Usain Bolt Laments Tardiness, Unprofessionalism & Lack Of Structure In Dancehall Industry
Sprint legend now music producer, Usain Bolt, is not happy with some Dancehall artists’ tardiness and apparent lack of respect for time, things which are unacceptable in athletics, even at the amateur level.
The lack of punctuality issue seems to be very bothersome for him as he kept lamenting about it during an interview with K’Shema Francis on the Easy Skankin Show on Irie FM on Thursday.
“It’s definitely not like track. It’s a bit more difficult. You have people who rate yuh and people who don’t rate yuh. Yuh call and dem seh: ‘yeh man, next week’ and den three weeks after dem a seh: ‘Alright Bolt, mi can come do di song now”. So it’s a lot more difficult in the music industry,” Bolt said.
According to Bolt, he has discovered that tardiness, unprofessionalism, and other issues plaguing the industry, were due to the fact that Jamaica’s music industry sufferers from a lack of structure, a widely-held sentiment by many artists, producers and even academics at the University of the West Indies, who are scholars of the genre.
“Structure. Some of the time it is hard. We have artistes that we work with that respect us and will say ‘cool, tomorrow wi a work; tomorrow wi a work’.”
“I think that is one of the problems with the business in Jamaican music in that people are not very professional in what they do and that’s what think personally is holding back the music,” the sprint world-record holder said.
Bolt, who said he has a wider plan, and a musical vision focusing on the Grammy level, added that he has also found that some artists are unwilling to accept constructive criticism, and so get defensive whenever ideas, corrections, or suggestions are made to them.
“And also you have people around and every music you make they say: ‘yow, a di big song dat’. No. People are not critiquing and saying ‘no, we don’t like that; change that’.”
“When you say it to a few artiste and the way they respond, you kinda like: ‘so no one has never said no or critique your work ever?’ It kinda throw you off because that’s how life is, and with my team and the people round me, that’s how we are. If we see something that we are not pleased with, we say yow, we don’t like that or we say yow, don’t do dat,” Bolt said.
The Trelawny native said the attitude of the wayward artists was perhaps due to their colleagues around them, unlike his forthright A Team, not being honest enough to offer constructive types of critiques.
“When you are in the business and you start telling artiste seh: ‘dat don’t sound good, dweet ova and dem a seh: ‘yow what yuh mean, dat sound good’, it kinda throw you off. But I feel like that needs to be changed in the business. Critique your song as friends to tell you like: ‘no bro mi nuh feel like dis a guh hit, try a different melody’, or ‘do this’ or ‘hold on pan da song ya an meck wi si if di time comes when wi can drop it’” he said.
The retired sprinter, who is one of Jamaica’s 10 richest men, said the type of behavior was not unexpected, as prior to entering the music industry, he had already been prepped that unprofessionalism would be among the things that he and his team should expect.
“And when we wanted to get in the business we were warned that artists are really hard to work with, and getting into it, you understand that it is not easy. It is one of those things that we are learning and figuring out, but I hope that will change in that if you tell somebody 10 o’clock its 10 o’clock; if you tell somebody Tuesday, its Tuesday,” he said.
The 34-year-old said he was hoping that with his input, some improvement can be made relating to the outlook and mindset of some of the Dancehall artists.
“We just a start in the business so we not trying to shake it up so much. We have a few artists that respect us and understand who are and we are working with them we are willing to work with new artistes and get a vibe,” he said.
Last month, Usain Bolt and his executive manager Nugent “NJ” Walker faced criticism themselves from the Unruly Boss Popcaan when they released their Living The Dream song. Bolt and NJ defended their song, while the Popcaan declared that he was “not sorry” about his comments which had attracted some backlash.
Bolt dropped another single yesterday, featuring himself, NJ, Ricardo ‘Bibi’ Gardner, and Kamal titled Say Less which appears to take aim at the Unruly Boss.