Broadcast Commission Leads Communism Comeback In Jamaica

Below is my response to an article that came out in the Jamaica Gleaner on Saturday, February 7 2009 titled 'Slack Song Ban'.

The broadcast commission banning songs and music videos that they deem to be too sexual or violent will set Jamaica back at least a decade. In a time when America just elected a black president on a platform of hope and change, the broadcast commission seems to have a platform of repression and discouragement. What happened to freedom of speech? Do they think that by banning songs on radio that suddenly the murder and pregnancy rate in Jamaica will magically start to go down and we will throw the commission a parade? I hate to break the news to Esther Tyson, Hopeton Dunn, and Byron Buckley but the music industry is not causing Jamaica to be at the top of either one of those unfortunate lists. The people in charge of running this country since our independence are to blame when they decided to create a 'wild west mentality' by putting guns in the hands of the poor so they could win elections. Then those same politicians turn around and allow the arrest of the same poor people for having guns. The politicians created this gun and sex culture when they developed the garrisons and funneled money away from education and into bank accounts so their Cherry Garden house wife can drive a Prada. In these garrisons have raged a culture of violence and sex and out of this unfortunate state of living has come reggae and dancehall music which has put Jamaica on the map. Music has become the only way out of the ghetto for a lot youths because, as we know, the government is not creating enough jobs to support growth. So the youth of our nation turn to music and sing about what they have grown up knowing, which is a culture of violence and sex all fueled by the lack of strong leadership in Jamaica.

Information that is shocking has always sold better than information that is not shocking whether its music or news stories. How can we blame poor people for saying the most shocking statements in their music in order for them to get out of the garrisons or gully's that have been created by our government? When these artists make songs of their reality we ban their products from reaching the airwaves which is the main outlet to reach the marketplace so their fans know what they have for sale. I hope the commission is going to take a hard look at Soca music, which invented 'daggering' in the first place, if we are going to start banning music. Soca is more of an 'uptown' music and carnival allows the upper crust of society a time to dress half naked and grind on each others husbands and wives sending a 'perfectly normal' message to the youth of the country. 'Daggering' has been around for decades but since dancehall artists labelled that style of dance with a creatively aggressive name now all of a sudden its time to ban any song that mentions the word 'dagger'. That seems like discrimination to me and by the way Mr. Dunn, the Soca lyric 'Gimmie Dolla' is not referring to the giving of money to a homeless person instead it is referring to a 'daggering motion'. Just in case the commission was looking for a place to start analyzing the Calypso Industry.

Repressing music is actually more dangerous for our youth than if we were to allow the songs to be played on the radio. Banning anything only creates more interest in whatever it is that is being banned. By banning certain music, young people will now have an increased desire to go out to dances if they want to hear whats new in the music scene. Putting more of our young people on the streets late at night in harms way is probably not the best idea with the country's escalating murder rate. Parents and guardians should be the ones explaining that music is not reality, just like a movie is not reality, not some 'Broadcasting Commission' and that comes with educating the future parents. The commission will not accomplish anything with a new ban aside from alienating the youth of society. I actually take that back, what they will accomplish is to push the youth further away from radio stations and television stations than they already are with all the new technology available at their fingertips. This means less listeners and viewers which equals less commercial revenue leading to the scaling back, loss of jobs and eventual closing of these stations. So the commission is actually going to be taking jobs away from hard working Jamaicans in the long run and they should explain to us how radio stations should now earn revenue with deteriorating listenership due to the lack of content desired. But the commission and Esther Tyson don't want to put in the real effort to lobby the government to develop Jamaica's education system because they know its a road to nowhere so instead they ban music. That way it looks like they are earning the unnecessary money they are being paid to be the 'watchdog' over the island's electronic media. Whats next? The banning of websites? Is this China?

The commission and Ester Tyson have just helped to push society more into the cyber world where the youth are already spending most of their time. We don't need your state run radio stations and local television to see, hear and say what we want these days. This is 2009 not 1969 and our IPhones, satellite radio, internet radio, internet television etc. allow us to be out of reach of your repressive and ridiculous regime. You have managed to show just how disconnected you are from the future leaders of this country instead of trying to understand us and merge the gap. What would have happened if President Obama's election platform had included the FCC being allowed to ban hip-hop music and videos from airing? How much of the youth vote would he have gotten? He would not be President because he would not have been any different from John McCain. The youth of Jamaica still does not have leaders that we can relate to and it looks like we will have to wait a long time for the old guard to fall. Or maybe through technology the old guard will fall a lot faster than they even realize and we will have the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica to thank.

Jason Robinson
President - Free i Entertainment
Chief Visionary Officer - What is Creativity? & Carpe DM Clothing
jason@freeientertainment.com
www.freeientertainment.com
www.whatiscreativity.com
www.carpedmclothing.com
www.foreartsake.com