Devin Di Dakta Unimpressed With Unskilled ‘Producers’ Who Buy Beats

Dancehall deejay Devin Di Dakta has made it clear that he remains unimpressed with persons in Jamaica, who are referring to themselves as music producers, without even knowing or understanding even the basics of music production.

The 2017 Reggae Grammy nominee was responding to a statement made by producer Germaine Clarke, that juggling riddims should be in the quest for Grammy wins, in an article which was published by the Star on Monday.

Clarke had also said that he had officially submitted the Truthful riddim compilation album for consideration for the Best Reggae Album at the upcoming Grammy Awards.

However Devin, who copped his Grammy nomination for the 2017  album titled Sly and Robbie Presents…Reggae for Her, which featured JL, pointed out that the solution to being considered for nomination, lies in producers taking artists under their wings and grooming them musically.

“Find young talents, help develop dem craft, produce albums with them and then submit dem for Grammy consideration,” the System Matic artist advised.

He then pointed out that despite this being the ideal, it was not realistic, since the music industry is overrun with wanna-bes who have no idea of what it takes to produce quality music.

“But how many “PRODUCERS” actually know how to “PRODUCE MUSIC”? 🤔 All I’m seeing is people calling themselves producers, buying beats, pay artists to record and send it to distributors hoping that the artist’s clout will make the songs go viral so dem (the “Producers”) can collect a $200 Cheque a month time till it stop,” the St. Mary native said.

Devin’s sentiments are almost similar to that of another veteran artist, Mr. Vegas, who in 2019 had said that many of the current batch of young producers have no knowledge of how to play any musical instrument nor the difference between an artist being on-key or off-key. He said they rely totally on computer software such as Keyfinder, Autotune, and Mellodyne to produce music.

“Nuff a di man dem weh seh dem a producer, dem can’t play music. So how yuh seh yuh a producer? Yuh a sampler,” Vegas had said.

He had also lamented what he described as the woeful deficit in stagecraft of some of Jamaica’s prominent upcoming artists, and laid the blame at the feet of the producers.

“Yuh not even know when man deh pon key. Dem use di Keyfinder, but the artiste, when him go pon stage, him can’t find back the key. Keyfinder and call yourself a producer? Producer wha man?” he had said.

“Di man dem not even now when di artiste dem deh pon key… So when di artiste dem go pon stage dem can’t sing it… the artiste no know how fi find back di key pon stage show, so di music sound good and nice when you hear it enuh, but listen it a stage show and a run yuh waa run outta di dance,” he added.

Generally, music producers are expected to be at least familiar with the fundamentals of music sound, various families of musical instruments, the human voice and have good ear training.

Ear training enables them to identify intervals, as well as notes and chords and hear minor changes or minute nuances in the music as they listen, so that they really understand what they are hearing and perfect the mix of the sound, according to the Minneapolis-based IPR College of the Creative Arts.

As it relates to producers buying beats, amidst concerns about producers claiming music created by beatmakers as their own, veteran music producer Gussie Clarke in January 2017, had said it was against the law for as Copyright Law gives clear protection to composers of beats and other types of intellectual property.

In a Gleaner article, Clarke had said that although the problem was not new, it had escalated in recent times, “with beat makers growing extremely frustrated with the way they have been treated by producers”.

Declaring it a wicked criminal act that had “been going on for quite some time now”, Clarke had said these miscreants were “stealing people’s works”, and not giving them any credit, nor earnings from the projects.

“Many of these persons (beat makers) are approached by these producers and are asked to create a rhythm for them. He (the beat maker) then sells them the rhythm. But what he has sold is the master, which is the right to take that rhythm and voice as many people on it as he (the producer) wants,” Clarke had stated.

“He has not sold his copyright. Some producers don’t know this and think they bought the copyright. The copyright is not transferable by word of mouth. It has to be contractual,” he added.