Youth inspired by dancehall music

Music is a form of emotional expression. For young people, popular music is the medium through which they often express their mood, aspiration and development of their own cultural identity. Tonight News Five’s Isani Cayetano looks at the power of song and in this case, the power of dancehall music. 

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

Across the Caribbean, the inescapability of dancehall music, as one of the most influential factors in shaping modern cultural identity, is greatest among our youth.  The aptitude with which one is able to soundly recite the lyrics of his or her favorite song is nothing short of amazing.

Omar Amjad, Student, E.P. Yorke High School

“Their music, their lyrics, it’s just, the beat is relevant and amped and the music, what they say is, to me, it’s not good [or] positive but it’s very popular.”

Elden ‘Stone Jam’ Hyde

That pervasiveness is due, in large part, to the host of radio disc jockeys permeating the airwaves with songs from artists across the genre: Vybz Kartel, Mavado, Gaza Slim and Tommy Lee.  Together, their music is a collection of misogyny, violence and streams of social consciousness.

Elden ‘Stone Jam’ Hyde, Legendary Belizean DJ

“I have a nine-year-old daughter [and] Tommy Lee is one of her favorite artists.  She let me know a lot of Tommy Lee’s songs that I didn’t know and she knows the words of those songs and she says all the kids in her class know the words of his songs.”

Dancehall recording artist Tommy Lee, alias Captain Sparta, for those who do not know, is among Jamaica’s most controversial.

Omar Amjad

Omar Amjad

“He has very demonic songs such as ‘Uncle Demon‘, where he says, “Uncle Demon, Nephew Demon…Tommy Lee.”

Heavily criticized for his diabolic subject matter, Tommy Lee’s songs, to the discerning, can be viewed as nothing more than artistic expression and entertainment.

Bobby Chin, Dancehall DJ/Black Chiney

“As an artist you don’t really think a child gwein tek up the lyrics and act upon it.”

There is where the misconception lies.  In Belize, life, too often, imitates art.

Isani Cayetano

Bobby Chin

“There are artists out there who have a lot to say and some of what they is very controversial.  Talk to us about the lyrical content, for instance, for an artist like Tommy Lee.”

Bobby Chin

“If Tommy Lee says uncle demon, I don’t think he’s a demon really, but then again now, if you put all of that into context: killer, gangster and demon [it] equals nothing positive fi kids, yo undastand.  But then again it’s just music.”

And music, according to Dr. Elma Augustine, a clinical psychologist, has a way of influencing one’s mind.

Elma Augustine

Dr. Elma Augustine, Clinical Psychologist

“I believe music is so powerful it can connect with what we call our essence and our soul in many ways.  We know that when we listen to music, research has shown that when we listen to music that it affects the brainwave and the brainwave connects to the certain mood of the lyrics and the music.”

“Seh dem a killa and nobody neva heard a dem/tough chat like yo wahn man fraid ah yo/mind me send one ah mih demon gyal from Sparta come suck off yo c*ck and murda yo/dis mi now a no if nor suppose/send mi dead friend dem come shoot yo eena crowd/and don’t try running cause you will get ghost” – Psycho, Tommy Lee

Isani Cayetano

“You are able to discern what is entertainment or what can be an impression or an expression of a real life situation.  What do you tell the other person who recites Tommy Lee’s lyrics and who wants to live out some of these things that Tommy Lee sings about?”

Omar Amjad

“I’d tell him he’s very crazy because Tommy Lee is a very violent man and I wouldn’t want to live his life.  It’s the entertainment I’m mostly concerned with and not his personal life.”

Veteran disc jockey Elden ‘Stone Jam’ Hyde is surgical on the turntables.  As a pioneer, he introduced dancehall music to Belize almost three decades ago.

Elden ‘Stone Jam’ Hyde

“I da one ah di DJ weh bring dancehall eena di club ‘cause when I was doing the clubs in the early eighties da mi club music used to play at the club and me and Kenny Morgan, who was a DJ at the same time, we start ah experiment wid push di lee reggae eena di club.  Every now and again wi play whateva di dance, di dance music but we offer wah lee different flava wid di Caribbean thing weh we drop di lee dancehall.”

Over the years, he has seen and somehow managed to keep up with the constant evolution of the art form.  In staying current, Stone Jam is part of the movement to bring Tommy Lee to Belize.

Mindful of the core audience of this brand of music, Hyde reiterates the fact that it’s all just entertainment.

Elden ‘Stone Jam’ Hyde

“It’s the kids that listen to Tommy Lee songs.”

Dr. Elma Augustine

“There should be some sense of responsibility especially when a large majority of, say youths, buy into what you’re feeding them.  But again, I think we can’t really legislate them unfortunately, and that’s where I think other people in the life of young people would have to jump in and take some responsibility for…listening to what, especially the really young ones are listening to.”

Equally, similar emphasis should be placed on what they are watching.  Beyond the overt sexuality and violence in music videos are subliminal messages and symbols, such as the Udjat or Eye of Horus, which depicts the all-seeing eye of the Illuminati.  The Udjat signifies the eyes of Lucifer, who is believed to see everything happening in the world.  That imagery is very much present in music videos by Tommy Lee.

Bobby Chin

“People crave for stupidness and that’s unfortunate, I mean, I can’t change it, you can’t change it but wih just haffi know as a youth yo haffi just know, yo haffi think conscious then. Social responsibility is a big thing because dancehall music is very controversial.”

…and that sense of obligation to monitor what is being fed to our youth through music is incumbent on all of us in moulding our distinctive cultural identity. Reporting for news five, I am Isani Cayetano.