Kristen Gyles | A malfunctioning temperature gauge … is really a menace

The sound mind is perhaps the greatest and most significant asset gifted to man. The mind is much smarter and more sensible than we give it credit. Because it is so smart, the silly manipulations that we subject it to typically don’t work.

For example, we can sit all we want with negative messages drilling into our ears, song after song on the music playlist, expecting to remain totally unaffected, but the mind just does not work that way. It won’t keep up the façade of believing that objectively negative behaviours are simply creative or artistic in one moment when described over a catchy beat, but wholly inappropriate in another minute when the beat stops.

For some time now, it has been the norm for Jamaican artistes (and artistes in many other jurisdictions) to spew crass, disrespectful, and altogether lewd messages through their music. And for as long as this has been the case, people who have a vested interest, whether monetary or otherwise, in denying any negative impact on listeners stemming from the negative lyrics, have argued that music is just art and a little art never hurt anybody.

Perhaps, the recent interaction between a prominent attorney-at-law and a popular social commentator should at least give the proponents of this argument some food for thought. The attorney made a rude and vulgar reference to the Director of Public Prosecutions during his guest appearance on the commentator’s YouTube show. The comment he made was a direct quote from Vybz Kartel’s song The Menace and is too nasty to actually be repeated here. It’s unclear exactly how premeditated the comment was, but the attorney quoted the line verbatim and was able to state that it came from the second stanza of the song.

FAIR GAME

The sentiment was shared precisely because there was an assumption somewhere in the mix, that quoting an artiste was fair game. There is no doubt in my mind that neither the attorney nor any other invited guest would have been crazy enough to repeat the same sentiment were it not veiled as song lyrics.

A three-part study conducted by researchers Peter Fischer and Tobias Greitemeyer and published in the official monthly journal of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology examined how music with sexually aggressive lyrics impacted on thoughts, emotions, and behaviour towards the same and opposite sex. In one part of the study, participants were made to listen to either misogynous or neutral song lyrics and the researchers evaluated the extent of the participants’ aggressive behaviour afterwards. Male participants who heard misogynous song lyrics recalled more negative attributes of women and reported more feelings of vengeance than when they heard neutral song lyrics. Song lyrics which promoted male hatred had a similar effect of increased aggression-related responses from the women towards men.

These results are somewhat intuitive. Music influences our thoughts on what is appropriate from what is not. The more the ears and mind are batter-bruised with hard lyrics telling women what vulgar things to do with their various body parts, the more the listener becomes desensitised to the misogyny and vulgarity of it all. It then becomes second nature to speak in a course and crass manner that denigrates women. There are no padlocked boxes or compartments in our heads that keep our thoughts and opinions separate and totally unconnected. There is one me and there is one you. If what you pour into you is sewage, you become a walking cesspool. Very simple.

None of this is to shift the responsibility we have over our tongues and bodies, on to artistes. While they may have influence, they don’t control what we say or do. People must be responsible enough to know when an influence is having a negative effect on them and when to dissociate from the harmful influence.

CONVENIENCE

But, it is extremely interesting to see how narratives change at our convenience. When Jamaican artistes are criticised for the horrible sentiments they promulgate through their music, we hear “it’s just art”. Well, the canvas was painted quite colourfully when the particular line from Vybz Kartel’s song was repurposed (verbatim) during the referenced YouTube show. Suddenly we have stopped being hypocrites and have acknowledged that it is disgusting to say certain things in reference to another human being, song lyrics or not. The presence or absence of a musical beat makes no difference. Where the hypocrisy continues is in the fact that while the comments made by the attorney has drawn the ire of many, the producer of the lyrics that were quoted remains sinless.

It would be remiss of me not to highlight the fact that, the piece of ‘art’ from which the attorney took his comment was released in 2021 by an artiste who has been incarcerated since 2011. Because we live in Jamaica (which, rumour has it, is not a real place), you can produce music while you are behind bars whether you are enrolled in any prison rehabilitation system or not. This is Jamaica and that’s how we roll. But that is an aside.

What transpired can easily become a learning moment for many people, who have difficulty differentiating among jokes, insults and criticisms. Criticisms are sometimes necessary, but insults are never. And some ‘jokes’ are flat-out insults. Unfortunately for many, the temperature gauge that should turn red when a rude or insulting comment is in formulation just doesn’t work. But how can it if lewdness and disrespect is gradually becoming the norm for us?

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