(Barbados Nation) More crop-over and less commercial content in the music!
This is the edict coming from the radio stations of Starcom Network which are clamping down on songs they deem to have “excessive commercial references”.
The first two songs to be affected by the new policy are Jimmy Dan’s De Rum Song and Staggerah by Fadda Fox, which have been pulled with immediate effect.
Starcom Network programme director Ronald Clarke, while emphasising that the policy did not constitute a “major upheaval or overhaul”, said: “Essentially, what it is [is that] where songs are deemed to have excessive commercial references which can be analysed as free commercial promotion, that is something we can’t endorse.
“In some instances it can be as a result of acknowledgement of support from an entity or it can just be that this is something that the artiste is interested in and sings about it. But it does not mean that the commercial content is not being heard.”
Clarke insisted that while Starcom tried “to be as accommodating as possible to a point” with local music, the decision was a result of it reviewing songs and applying more stringent standards.
“Obviously, there are certain songs that for various reasons from year to year don’t make it on the air, or make it on the air and after review are taken off.
“It happens with calypso, it happens with reggae and it happens with rap . . . . It just goes to show that there are standards in every genre. And just because this is ‘we festival’ does not mean we should not apply the same standards of discernment.”
When contacted, 26-year-old Fadda Fox, whose real name is Nicholas Sealy, said he had “no comment as yet”.
