Melville Cooke
THE COALITION of Corporate Sponsors which recently announced a ban on supporting events on which Beenie Man and Bounty Killer are slated to perform face what I call the John Crow's prekeh.
The John Crow feeds for free, and feeds well too, but it not only has to wait for its meals to be prepared, whether by car or gunshot, it also cannot dictate the condition that its meals will be in.
I am not, of course, comparing the deejays in question, any entertainer at all or the Jamaican music industry in general to decaying road kill, although some of the music stinks. The analogy rests with the fact that many in the private sector have done absolutely nothing that I know of to develop Jamaican music. And, especially, to develop artistes who will not go on a nationally televised event and use Jamaican curse words.
Many private sector firms use established Jamaican artistes, who have come up the very hard way, to advertise their products. They use them to access the mass markets that the deejays have already penetrated, all on their bad wud cussing lonesome.
It is the coalition which depends on the deejays, not the other way around.
TUSSLES
The people that Beenie Man and Bounty Killer give this coalition of sponsors access to, know full well that the deejays do not sing from the Pentecostal Handbook. They know and love them from their tussles at Sting and myriad appearances over the past decade that have cemented them permanently into the Jamaican psyche.
It is impossible that these people did not know the nature of the music and temperament of these hardcore artistes before they were plastered along the roadside in mega life size and dubbed 'b conscious' and such the like.
Beenie Man and Bounty Killer were also among the entertainers brought to book for using curse words after Dancehall Night on Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest 2002. The cases drew national attention. Why no ban then?
Or, jus' like how John Crow no wuk pon Sunday, bad wud no fi cuss pon Sunday. So, should liquor be sipped on a Sunday a Carnival Sunday, to be specific?
This Coalition of Corporate Sponsos has absolutely no authority on the matter of Jamaican music. Tastee, now, I could see with. Their talent contest series, which recently celebrated 25 years, gave a national stage to talents as diverse as deejay Yellowman, singer Nadine Sutherland and reggae rocker turned gospel artiste, Paul Blake, among many others. They have provided grooming, a large audience, press coverage, cash and other prizes (not to mention patties) to unknowns, to people at the very beginning of wherever they are heading to in entertainment.
They could speak on the matter and I would listen, but not these others who latch on to something that is already established then attempt to hold a moral stance when what is close to the norm happens.
Corporate Jamaica has got a free ride on dancehall (the sum they pay to spokespersons is nothing to the readymade markets they access), but like typical bright Jamaican beggars they feel they can be choosers.
And, just in case there are some corporate types checking, I have never been offered or tried to access the free stuff that journalists are sometimes showered with. Nothing. Not phone, not hotel stay, not liquor, not free party. So y'all can't ban me.
'Mi no beg dem fi no sponsor
So dem cyan stop dis'
- Sizzla Kolonji, Dem a Wonda
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer
