Peter Espeut | Freedom and romping shop

It must be said that the beauty of dancehall as a genre of music is in the eye of the beholder. Whether you like it or not – or classical music or calypso or soca or Afrobeat or Reggaeton or whatever – is a matter of personal taste. The beat and the rhythm – or the riddim if you prefer – is morally neutral; it may move you, or make you want to move – or not – or maybe it puts you in a particular mood; but in the end it is “different strokes for different folks”.

The lyrics now … that is an entirely different matter.

Words – whether spoken or sung – carry meaning, and the quality of each piece of music must be judged by the interplay of the lyrics with the instrumentation, and the message in the music.

“From a distance” is a beautiful piece of music, but in my view the lyrics are unwholesome. The idea that “God is watching us from a distance” rather than being closer to us than we are to ourselves, describes an uncaring god that watches us from on high without concern about out welfare, From a distance “there is harmony”, and “we all have enough”, and “no one is in need”, but that is not the human reality; the up-close facts are that “everything is war” (as another artiste sings, whose birthday we celebrated this week); and many children are hungry and cannot concentrate on their schoolwork, as Dr Herbert Gayle tells us. As beautiful as the music may be, the message of the song – theologically and socially – is false.

FALSE THEOLOGY

Because the popular religious song with the line “Jesus is mi daddy O” confuses the Father with the Son, those who believe in a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit can only sing this catchy chorus in moments of schizophrenia; it sounds nice, and creates a nice vibe; (but its false theology from the Trinitarian point of view) make the song inappropriate for Trinitarians soca sing, especially in church. If you are a Unitarian, then it would be perfectly appropriate.

The point I try to make is that words carry meaning, and that the lyrics embedded in a piece of music carry a message. If you want to promote that message, put it in a song and sing it. That is the basis of the use of jingles in advertising.

Some dancehall music promotes violence and gunplay, and samfie and scamming as a way to make a living. Popular music is a reflection of the way of life of a society, but it also helps to create and shape society. Violence and gunplay, and samfie and scamming are part of our national identity, but do we really want to promote those values to the youth and to the world in our popular music?

We want to be considered a free country, so we don’t practise music censorship; what we do is try to restrict the type of music that is broadcast on the public airwaves. But we do not censor the internet, and the message still gets across on-line, and as it is blared with high decibels from sound systems in dancehall and other public spaces, which can be heard from a distance.

But we do practise gun censorship; one can only legally possess a gun if one is licensed to do so. But we can sing about firing guns, and shooting other people with gay abandon. Is there a disconnect?

SEX OBJECTS

Some dancehall music portrays women (and men, if the truth be told) as sex objects to be used for personal pleasure, rather than as persons to be deeply loved. Some songs promote obtaining sexual pleasure as a type of casual recreation. As men and women, boys and girls, face off in the dancehall, the message in the music can and does lead to action.

It is music with this sort of message that gives dancehall a bad name, which is unfortunate, because other musical genres from time to time also carry undesirable messaging. We should not demonise a whole musical genre because of the slackness of a few immature entertainers still in their adolescence.

One of the functions of an education system is to help to bring the young to maturity through balanced personal development. We have to learn to control the bodily urges of all our appetites, otherwise we will suffer the social and medical consequences.

If we are out of control with what we eat and drink we will be a nation of alcoholics and obese people, racked with hypertension and diabetes. If we do not properly form our children – if our sexual urges are out of control – we will experience an epidemic of force-ripe children having sex, child sex abuse, sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted children, and paternity fraud.

Maybe we are there already! And we encourage the social institutions that got us there, and keep us there.

And I know that many enjoy being there. As the songs say, “If it feels good, do it”. “Do it! Do it! Do it ‘till you’re satisfied” “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t stop until you get enough”.

For people whose values are already formed and a part of their persona, the negative messages in dancehall and other genres of music will go in one ear and out the other. But we should try to avoid sending mixed messages to our young people, who are already influenced by the messages in the dancehall, and on the internet, and are still learning to control their powerful bodily urges.

A dancehall entertainer who continues to sing slack lyrics about sexual romping while making millions of dollars cannot send the right messages to young people looking on.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com