Punish deejays for gangsta lyrics

Ian Boyne, Contributor

Some of the worst examples of sloppy thinking, non-sequitur reasoning, and nonsense masquerading as commentary, as well as plain hysteria and myopia, have been manifested in this discussion on the anti-gang legislation as it concerns gangster lyrics.

One incredibly, indescribably foolish article was Chukwuemeka Cameron's piece in Tuesday's Observer, 'The chilling and crippling effect Section 15 will have on the music industry ... if passed'. In this piece, Cameron, identified as an attorney, quotes Section 15 of this proposed anti-gang law which says "a person shall not ... produce, record or perform songs to promote or facilitate the criminal activity of a criminal organisation", and he leaps from that to say if enacted, this would lead to a "chilling effect" and "would mean the certain end of a rich part of our culture"!

A rich part of our culture is to make songs glorifying a criminal organisation? A rich part of our culture is promoting murder music which licenses death to informers of criminal activities and to gay people?

Free speech

According to Cameron's curious reasoning(?), this dreaded and draconian Section 15 which criminalises music which promotes gangs would victimise people who "legitimately exercise their right to freedom of speech through music". Cameron says it would violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which guarantees the right to free speech!

Now listen to this model for absurdity: "While recognising that the right to freedom of speech is not absolute, it is my position that the criminalisation of certain music by Section 15 and the consequent restriction on the right to freedom of speech is incompatible with the said right guaranteed by the charter ... ."

How could the right to promote murder music, promote gangsterism in a country with the second-highest murder rate in the world; a country known for its gangs, posses and notorious gangsters and dons; how could the right to promote intolerance, bigotry and plain murder in our music be construed as equivalent to the exercise of freedom of speech protected by our Charter of Fundamental Rights?

Now I fear that sensible people overseas might read an article like this and not only wonder about the reasoning level of our people, let alone our professionals, but wonder what kind of people we are to be so brazenly promoting murder music as free speech.

I am a free-speech libertarian, but could never be tempted to think that someone has an inalienable right to produce music to advocate the killing of individuals, whether they be enemies, homosexuals, informers, man who trouble man woman, man with lisp tongue, or man from another political party.

culture threatened?

Cameron is arguing that our music and culture are threatened by this proposed legislation. Are people overseas to take it that promoting murder and gangsterism is integral to our music and culture and that they are threatened if we can't produce murder music? Are potential investors, traders and tourists to take it that gangster music is integral to Jamaican music?

And I hear state minister for tourism, Damion Crawford, joining this foolishness by talking about the unlikelihood of this law passing because of its supposed threat to our music. Hear learned counsel Cameron: "Requiring an individual to clear his/her song before it is recorded is a prior restraint, and prior restraint in relation to freedom of speech is incompatible with our Constitution."

So it would be really awful if anyone seeking to produce songs glorifying gangs which have killed thousands of our people, raped our young girls, terrorised decent citizens and defamed us internationally would have any "prior restraint"?

People should really be free, and should exercise their freedom of speech to sing, as Elephant Man did, in Put you AK ova da Wall:

Ova di wall, ova di wall

Put yuh AK ova di wall

Blood a go run like Dunn's River Fall ...

If dem mek we pop out we gun pon dem

All five magazine we would dun pon dem ...

If a me we would a drop bomb pon dem

Kidnap dem daughter or son from dem

Give dem K bullet if Magnum want dem

To all bad man, dis a the gun anthem

So we big up all de shottas and

We gunman friend.

If songs like these should disappear from our music, our music industry would collapse and our culture would be no more? You take gangster lyricist Vybz Kartel, now jailed on charges for actual, not metaphorical, murder, Dr Cooper; take his song Guns Like Mine. See whether this is just metaphor and ask yourself whether it is so taken in the inner city. Meditate on the lyrics and decide whether our culture and music would be all the poorer if they were not produced and distributed:

Dem nuh got no guns like mine, no KG 9

A coppershot a buss dem big head and bruk spine

Me sey one at a time and bad bwoy form line

Den beat carbine, who nuh dead get blind

Me have dem life pon line like clothes pon line

Kartel buss one inna b... bwoy spine.

So Cameron, Crawford and others, are you telling us that somehow our culture and our music would suffer greater damage and freedom of speech would be imperiled if we did not grant freedom to promote this kind of murder music? It's okay to buss one inna b... bwoy spine? And the Charter of Fundamental Rights and, indeed, our Constitution would be violated if we did not allow people their inalienable right to spew such hate and venom? That's what our culture has come to?

'Gangster Bob Marley?'

At least Cameron did read Section 15 of the bill. It's more than what I can say for my colleague journalist Gary Spaulding who, as though competing with Cameron for Silly Article of the Week, produced his own unbelievable contortion in Monday's Gleaner titled 'Gangster Bob Marley?', which began: "If the late reggae icon Bob Marley were alive today, indications are that he would be banished behind bars for the very same reason for which he was showered accolades."

Spaulding then quotes Marley lyrics about bombing a church and shooting the sheriff as examples of what would get him in jail under this proposed bill.

Now this is the parliamentary reporter, not some cub reporter, but someone who is in Gordon House where he has access to the bill (also accessible online). If he even read that section alone, he would see that what the bill is seeking to criminalise is not just any song promoting violence, but specifically one which is promoting a gang. It is not, as has been misunderstood widely, an attempt to criminalise all murder music.

Vybz Kartel, Elephant Man, Mavado and other gun lyricists could go on making their murder music as long as they don't specifically glorify any gang by name in any of their 'forwards'.

You would expect the parliamentary reporter to read the bill before commenting on it. And almost all of the commentary on this anti-gang legislation has been driven by ignorance, hysteria and myopia. And I am afraid that the gutless, unprincipled, people-pandering politicians will cower and wilt under the torrent of uninformed criticism, sacrificing the public good to expedience and cowardice for fear of the loudmouths in the legal and journalistic fraternities.

We need a minister of national security with courage and one not concerned about his popularity and ratings in media and among the chattering classes.

So all the foolish banter about why not lock down cinemas for violent films, why not ban cable for violent movies, and why not seize violent videos and shut down the Internet, etc., is just diversionary nonsense. More and more I am stunned at people's lack of comprehension. First, too few read, and of those few who do muster the effort to, precious fewer even understand what they read. (And this might be seen by reading reactions to this article online! )

Section 15, which Damion Crawford seems eager to excise as a member of the joint select committee, says nothing about attacking 'de kulcha' or even banning murder music entirely. It simply says as part of our crackdown on gangs, we are going to be looking at songs toasting gangsters and songs bigging up certain gangs, which anyone who knows about the dancehall knows is a reality.

Uptown human-rights activists might not know this, but grass-roots intellectuals like Dr Dennis Howard, one of the most informed persons on Jamaican dancehall, know this. If you really want to have a serious discussion on Section 15, you have to read Dennis Howard's absolutely enthralling article 'Political patronage and gun violence in the dancehall' in Jamaica Journal (Volume 32, No. 3). Every member of that joint select committee looking at the bill should read it. I know reading is not sexy, but this is one article, if you are going to work on our behalf rather than just react to the mass hysteria, you should read to inform yourselves, committee members.

no metaphor

Howard gently but forcefully destroys Carolyn Cooper's metaphorical thesis about gangster lyrics in the dancehall. Dennis' knowledge of dancehall is as encyclopaedic as it is commanding. He was a participant-observer long before he became a theoretician. He shows the strong links between criminal dons and dancehall. The nexus between gangs and dancehall music is strong. No commentator should write on Section 15 before reading Howard's essay.

Says Howard in his gold mine of information piece: "The ubiquitous big-up of the area leader is very important and is viewed by the area don as an important endorsement - an effective public-relations tool that establishes the don's prestige, power and visibility." This is exactly what Section 15 seeks to disrupt.

"I suggest that there are those in the criminal underground who use the glorification of violence in dancehall lyrics as inspiration and justification for their criminal behaviour. These songs also influence youngsters to enter the underworld due to its endorsement by their musical heroes." This is what Section 15 is targeting. But the cowardly and gutless politicians will be frightened by powerful and intimidating voices in the journalistic and legal professions.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.