has thundered letters, arguments from the four corners of Jamaica. She says it is musical poison and that is her opinion. Kartel, in responding says that society has failed the children yadda yadda yadda and he also has a point. How do we resolve this? It cannot be resolved. Thought you knew that already.

Dancehall music is offensive to at least everyone. It is misogynistic, it is anti-informer, it is anti good, it is anti faggots, and it is even anti dancehall, so everyone is bashed by dancehall. I have posited points on how media and entertainment have devalued social mores. Yes, we have some people saying that parents should be there for their children but come on; we know that a society grows a child.

It has been proven if a child lives in a dysfunctional home – f***, which home isn’t dysfunctional’?- and his surrounding environment is stable, then said child will live a good life and grow to become a sheeple ( law abiding citizen).

Songs like Rampin Shop stirs me not to vent or to embrace. But it has its place. You remember when I said I was an empty deviant? Adults should not have to live their lives for children but to carry on the population; rules have to be laid down. It should not be played on the radio, if that is what the Broadcast Commission wants. We can debate that come hell or high water, it will be cyclical blame of the dog chasing the tail. It has its place in the dancehall but such is the broken down society that a child can and will hear songs of such nature anytime

Dancehall culture maybe the vehicle of the lower class and now all of Jamaica but it is pervasively a degrading, filthy genre which incidentally I don’t mind. You see the hypocrisy? The point I am trying to say is that as much as how I like the gun chunes and some sexually charged songs, my rational side tells me that it is nothing than rubbish.

As long as we urge our women to back it up, there will be wolves in masculine flesh, being led by their penis who will seduce, pillaging the virtue or what is left of our women. It is time to STOP!

Thanks to the mass media we are hopping from one news item to the next like mad flying ants. The depressing violence, war, economic depression spirals down and we seek solace in petty activities such as watch entertainment in the form of movies, sports and music which falsely, but most importantly, temporarily blot our minds from the ghosts of sadness. We are drunks trying to teetotal our way from the slurry world.

This debate is bigger than music. It lies with the changes we are going through in the name of progress. Abortion, women’s rights the sacking of religion, the globalization of the economy, all these things help to break down societies and expose it to stimuli which changes thought. We say positive parenting but hey, we are living in a different period where no longer love or a nuclear family is what it is supposed to be.

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karlvernon
I specialise in media and public relations. I am experienced in subediting, pagination, feature writing. I promote Jamaica's true gems - our people, skills, culture and more that makes us unique among the world's finest. I graduated from the University of the West Indies. Here are my thoughts. Enjoy, share! Link me here or or here

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