Busy Signal Talks Dancehall Appropriation Vs Appreciation
The ever-growing influence of the Dancehall genre on worldwide music and cultures is a phenomenon that truly testifies to Jamaica’s ‘likkle but talawah’ mantra. Dancehall fans can be found in Israel, Russia, Costa Rica, Japan and just about anywhere else in the rest of the world while inspiring the sounds of Drake, Rihanna and Chris Brown.
Amidst this growing influence however are arguments proposing that several supposed supporters of the evolving genre are actually guilty of cultural appropriation instead. We witnessed a settlement between Miley Cyrus and Flourgon over a similar matter last month and many see this as the beginning of needed boundaries being enforced.
Last weekend, Lisa Evers from Fox 5 and Hot 97s Street Soldiers hosted an episode with internationally known dancehall deejay Busy Signal alongside Shams from VP Records and Hot 97’s Bobby Konders. The topic of discussion was the heated one of where to draw the line between appropriation vs appreciation of Dancehall culture and music.
Cultural appropriation is defined as the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people by another typically more dominant people or society and if you ask some dancehall fans and analyst, it is to exactly this that Dancehall culture has fallen victim. Others are convinced that being a lingua franca in foreign cultures can be nothing but a good thing.
At the start of the show Lisa promptly pointed out a couple popular songs with rampant dancehall undertones, namely Nicki Minaj’s Megatron, Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You and Sorry by Justin Bieber. Drake was also later introduced in the discussion as having been repeatedly accused of appropriation for assuming a patois accent in a lot of his songs plus wantonly sampling dancehall tracks on several hits.
The Toronto rapper was previously called out as a culture vulture by multiple well-known Dancehall acts. Chronixx even went as far as to voice his opinions on the situation in the studio. On his 2017 hit “Likes” he sang -“while we de ya and a war and a hype / Rih-Rih a work, work, work, Dancehall / nuh Drake a control Dancehall?” Referencing two viral mega- hits – Work and Controlla by superstars Drake and Rihanna.
Drake has since denied all claims of cultural appropriation pointing out that he always gives due respects and allowing artistes new opportunities.
Bobby Konders openly agreed with this sentiment, pointing out that a feature with Drake naturally brings Popcaan’s music to fans from a whole new market.
Busy also concurred, quickly made his stance on the situation clear: “it’s appreciation for me, you know what I mean? It gives us and the culture, genre more exposure…the world is more open to hearing the styles or whoever is coming with it.”
Lisa then went on to mention Chet Hanks, son of actor Tom Hanks who was also recently at the center of the heat due to his impromptu patois performance at the 2019’s Golden Globe Awards. While Konders questions Hanks intention saying “personally the first is funny but then the second time to me looks like you’re mocking the culture and can be disrespectful”, Shams found it trivial saying Hanks was obviously just trying to be cool.
“Being Jamaican is cool, our accent stands out.” He stated.
When asked to define Dancehall however, everyone agreed that it is an undeniably and originally Jamaican.