Bounty Killer Apologize to Shaggy and Friends

Cross! Hangry! Miserable! Too bad no one told Grung Gad that it wasn’t still Sting 09 but the nice little uptown Shaggy and Friends party (January 2, 2010,). The debacle took place when Mavado who was suppose to make a pledge invited Bounty Killa to share the stage and it all went down hill from there. Bounty who had a few choice words regarding homosexuals which it is felt caused promoters to pull the plug on the concert a head of time. However promoters denies closing the show due to the Five Star General’s tirade, sure because patrons would pay JA$30,000- $5,000 to go home early.



Bounty Killer has since released an apology:

After nearly 20 years at the top of the Jamaican music industry I have been involved in many battles - sometimes with fellow artists, sometimes with outside forces and sometimes with the state and its politicians. I've learnt to choose my battles wisely and the grounds upon which to fight them.

I've also learnt when to admit I didnt choose my ground wisely and Saturday night's Shaggy & Friends' show was one of those occasions. With so many politicians and members of the upper echelons of corporate Jamaica present, an audience I rarely get the ears of, I got caught up in the moment while expressing myself. I now realise it was inappropriate and extend my apologies to Shaggy, his sponsors, benefactors and all in attendance who were offended by my performance.

Alliance made a pledge to donate $250,000 to the cause and we will follow through on that promise and continue to support Shaggy and answer his call whenever he reaches out.

No Link Between Dancehall and Violence Among Youth

A study on violence and dancehall, led by Dr Donna Hope-Marquis, has found that there is no correlation between the two.

Funded by the Office of the Principal at the University of the West Indies (UWI), through the Special Initiatives Research Fund, the research was conducted among 300 15-24 year-olds in Kingston, St Andrew, St Catherine and Clarendon between June and August this year.

Hope-Marquis is a lecturer in Reggae Studies at the UWI.

For there to be a statistically significant link, there would have had to be a correlation of over 0.05 per cent between dancehall and violence. "The results were so insignificant that they could not be used as a guiding principle," Hope-Marquis.

Control and case grouping were used in the study and the persons participating were asked to respond to questionnaires which established, among other factors, their social background, music consumption and perception of music. In both cases, dancehall music was the favourite music, followed by R&B.

When asked if they believed dancehall music promoted violence, 55 per cent of the control group said yes, compared to 42 per cent of the case group. However, it is a case of the music being violent but not making them feel violent personally.

Forty-two per cent of the control group said that family members were influenced by dancehall music, and 37 per cent said friends, with the remaining percentage saying themselves. For the case group, it was 20.7 per cent family, 36.7 per cent friends, and themselves the remaining percentage.

Among the influences individual respondents identified were a desire to dress and dance like the artiste, with many respondents speaking to smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. There was also the encouragement not to give up, to take up the gun, language and hairstyle, to become an artiste, having lots of sex, to get a good education, and fighting.

One respondent said that it "opened my eyes to see how others live", while another spoke about the influence "to become a gallis".

Hope-Marquis says the study is leading in a direction of not just looking at the cultural aspects of music and documenting it for posterity, "but also to try and understand from a scientific perspective how the music impacts on the society".

She pointed out that Jamaica has had a music industry for 50 years and we need a clear understanding of how it is woven into the lives of the people and what use they make of it. While Hope-Marquis has been on various panels and been involved in discussions, they have largely been about opinions.

"I am curious, after being in the eye of the storm for about 10 years," she said.

So now, someone is in a position to say definitively, "Based on the study done in 2009, there is no statistical correlation between youth consumption of dancehall music and violence."

"This study says that to me. Full stop," Hope-Marquis said.

The Last Don: Web Promo 1

Trailer of The Last Don, the upcoming film by Peter Dean Rickards this no doubt will be the sickest thing to bless your eyes. I know you cant rush perfection but Jah know PD hurry up nuh man^_^ Much love on the project man.

Free Up The General: ANTHONY B

Local Academics Blamed for Falling Standards

Daraine Luton

Several local academics who daily sing the praises of dancehall, as well as its main practitioners, are being blamed for the falling standards of Jamaica's music.
In fact, at least one veteran player in the music industry believes these dancehall apologists are only seeking ways to promote themselves.

Mikey Barnett, veteran producer, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum last week that the strong defence of dancehall being mounted by academics is "self-promotion and not about the music".
"These are persons who left Jamaica, came back to Jamaica, and wanted to find a way to get known in a hurry, and so they jumped on the dancehall bandwagon," Bennett charged.
He added: "The quickest way to get known in the society and to make a name in the society was to support a cause that the grass-roots people in Jamaica, which are the majority, are associated with, and that was dancehall music."

The music producer, who told the editors' forum that he was not a fan of dancehall music, is the second person in recent weeks to articulate such views.
Dr St Aubyn Bartlett, member of parliament for Eastern St Andrew, told a parliamentary committee recently that the "new PhDs" are responsible for the continuation of the foul lyrics being spewed from the dancehall.

Bartlett was responding to Cordel Green, executive director of the Broadcasting Commission, who told the Human Resources and Social Development Committee of Parliament that a teacher-education programme on media literacy was being developed.
Green said the aim was to help schools to protect students from poisonous music.
But Bartlett said he was concerned because the "educators of these trainers - and I am speaking about some of the new PhD and the new master of science in dancehall and in you know, all kinds of things - sometimes the defence that they put up for these dancehall artistes, you wonder whether these persons are supposed to be training the trainers to deal with children at the primary level."

Added Bartlett: "... When a professor from the university backs the Gaza and Gully and the dancehall tradition in some of the wickedest lyrics that come out of it, you know, you hear at the corner from the professor or from the university man, dem like it, so a must something good."
However, at least one academic has taken issue with the criticisms of persons who study dancehall.

Dr Donna Hope-Marquis, a lecturer in Reggae Studies at the University of the West Indies, said it is not ignorance that motivates people to hold such antagonistic views of students of the art.
"It could be selective amnesia and selective reading," Hope-Marquis.
"It would be good if individuals who talk about something that is an important part of Jamaican dancehall culture would read some of the works that have been done on dancehall," Hope-Marquis said.

She argued that history demonstrates that music forms, such as reggae and mento ,have been subjected to similar criticisms in the past and time has vindicated them.
"I found it very interesting that almost 50 years ago, we were having very similar discussions about a part of our popular music, which was seen as having the propensity to damage the psyche of our children," she reasoned.

The Reggae Studies lecturer and dancehall expert said that an unfortunate aspect of public discourse was a propensity to dismiss aspects of Jamaican culture as bad.
"It would be very good if we try to move away from painting our cultural output as one thing only and look at it as a whole, which has many facets," Hope-Marquis said.
Notwithstanding the criticisms, Hope-Marquis has pledged not to back away from studying and documenting the music form called dancehall.

"If I am not a part of the documentation of Jamaican culture, what happened with reggae where 90 per cent of what is written is written by people who are not Jamaicans, the same thing will happen with dancehall. I live here and I consider myself a student of Jamaican culture and I will continue to do the work, even when I have to do it at odd hours," Hope-Marquis said.

SHUT 'EM UP! 'Too much freedom in the name of creative expression'

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

Declaring that Jamaica's music has died, producer Mikey Barnett says the Government needs to restrict freedom of expression if the society is to survive. "The Government has failed in its role to protect the society from itself - meaning artistes of today. There is too much freedom in the name of creative expression," Barnett told a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum.

Barnett argued that the Govern-ment had allowed a small societal sore to turn into gangrene before trying to fix it. He said the decline in Jamaica's music is going to be impossible to address because the State allows everyone to freely express what he or she wants through areas such as music. However, the director of public prosecutions has said freedom of expression is not the problem.

Paula Llewellyn told stated that it is inertia and lethargy on the part of many citizens which is the root cause of the problem. "Everybody is guaranteed - under our Constitution and by virtue of being a human being in a civilised society where principles of democracy hold - freedom of expression," Llewellyn said.

"Too many of us are afraid to rock the boat, in that we do not wish to be singled out as pointing out that the content of a song like Informer Fi Dead can undermine the moral fibre of the society and help to inculcate fear in respect of doing your duty if you have witnessed wrongdoing or a breach of criminal law," Llewellyn.
Last week, Barnett told a Gleaner Editors' Forum that he did not support dancehall music because of what it stood for. He charged that the music bred violence and spewed profanity throughout the society and should be controlled through legislation."It is a lack of political will that has caused this, because whenever they (legislators) attempt to put in laws, people say you are stifling their creative expression, and so they back off," Barnett said.

In defence of his stance, the music producer said persons should not "defend creative expression at the risk of destroying the society". "We have to make up our minds whether we want freedom of expression for everybody, or a controlled situation to protect our children," Barnett said.

However, Llewellyn argued that people should be more cognisant of lyrics and be willing to speak up against transgressions. She said Jamaicans should respect each other's right to freedom of expression but "be prepared to indicate that the particular lyrical content of a song is not appreciated".

Llewellyn's position has the backing of Senator Warren Newby, parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports.
He argued that the State should not infringe on a person's freedom. "If an adult decides that slackness is his or her form of entertainment, I don't think the State should get involved to say 'You can't listen to that'. If he pays to go into a venue that is sanitised from the general public and wants to listen to slackness in that venue, then the Government has no role to play in that matter," Newby said.

He added: "What needs to be emphasised in today's Jamaica is the role of parenting. People must take personal and social responsibility.

"We must empower communities and the parents to take greater care of the socialisation of the children so in the event that they hear music that is not wholesome, they know not to gravitate towards it," Newby said.

Sting 09 Face Off or Unification

It all started with Sting 08 so all year in the back of my mind I felt a little obligated to go to Sting and do a review every year. To be honest I’m really not feeling a Greatest One Night Show vibe. Forever Sting has been associated with great and sadly sometimes lukewarm clashes. This year was supposed to be the Gully/Gaza clash, Posters strewn all over Kingston with Mavado, Bounti Killa, Kartel and Merciless with the heading ‘Face Off’. Regardless whether you chose to be Gully Gangster or like the Most Honorable who says “Gaza who nuh like it go chuck off inna gully!”
Or you like most didn’t really care what them ol niggahs were doing cause they making money either way no one could escape being inundated with the feud.

Unfortunately for the Sting promotion team the President was getting tired of all the foolishness, and at West Kingston Jamboree the Gully/Gaza Lords put away their differences (for now anyway). So Dudus did what the Broadcasting commission (Radio Nazi), Bruce and all his kings’ men and every other morally upright group in Jamaica couldn’t do, which is to put the music together again. Well loosely anyway, why again them want to extradite him when he gets the important things done? Clash done, Kartel and Mavado go to Jamaica house and agree to a five point initiative which includes a Paint out day, Happy gully/gaza t-shirt day to replace the buttons the future taxi men and bus conductors presently wear depicting Kartel and Mavado as real killers.

There is talk that this peace is not one that the Warlord has sanctioned. Hence the Warlord is still on the Warpath for the “Ungrateful Hell Boy.” Unfortunately Vybz Kartel says No Mas. What’s left for Sting this year, LA Lewis Vs Goofy and Sky Juice Vs Tony Matterhorn?

So now it’s the 26th don’t expect a Sting review cause I’m not going. Ill be at Flash brought to you by the Utopia people. Where I am certain at no point in any conversations I will have there will include the phrase “Gaza Mi Say!” nor will I use Goodaz as noun, pronoun, verb and adjective for the entire night.