Reggae Studies Unit Head Calls For ‘Reset Of Dancehall’
Head of the Reggae Studies Unit at the University of the West Indies, Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah, has called for a “reset” of Dancehall.
Her call comes days after the 2022 staging of Supreme Promotions’ Sting stage show, which was in some respects, plagued by numerous glitches and which ended in chaos, and months after she called on older Reggae and Dancehall music producers to help to nurture and mentor younger upcoming artists and producers in the industry.
“The debate continues. Dancehall needs to press the reset button. Songwriting. Show quality. Content. Diversity. Fashion. Style. Personality. Leggo the disrespect, badmind and victim lyrics, the badmanism and gangster chronicles. Pick up social consciousness, charity and love,” Dr. Stanley Niaah noted on Instagram on Thursday.
The Culture Doctor, as she is often referred, was supported by several commenters, some of whom posited that Dancehall artists have been emulating the misdeeds and bellicose lyrics of their North American counterparts.
“They’re copying every bad from the hip-hop community,” Xedos 3 argued, while another commenter added: “Yes I have been following overseas news and is the same gun runnings and drugs characterize the music. In fact the rappers involve in pure bagga bagga”.
“Well said. SomeBODY SAVE DANCEHALL 😢 people speak of the new generation but I no see no magic 🪄 in them. Same thing a foreign the system programmed them a way. 🤷🏾♂️,” islandlifesweeter stated.
There were other arguments posed by some persons who pointed out that there were artists who have been doing positive music but “struggle to get airplay”, and that technology had “killed real Dancehall”.
In April this year, Dr. Stanley Niaah, who also heads the Institute of Caribbean Studies, had said the youngsters have contended that “older producers are [not] giving them the time of day, guiding them enough, appreciating what they are doing”.
Her comments had come during an interview on Radio Jamaica’s Two Live Crew, when she was asked whether or not she was worried about the preservation of the music genres, or had any concerns that the music was losing its identity, as some industry stakeholders have been contending.
“I want the producers who were there long ago, to engage with the younger artistes; engage with the younger producers…,” she had said.
She had also said that there must be “conversation between the generations” particularly about quality and “what makes your music timeless”.
“There is some formulae that you can use. There are things that you can detect about a hit song; whether it has a proper chorus; how the rhyming guh,” she said.
But Dr Niaah, Dr. Stanley Niaah, who is author of the books Dancehall: A Reader on Jamaican Music and Culture, Reggae Pilgrimages: Festivals and the Movement of Jah People and Dancehall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto, had also warned that some Jamaican artists were taking out the “dance” out of Dancehall music to their own detriment.
“Those who forget dancing and dance tunes when they are making music in Jamaica do so to their own peril,” she had said.
Sharing similar sentiments, in January this year, Reggae singer Gramps Morgan had also lamented the missing element of dance in Dancehall music.
In an interview with The Star, the Positive Vibrations artist had said there was a need for the improvement in the overall quality of the music, and that he was on “a mission to see the dance revived in Dancehall”.
“We need to come together and find a way to do it. We need better productions, better lyrics and sing some songs of life, love and appreciation. Me long fi see man and woman a bubble rub-a-dub style and some bottom a roll on the dancefloor,” Gramps had said.