In an interview Ed Lover on Power 105 radio, Beenie Man, King of Jamaican Dancehall, was asked to speak on the Jamaican government’s recent ban on all dancehall songs with lyrics that need to be censored. The ban stipulates that all dancehall songs that have lyrics which need to be bleeped, will be completely banned from air play. Basically, that’s every single dancehall song! Even Sean Paul’s upper-crust style of dancehall like,” Just Gimme the Light” makes reference to “dro”. Dro is short for Hydro which is slang for weed. Even if he said “pass the Draw” Draw and Dro are both slang for weed. It is sometimes bleeped although it is passable. Will they stop playing King Sean Paul’s songs too – even though he attracted so many new tourists to the island when he busted out on MTV a few years ago. Or will the Jamaica government become as usual hypocritical – bowing to the fair-skinned and dissing the darkies of dancehall. Beenie Man’s response is [and I paraphrase] “the Jamaican government don’t do nothing for we (the dancehall artists),we make the music, we aid the Jamaican economy without any input from them, and we will sing what we want because what we sing is reality. They cannot stop us.”
Ed Lover went on to ask him what the dancehall artists will do. To this Beenie responded that they will form a cooperative and start their own radio station and will release all their music to the pirate radio stations … basically, they will go underground. Jamaican dancehall is suffering the same fate as hip hop in the 80s, and their response will be the same –they will go underground. There is a huge difference to the underground of the 80s. With the proliferation of the internet, and youtube, and free music websites willing to freely promote artists, and the artists own ability to self-promote, Dancehall music will fare far better than hip hop did in the 1980s.
I’m sort of proud of the response to fight against censorship. It’s an intelligent, artistic revolt. I understand the government’s need to clamp down on the dirty lyrics on radio because the whole country has become so degenerate, but I don’t believe that answer is to make the artists suffer the consequences of irresponsible radio disc jockeys. The radio stations should be fined heavily, and there should be certain late hour rules where that type of music can be played after a certain hour… and still with the bleeps. There should not just be this blanket policy. What will happen is the radio stations will lose listenership and in turn, they will lose sponsors. The pirate radio stations will become legit, with the sponsors moving to them. This is so mafia.
The response of the government to shut everything down mostly because of the few recent examples of gross abuse of artistic freedom (aka – daggering as in Rampin Shop, Vybz Kartel’s over the top triple X rated song, on Neyo’s Miss Independence beat). Equally harmful, (although admirable in the artist movement/ rebellion sense) the artists’ response to completely disrespect the government, is a poor example to the younger generation. It can only lead to further anarchy in a country of people who have little regard or respect for authority and human life.
