Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson Jr appeared quite chuffed recently when he announced that the Dancehall Monarch Competition, which he said was introduced last year to highlight Guyana’s emerging talent in that genre, was back on the Mashramani calendar this year. He stated that the competition was immensely popular, as it had received a record number of entries for this year already. Based on that, he said, and the genre’s impact on Guyana’s cultural landscape, the government has pledged its full support.
Perhaps the minister, or whomever had the initial execrable concept to include a dancehall competition in the Republic anniversary celebrations, might also be moved to explain the thought process behind it. Guyana is not now, and has never been, bereft of cultural expression, whether in music, art, craft, writing, drama, dance and the list goes on. Rather, the issue is the lack of official and other support for what exists. Clearly, there is also a destitution of ideas in the government agency set up to nurture local culture.
To avoid any misunderstanding, it is worth stating here that there is no opposition, in general, to dancehall music. Further, people are obviously free to enjoy their choice of music – dancehall, hip-hop, rap, reggae, soul, pop, chutney, gospel to name a few – or none at all. However, a genre of music that has no bearing or basis on who we are as a nation, ought not to occupy space in a national festival. Surely, the money being used to fund it could have been put towards another form of local culture dying for want of an infusion of resources.
Dancehall is a style of Jamaican popular music. According to the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), it had its genesis in the political turbulence of the late 1970s and became the island’s dominant music in the 1980s and ’90s. Originally it was solely performed by deejays speak-chanting over pre-recorded rhythm tracks. The JIS credited DJ Yellowman with sparking the genre’s popularity in the 80s, as well as de-politicising it by introducing the salacious and licentious lyrics that are currently the basis of dancehall. Those who picked up and ran with Yellowman’s baton, like Shabba Ranks, Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel, and Mavado to name a few, added the guns, gangs, drugs, and violence spiels woven into the very fabric of today’s dancehall music.
Among the more explicitly destructive was Buju Banton’s “Boom Bye Bye” released in 2001, which was fingered as promoting increased physical attacks against and murders of members of the LBGT community. After a while, both Banton and his song were banned by many countries around the world and by 2009, he took a decision to permanently remove it from his music catalogue. However, it remains out there, a permanent reminder of the result of homophobia and uncalled for callousness and hate.
In 2009, a study conducted in Barbados blamed “minibus and dancehall culture” for the rise in disorder being experienced on that island. In 2013, a committee led by the late political scientist and professor Selwyn Ryan to look into the burgeoning violence in Trinidad and Tobago reported that dancehall, as well as hip-hop and soca, was influencing youth into lives of crime. The committee said it had found a “correlation between violence or explicitness of lyrics and the level of criminality”.
The vulgarity, barbarity and misogyny blatant in dancehall lyrics have been thoroughly bemoaned up and down the Caribbean, including in its birthplace, Jamaica. And here in Guyana, countless people have complained of being so astounded, embarrassed, and annoyed by the explicit dancehall lyrics blasted through the speakers in minibuses that they choose not to travel in them.
While some dancehall artists with international appeal, like Sean Paul or Popcaan for example, have infused some subtlety into their lyrics and leaned heavily on reggae elements, their music videos are largely still sexually explicit enough to require ratings, though this rarely happens.
There is no denying that dancehall has popular appeal for some. That has always been blatantly obvious. For years, dancehall concerts, headlined by Jamaican artists, have played to sold out audiences here in Guyana. Note too that one is currently being advertised for independence weekend – the ‘Baderation’ event featuring Vybz Kartel – with tickets set at exorbitant prices (there goes the $100,000 payout). Those interested will attend and truly that is the place for dancehall music.
One does not doubt that the entries for the local dancehall competition will be thoroughly vetted. The Ministry of Culture is extremely adept at banning songs with lyrics it does not approve from competitions, as it has done countless times in the calypso contest, so those with explicit lyrics might not make it into the public arena. However, that is beside the point, which is that introducing this genre into a national competition is wrong on many levels. This might not be a popular opinion, but very often what is right is unwelcome. Finally, here’s another fact, there is no other country in the world, including Jamaica, that has a dancehall monarchy competition as part of any national day celebration.
