Tag: slackness

On industry, slackness and spirituality

On By Jah BillahIn dUbLeave a comment

Another influence was the growing backlash against “slackness” and “violence” music in certain circles. Hence the “banning” of Lady Saw from  performing in Montego Bay proclaimed by that city’s Mayor after her notorious success at one of the music festivals there; or the decision by various members of the Jamaican Federation of Musicians to refuse to provide musical backing for singers of slackness or violence, or a renewed policy of filtering of much of this music by certain of the radio stations and a corresponding promotion of “spiritual” music.

The conditions in the “industry” were therefore conducive to a renewal. It is obvious that the swing benefitted enormously from the emergence of heavily “spiritual” singers of the quality of Garnet Silk in the early nineties, or Luciano slightly after, but the dance hall also experienced a duality in some and an outright “conversion” in others of its major figures. Lady Saw, for example, the top female D.J. who continues to be the undisputed queen of sex lyrics, can sing a highly successful song of praise and thanks to God (“Glory be to God”) for her material advancement resulting from those same “slackness” songs. In the midst of his 1991 album of sex lyrics, “Gold”, Capleton sings a song “Bible fi dem,” proclaiming his religious righteousness. It is neither that these singers are being inconsistent nor that they are being opportunist. Indeed, their reconciliation of sex with spirituality is consistent with a value system that does not dichotomize carnality and spirituality.

Naturally, such a mix does not meet with approval from orthodox Rastafari. In discussing “the anointing” of dancehall, Yasus Afari argues that: “You cannot accept just any song into the dance because the dance is to praise Jah.”

Even Capleton becomes intolerant of sexual lyrics in his more recent phase. And yet, Bob Marley had no difficulty in singing songs of sexual expression, if not slackness, recognizing the validity of this human dimension, just as front-line “conscious” singers like Buju Banton today defend the mix of carnality and spirituality.

Found in: Babylon to Vatican: Religion in the Dance Hall
Author: Joseph Pereira
Source: Journal of West Indian Literature, Vol. 8, No. 1 (OCTOBER 1998)

Image source: Lady Saw Net Worth

ON SCHIZOPHRENIC SLACKNESS

On By Jah BillahIn Dub Culture DepartmentLeave a comment

*BREEZE: I think the whole Caribbean is naturally schizophrenic [laugh], and most of all about sex.
I think it’s one of the most sensual, sexual sets of people, but with more hang-ups and still very Victorian about their sexuality. So you have a kind of freedom and spontaneity about the body, and at the same time all kinds of dogma and taboos about different kinds of sex, or the nature of the sex you are having, or who you’re having sex with. I think it’s a schizophrenia that stems from the meeting of Europe and Africa in the first place, which can sometimes be a perfect blend and sometimes can be completely destructive. And I think it shows up most strongly in sex.

So you have Lady Saw, for example, who is very explicit in her sexual lyrics and is loved by the majority of Jamaicans. Yet, there is the whole social establishment that says she must be banned from the stage for the kind of lyrics she’s performing.
And then you have a man like Beenie Man, who sings completely sexually about women, yet his audience is full of women that love him and think that he’s the greatest thing that ever happened. You have poets like me talking about how slackness is degrading to women, and at the same time it’s all women who are jumping up to the slackness at the dancehall. So it’s really hard to kind of say that there’s a true line. I do find it very schizophrenic, and that’s a word that I use a lot. [laugh] My current work is getting much more sexual. I think it’s about time.

Excerpt from:
Dub and Difference: A Conversation with Jean “Binta” Breeze by Jenny Sharpe.
Source: Callaloo, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Summer, 2003)

Image source: Ken Ryan

*Jean “Binta” Breeze  (11 March 1956 – 4 August 2021) was a Jamaican dub poet and storyteller, acknowledged as the first woman to write and perform dub poetry. She worked also as a theatre director, choreographer, actor, and teacher. She performed her work around the world, in the Caribbean, North America, Europe, South-East Asia, and Africa, and has been called “one of the most important, influential performance poets of recent years”.