Damion Crawford Rips PM Holness As A “Hypocrite” Over Gun-Glorifying Election Dubplates

Controversial Opposition Senator and former Minister of Entertainment, Damion Crawford, has branded Prime Minister Andrew Holness, as a “hypocrite” for suggesting that Dancehall artists were contributing to the country’s crime rate through their lyrics which often glorify violence when Holness himself used the lyrics of the said artists to make dubplates during the last general election campaign.

In his contribution to the debate in the Senate on amendments to the Anti-Gang Bill, Crawford suggested that Holness was being disingenuous as he himself appeared to embrace some dancehall artists known for violent lyrics.

The Opposition senator pointed to an August 2020 article by DancehallMag titled Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness drops fire campaign dubplates, and said some of these were displayed on the Prime Minister’s social media pages. Crawford noted that the dubplates were made by artists, some of whom are known to espouse violent lyrics in their songs. They include Masicka, Intence, and Skillibeng.

He highlighted songs by Masicka, and in particular, Jahvillani‘s Clarks Pon Foot which called attention to the Prime Minister’s often-used ‘green Clarks’ prop used on the campaign trail.

In the song Just a Minute, he said Masicka deejays: ‘Me a di crocodile chit chat fi a minute/Couple rifle, couple criss Glock fi a minute/And mi deh deh a do di whole place lock fi a minute/Mi just swing the Beretta pon mi belly fi a minute/Link up Erica pon di cellie fi a minute’.

According to Crawford, “if he believes that violent music as he said, created criminal activity, why did he choose this song?”.

Crawford pointed out that Masicka sings: ‘Shootout, heavy tools out, mi a bring it. Get the food dough and buy a house every minute.’

“Why him choose that particular song, of all the songs,” Crawford asked.

Crawford highlighted the song Mr Universe by Skillibeng, in which the artist boasts: ‘Roll out wid the wet mop, Skilli well bad…’

Senator Crawford conceded that maybe the prime minister did not understand some of the metaphors being used in the song such as “wet mop”.

Crawford provocatively asked why the Prime Minister chose artists known for gun glorification instead of conscious reggae artists. “Why him choose that song …this is the prime minister’s election dubplates. Him never choose Chronixx, him never choose Protoje. He chose these songs” he said.

Crawford plowed on in his attack on the Prime Minister, emphasizing on the stomach-churning nature of the gun-toting lyrics, which he highlighted.

However, to be fair to the Prime Minister, even though Intence, Masicka, TeeJay, Ishawna, Shenseea, and Skillibeng are among the artists who have voiced dubplates for the Prime Minister; only the Shenseea and Skillibeng commissioned dubs have been released officially by Holness’s campaign.

But that meant little to Crawford, who previously used the Senate to accuse the Prime Minister of using “government badness” to silence his critics. Crawford drew attention to a 2013 news report when Holness, then Opposition leader, argued that the then PNP government should take responsibility for crime.

“Now (Holness uses) every effort and every opportunity to say something else is the chief contributor (of crime). The people indiscipline, the people this, the people that…,” he said.

Crawford told his colleagues that he would not be part of any call for politicians to speak with one voice on the matter of crime “because the prime minister himself speaks with multiple voices (on crime)”.

Crawford has always maintained a position that he was disappointed with the ‘pay for play’ attitude of the Dancehall stars.  The former Minister of Entertainment said that while the ‘dub-for-dub’ battle was entertaining, he believed artists should only voice dubplates for politicians whose policies they do in fact, support.

For his part, Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, has revealed in past utterances that most of the dubplates voiced by dancehall artists for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), were not commissioned by the politicians, but that several artists voiced the campaign songs of their own accord and approached the party.

According to the Prime Minister, he is not perturbed about the dissenting voices, objecting to the use of dubs and specials voiced by Dancehall artists for politicians during the campaign period that led up to the island’s General Elections on September 3, 2021.

“So let me say that we spent a lot of effort on music – dancehall in particular. But to my surprise, we did not commission most of the tracks that are out there. People volunteer; people just put music out, and I am happy for that because there was a time when a dancehall artiste or a reggae artiste wouldn’t even dare enter into the political arena,” Holness was quoting as telling journalists in a post-nomination interview last year.

Among the artists who have voiced pro-candidate and pro-political party, dubplates are Skillibeng, Shenseea, D’Angel, Intence, Ishawna, Stylo G, Spice, TeeJay, Dovey Magnum, Christopher Martin, Quada, and Jahvilliani.

Bounty Killer, Vybz Kartel, Tanya Stephens, Queen Ifrica, and Protoje have openly lashed the island’s politicians for what they describe as their exploitation of Dancehall music during their political campaigns, but otherwise failing to support the genre when in office.

Dancehall dubplates for politicians continue to be a tricky issue.

Dancehall deejay Dovey Magnum revealed recently that she was paid US$1000 (J$140,000) for the Bawl Out dubplate that appeared on the campaign playlist of then President of the People’s National Party (PNP) Dr. Peter Phillips, ahead of Jamaica’s General Election last September.

“Just glad mi did get $1000 fe mi dub! Cause none of the parties really want to see us party! If you know what I mean!” she wrote  in response to a post on singjay Tanya Stephens’ Instagram page, relating to Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ comments about the entertainment sector contributing to a spike in COVID-9 cases in 2020.