Dancehall Queen Carlene Speaks On Crime, Violent Lyrics, And Maintaining Peace In Jamaica

Dancehall Queen Carlene had some words of wisdom for her musical compatriots, whose overly violent lyrics might be unwittingly serving as fodder for impressionable youths to carry out deviant acts, even though it may not be the artists’ intent.

She also bemoaned Jamaica’s crime and violence rate which she said was clouding the island’s magnificence, and the levels of abuse being exacted on little girls, which she said was unheard of in her childhood days, where women were nurtured and protected.

The Butterfly dance creator, was speaking during an interview with Jairie Radio recently, when she was asked to weigh in on the issue of Jamaica’s crime rate and violence against women.

“It affects me deeply.  I remember growing up in Jamaica… and I would wear little skimpy clothes.   If I was that teenager now, I don’t know if I would be alive telling this story.   I hate where my country has gone with crime and violence.  And there is a lot of excuse why things happen and shouldn’t happen,” Carlene, the 11th of her mother’s 12 daughters said.

Carlene, who is a mother of one, said that her never-ending love for Jamaica has made her never want to leave the island permanently, despite the issues with crime and violence, which she said, though an uphill task, can be solved eventually by working on the minds of the people.

“I love my country   I am the only one for my country that’s living in Jamaica.  I chose that; that option is my choice. I am obsessed with my country,” she explained.

“I love everything about my country up until the last three or four years where crime and violence has been ridding the country of the love and the beauty that we have here… It affects me deeply.  I wanna know that our young women are free to be, and go and do whatever they want to do within the space of the law of course,” the 47-year-old added.

In bemoaning the ascension of murderous, callous and vicious lyrics in Dancehall music, Carlene noted that contrary to the view of some artists, it was simplistic and preposterous to view these type of songs as “only freedom of expression”.

“This is why when I see certain things happening and people all say everything now is freedom of speech, it can’t be freedom of speech; it’s you expressing how you feel.  And how you feel, sometimes you might have control of it, but somebody else who you are sending this energy into, don’t.  I still think we need to take a little more responsibility in how we spread (promote) violence and crime,” she argued.

Carlene also said that while parents have a responsibility to train their children and be role models to them, artists and other public figures have a duty to be responsible in their utterances, as cruelty-promoting Dancehall lyrics oftentimes have an impact on the most vulnerable young people who see them as role models.

“Nobody is to grow anybody’s child.   But let be real.  As public figures, we do have an impact in what we tell somebody who is looking for nurture or what we tell somebody who is lacking attention,” she said.

She also echoed the sentiments of Government Senator Charles Sinclair, who, while speaking in the Senate during the deliberations on the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organizations) Act, last month, argued that juxtapositioning Dancehall acts with US rappers and Hip Hop artists, was faulty.

Like Sinclair, Carlene argued that Americans are far removed from the Jamaican communities and are unrelatable, unlike their Jamaican artists who are domiciled on the island, and are not seen as separate from them but are viewed as heroes.

“So when you are going to say you don’t make me do things, yes you do.  It’s one thing to see an overseas artiste that you never meet but when you have your own islander doing it, somebody that you think you can relate to who tell you take a gun and shoot your brother down it is a message…,” she affirmed.

Using herself and her 1990s impy-skimpy party fashion as a prime example, of how stars can influence their compatriots, Carlene said their effect on whether negative or positive behavior, should never be discounted.

“I started wearing x-rated clothes in Jamaica (in public) and I have a lot of young women follow me.  Don’t tell me I am not influential on them wanting to wear shorts that they might wear, but chose not to but because I did it and I did it in a graceful way they might want to do it,’ the Excelsior High School past student said.

“So you have to be careful as a speaker.  Not everybody has a voice but as entertainers, as public speakers, politicians, people in media… what you send out in that microphone to somebody who is vulnerable or just looking for an excuse, you have that power to let them do certain things,” she counseled.

Carlene also said she was cognizant of the fact that most artists had no ill-intent behind their raucous lyrics, but cautioned that discernment was necessary, as Jamaica was already grappling with a stomach-turning murder rate.

“So I want to tell Jamaicans, you have to be mindful of what you are telling people to do.  You are not saying it to hurt anybody because in your mind, you don’t have that realness of what you are saying.  But words are powerful,” she said.

“No artiste or public figure is going to tell somebody directly to take a gun but if you make that seem so powerful and so refreshing and so glamourous, you don’t know whose might heed that, so  I am saying to them, we all have a hand in how we guide the youth of tomorrow,” Carlene said.