Kristen Gyles | The big ban on Choppa lyrics

Who are the record producers fooling? Since the Broadcasting Commission’s ban on the transmission of music that promotes illegal activities, it seems the best comeback much of the music industry has been able to put forward is that children will listen to the banned music on YouTube anyway. Some have been going as far as to suggest that nobody listens to the radio or watches TV any more, so the ban will have little to no effect. Okay. So, what’s the problem?

If the ban on music promoting illegal activities won’t have any impact whatsoever on how much people actually hear the music, then no dancehall artiste or music producer needs to be crying ‘Foul’. But, I think deep down, we are all aware that there are droves of people who travel in buses, taxis and other public passenger vehicles who involuntarily have this music beating into their ears while traversing to and from school or work, daily.

Further, the mere fact that such a large percentage of the dancehall fraternity can argue that the ban will have hardly any effect because of the availability of the banned music on platforms other than radio and television demonstrates that no one’s right to self-expression is being curtailed here. No one is owed airtime on radio or television. Dancehall artistes are still free to produce songs of whatever nature. Regardless of the body parts listeners are encouraged to “cock up” or “skin out” and no matter how detailed the description of how a successful scam may be executed, the music can still be produced. It just won’t be promoted through radio or television, which is intended to be accessible to all demographics of people, including children. Why is that so unreasonable?

MET WITH CRITICISM

The Broadcasting Commission must have known that its directive would have been met with criticism. But one important thing to consider is the primary source of complaint. The fact that most of the backlash has originated from within the music industry should give the commission some comfort. Artistes and music producers can’t reasonably be expected to approach this particular matter without bias, when their bread and butter is at stake. What I hear behind all the criticisms is lament and worry that the coffers of the dancehall industry will start drying up.

But why does that have to be the case? Can’t artistes at least try to pivot away from producing lyrics that have the word ‘chop’ ending every line? If lyrics glorifying guns and scamming are becoming more and more controversial and have now been banned for their perceived negative impact on society and culture, just stop producing them. For goodness’ sake, all it takes is a little creativity.

Further, it should be obvious why the Broadcasting Commission would want to issue the kind of directive it has. To still be debating whether music has any impact on behaviour or not seems just a little more ridiculous than discussing whether the Tooth Fairy still has your tooth.

In 2010, after Vybz Kartel’s song Clarks was released, the sale of Clarks shoes and Clarks knockoffs skyrocketed. Suddenly, every other high school student started sporting their own pair. In fact, by July of that year, a few news headlines read ‘Vybz Kartel puts Clarks footprint on Jamaica’, ‘Clarks sales soar after reggae hit’, ‘Sales of Clarks shoes skyrocket in Jamaica thanks to Vybz Kartel’, and so on.

CAKE SOAP

I also recall a time, not long after this, when many students were flocking downtown to stock up on cake soap, specifically to wash their faces. Everybody wanted a ‘cool’ face like the ‘World Boss’. Not only that, but besides loyally chanting “World boss!” everywhere they went, the cake soap face-washers had an anthem. “Cool like mi wash mi face wid di cake soap”, a popular line from Vybz Kartel’s song Cake Soap was stuck on repeat, perhaps just in case years later, there was to be any ambiguity regarding the motivation for the buying of the soap.

In early 2020, another artiste, Tee Jay, released a song called Guard Ring. This was only one of a number of songs around that time which either referenced or actively promoted the use of guard rings. Within two years after that, when school reopened after its pandemic hiatus, a student was fatally stabbed at William Knibb High School, supposedly over a guard ring. This incident brought to light that school administrators and teachers in some schools were confiscating guard rings left and right.

Music is powerful and has influence. Should the Broadcasting Commission seek to legislate what everyone listens to? Absolutely not. That would be overstepping its mandate and disregarding the rights of individual artistes to their own self-expression. Fortunately, the commission is not doing that. As many music producers have aptly highlighted, the music is still accessible to those who want to hear it. In fact, all it takes is a Google search.

What the ban will do is finally restore public spaces into environments where people of all ages can exist comfortably, without parents trying to cover their children’s ears.

The only rights that were ever being curtailed were the rights of people who don’t like visualising the imagery of bullets spraying, brains flying and marrow splashing. The less privileged of this set were being forced to do just that in the PPVs they were travelling in and while walking on public roads.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Sendfeedback to kristengyles@gmail.com.