Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security Slammed For Facilitating Prop Guns In Dancehall Music Videos
Prime Minister Andrew Holness might be facing a moral dilemma after questions were raised in the Senate on Friday about his own Ministry of National Security’s dubious role in facilitating the use of pistols and rifles as props in violent Dancehall music videos to illustrate bloodletting, mayhem, and murder.
In raising the issue on Friday in the Upper House, Government Senator Charles Sinclair, took the Dr. Horace Chang-led Ministry of National Security to task over its role in serving as an enabler, aiding and abetting the importation and use of props to be used as firearms in music videos depicting acts of sheer evil, in an island which is grappling with a runaway murder rate.
Sinclair’s rebuke comes at a time when there is an ongoing debate triggered by the Prime Minister’s lamentations a few months ago that Dancehall music is being overwhelmed by violent lyrics which is fuelling the crime rate and threatening the sustainability of the genre.
On Friday, during deliberations on the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organizations) Act, commonly referred to as the anti-gang legislation, Sinclair, who is an attorney-at-law, expressed discontent that a key Ministry was facilitating the use of weapons to be used as props for the very same songs that Holness had been complaining about.
“I’m going to go into a little touchy area. It is touchy because it touches upon our music. Mr President, the Honourable Prime Minister spoke on the topic, on the potential negative influence of the negative lyrics expressed by many of our local artistes in music. The Honourable Prime Minister made a plea for greater responsibility on the part of artistes in their musical expressions. I want to stand here and say in respect of that plea for responsibility, I support the position of the Honorable Prime Minister,” Sinclair stated to the Senate President Tom Tavares Finson.
“Mr. President, I have seen videos produced by local artistes, connected to local artistes to support their lyrical content of the music and those videos have portrayed young men with guns, committing some of the most violent acts which are replicated in our communities,” he added.
In furthering his arguments the Montego Bay-based lawyer cited a music video which was so graphic that he found it unfathomable how the Ministry of National Security supported the importation of props got into the island to illustrate such dastardly acts.
“I will give you one particular video that I watched what was contained in it; where a group of men armed with what they call the tall-up tall-up, went to a home in what appeared to be a low-income community, based on how the houses were shown there; they kicked off the door, went in. There was a family inside; they took out the male from the home, took him outside, took him around the corner and he was put on his knees and executed. That was in a video that would have supported music put out by local artistes,” Sinclair said.
“Mr. President, we are told that the guns that are reflected in those videos are props. My question is – because these props and the Minister can correct me and we have Senator Bunting who was also a Minister of National Security – were they imported with licences from the Ministry of National Security? Because you would have to get a licence to import a prop which represents a firearm,” Sinclair affirmed.
Sinclair said that an explanation is needed from the Ministry of National Security under which the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) and the police (Jamaica Constabulary Force), which are the Ministry’s two agencies responsible for firearms use by civilians, fall.
“Why would our Ministry of National Security, if they issued a licence for the importation of those props – why would they, in our context – facilitate such importation? Was the Ministry not aware of the purpose for the importation, which was to make videos depicting extreme violence? And if they are not permitted, where is the clamour for the appropriate action? These questions require answers in the context of what is and has been happening in Jamaica for decades,” Sinclair questioned.
The former Montego Bay Mayor’s concerns are valid as even though the brandishing of rifles and pistols have mushroomed in Trap-infused Dancehall music over the last two years. Gun-toting in music videos has become commonplace, especially amongst younger artistes, many of whom wave them around like toys with impunity.
The concerns about entertainers brandishing guns in their music videos was brought to the fore in 2017, following Alkaline’s After All ‘mini-movie’ music video.
Back then, head of the Corporate Communications Unit in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Stephanie Lindsay, had said the practice was becoming “increasingly common and warned artistes that the authorities would be looking into more of the music videos being released by them”, according to The Star.
Lindsay had said that apart from being charged, entertainers who did not have “permission to use these weapons as props”, guns in music videos was, in her opinion, “Not a positive representation of the music industry”.
The last time an artiste was reported to have been questioned by the police over firearms in videos date back to December 2018, when Dancehall entertainer Kalado was taken in by the police for having prop guns in his possession.
According to The Star in an article titled Fake guns are a real problem – FLA warns artistes to know the rules, a photo, which showed Kalado seated behind a desk of guns, quickly went viral, prompting some to believe the firearms were real, but subsequent investigations by the Spanish Town Criminal Investigative Branch revealed that the ‘weapons’ were fake.
At the time the FLA had told The Star that if a person is found in possession of imitation firearms, “the onus is on them to explain to the lawmen what they would be using those for” and that where an artiste cannot prove that the weapons were going to be used for lawful reasons, they could face charges under the Firearms Act of up to $1 million or up to five year in prison.