Green Says Radio DJs Should Find Another Job If They Can’t Follow Ban On Gun, Scamming & ‘Molly’ Songs
Cordell Green, the Executive Director of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica (BCJ), has issued a stern rebuke to those radio disc jockeys expressing disapproval about the organization’s directive prohibiting the airing of songs that promote/glorify violence, scamming, and use of the drug “Molly.”
According to Green, who is also vice-chairman of the UNESCO Information for All Programme, there has been a systemic violation of the rules by many disc jockeys employed by some radio stations, who push music with morbid content, while artists who record clean, wholesome content are brushed aside and ignored.
As for wayward radio announcers in disagreement with the directive, Green said they should depart from the airwaves, as their utterances objecting to the crackdown on the illicit activities, is proof that they ought not to be on public radio in the first place.
“What I would say to the people who have a struggle, is ‘step away’. So others can come in and there won’t be a crisis. If you believe that this directive from the Broadcasting Commission is going to imperil your ability, to function, as a broadcaster, I suggest you are in the wrong space. Football can be taken up, basketball netball and law and suppm else, not broadcasting. You obviously don’t understand the span of the Jamaican culture,” Green said, during an interview on Roots96 FM.
“You believe this slither of extremism is what it is defines you, it is almost an insult to Jamaican and the Jamaican people and Jamaican culture – for anybody to be articulating that scammer music and gun lyrics taken off the air means we have nothing to play. Someone who says that ought not to be on radio,” he said, after he was told by his interviewer that she had heard a music producer stating that only foreign music would be played.
In further ripping into errant disc jockeys, Green went on to bat for artists who are doing wholesome content, contending that the majority of Jamaican music is fit for airplay, but many are not being given the time of day by these same radio personalities, who opt to push the morbid content.
“If I were in charge of a radio station and I had someone make a statement like that, to me, that’s their resignation letter. Because then it says something about what they will not play on the radio despite the fact that they are a vast range of people who are creating content. And that’s the other thing I want to say: I really don’t want this to become a conversation about what really is a minority of players of instruments and singers and musicians,” he said.
“The fact that the majority of people who are involved in creating music in Jamaica are not operating on the fringes and at the extreme It is a façade for us to make up that that is the case. Jamaica is not run by dons; they are in the minority. Gangsters are in a minority. That is a fact. So we not doing anything, except to say there is a systemic violation of the rules and the regulator needs to step in and bring the pendulum back to the centre. And we do that unequivocally. Who don’t like it, smoke on it,” he added as he and the host erupted in laughter.
In a report carried in The Star yesterday, ZJ Liquid, who is also a recording artist and music producer, in declaring that nobody can tell him what to do, said he “planned to continue playing the tracks he deems appropriate, despite the Broadcasting Commission’s new regulations on content allowed to be played on free-to-air radio”.
“Broadcast Commission a try dictate to we still and I don’t know if their directives are coming from the Government, but wherever it a come from, a nuh really dem a play the music pon the radio, a we, and honestly mi don’t even care at this point. Mi go just play wah me feel fi play same way,” he was quoted as saying, then adding: “Mi nah seh them [commission] wrong enuh, but I mean this just come with immediate effect now, like, who are you talking to?”
“We are not your kids. We are a body. You link up the body and seh ‘Guess what, we are going to take these initiatives and make these moves. Some of you may not like it but let’s hear what you have to say and see how we can move forward’. But mi nuh really too deal with dictatorship still, and nobody can tell me what to do,” he also stated, according to The Star report.
On Tuesday, 13 years after the BCJ ordered radio stations that were playing violent musical content, on the national airwaves to quit, the State issued another similar directive, this time adding the prohibition of the party drug molly, and lotto scamming to the mix.
The directive which was issued by Green, was similar to one issued in February 2009 by then BCJ chairman Dr Hopeton Dunn, prohibiting the “transmission of any recording, live song or music which promotes or glorifies any offence such as murder, rape mob violence and other offences such as arson”.
On Tuesday, Green, in his directive had argued that the “airwaves have to be kept free of harmful content given the important role traditional media still plays as agents of socialisation” and “that the use of the public airwaves to broadcast songs that promote/glorify illegal activity could give the wrong impression that criminality is an accepted feature of Jamaican culture and society”.
Additionally, he also noted that media could unwittingly lend support to moral disengagement and further normalise criminality among vulnerable and impressionable youth.