The Mad Bull’s Blog, Version 3

I find I agree with Buju Banton 100% on this…

KAC:
How different do you find the musical landscape now than when you first emerged?

Buju:
The musical scene now is a mess. People are still sharing petty squabbles and have turned dancehall into a common whorehouse and the music is not 100 per cent audible anymore. They don’t make music that the old lady can listen to in the car. All they talk about is how fat a p.m p.m is and stabbing a front. We need to be progressing past these elements and represent this great music that is only (a few years) old. I don’t watch the noise; I watch how many records are sold and the receipts and no music ain’t selling … Their time is now and if they haven’t made a song like Destiny or Untold Stories, then they are coming up short. A nation needs something else to hold on to. There is too much hype without substance.

Excerpted from an interview of Buju Banton by Kavelle Anglin-Christie (KAC) of the Jamaica Gleaner.

Dawn Ritch seems to agree that we are subjected to a lot of rubbish in our music given her comment in her article last Sunday, where she was giving a “big up” to the Dutty Wine. In that article, Dawn says:

“With few exceptions, the most popular modern music of Jamaica has contained nonsense verse. Instinctively we know that reggae superstars are not role models. We’d rather them sing foolishness than rationalise.”

Respec’ to B.art, who brought Dawn’s article to my attention, by the way…

Dawn Ritch says that we would rather they sang rubbish, but I’ve been thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if some good singers would come to the fore with great, feet-moving songs which also had some really good, meaningful lyrics instead of the standard fare of “beat-up-de-punny” lyrics with which we are deluged daily! Yeah, I know that every now and then you can find an artist who lets loose one such song, but if we could have some who could do a lot more of that, I think it would be a great thing…

Tags: Thoughtful //