Culture Box
It was just about two weeks ago that we first visited the painful denigration of soca in the Caribbean. The art form, which should be simply a modern form of calypso with an up-tempo beat, we noted, had become little less than repetitious wining songs, which overly focused on the female form and contemptuously so.
We had not yet interviewed Shellon ‘Shelly G’ Garraway, who subsequently went on to win the 2009 Carib Soca Monarch crown. When we did speak to her prior to her win, she had predicted a win with her song “Work It”, which she said was “all about wining up… partying and having fun at Mash time with some ‘daggerin’ in between”. And according to her, “daggerin” is just another word for wining.
If Ms Garraway had coined the word ‘daggerin’ all on her own, we would not have had a problem with it. She could have given it any connotation she chose. However, since she has copied/stolen/borrowed it from Jamaican deejays such as Aidonia (“100 Stab”), Queen Paula (“Dagga Me Nuh”), Natalie Storm (“Kill Her wid di Daggerin”), as well as the usual suspects, including Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel, Sizzla and Tony Matterhorn, Ms Garraway cannot change the meaning of the word to suit herself. Anyone who knows any of the songs mentioned here, or can get a copy of the lyrics cannot be in any doubt about what ‘daggerin’ connotes; some of the songs actually spell it out.
There had been an ongoing debate in Jamaica about the public broadcasting of sexually-explicit music and videos under the broad title ‘daggerin’. Even Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding weighed in on the arguments on the ‘anti-daggerin’ side. It all culminated a week ago with a ban. The Jamaica Broadcasting Commission announced a prohibition on all ‘daggerin’ songs, recordings and videos which contain “explicitly sexual and violent lyrics” in breach of regulations that set standards that broadcasters are obliged to adhere to in keeping with the terms of their licences. The commission said the ban would help the society to re-establish the spaces between public and private behaviour and also between public morality and commercial considerations and private profit.
So here we are. It is not unanimous, but Jamaicans have taken the high road in removing inappropriate content from its airwaves, while Guyanese, determined to propagate that which they perceive to be popular blind themselves to the fact that it is also offensive, indecent and immoral.
We have noted that the “fans” – the audience at the soca monarch final – seemed to gravitate more to Ms Garraway’s ‘daggerin’ than the slew of wine-up songs and the others which involved social commentary. We therefore cannot blame Ms Garraway for taking advantage of this and giving the people exactly what they wanted. It might not have done much for her image as a woman. However, as a performer, it was a savvy move since the judges seemed to be at one with the crowd and she earned herself a title and huge purse.
What next? Well since “Work It” won the soca crown, it will no doubt be played constantly on Mashramani day during the float parade; and this is where we foresee a problem. While there are no longer any children in the Mash Day float parade, there will be entire families out on the street, observing it. And as soca winner, “Work It” should also receive airplay, which brings it from the private setting of the soca competition to the public, which includes impressionable, underage children. We feel this is wrong. We have nothing against Ms Garraway, but we have to say an emphatic “no” to ‘daggerin’. We would like to suggest that she considers recording a cleaner version of her song for public airplay. We have noted that both Beenie Man and Lady Saw have done this in the past, showing that they are aware that there is a time and a place for everything. We hope that these qualities could also be copied. (thescene@stabroeknews.com)