If you follow Jamaican music at all you'll know this whole thing by now. But in case not: The Jamaica Broadcasting Commission has banned songs about sex and violence from Jamaican radio, even if they're censored. Imagine listening to US radio if those were the rules here. "Adult contemporary" stations would probably be ok, but hip-hop/r&b stations' playlists would be decimated. Which is pretty much what's happening to dancehall stations in JA. Mavado and Vybz Kartel are firing back (and on the same side of something, for once - could this have a silver lining?)
The conflict between what adults think young people should be listening to and what young people actually want to listen to is of course pretty old, in Jamaica as elsewhere. Most recently though in Jamaica people have been talking about this one song as the epitome of nastiness:
Vybz Kartel & Spice - Ramping Shop (in my first productive use of Ableton ever, I edited out the anti-gay parts but left the enjoyable dirty parts. I'm pretty sure I made it way more difficult than it had to be, but whatever, I figured it out. Producers, watch your backs)
Because I am an appreciator of autotune, the Miss Independent riddim (best instrumental '08), and above all of nastiness, naturally this has been my favorite song for months.
The best thing about it is that the use of the sweet-sounding instrumental makes obvious what might otherwise be obscured, which is that this is actually a pretty beautiful love song. I can't really think of a better expression of sexual love than:
And when you ah come whisper something like this:
"I can't stop fucking you"
I know, right? Give it a few hundred listens, you'll see what I mean.
(Thanks to this Observer editorial for the title of this post: "Media watchdog group, the Broad-casting Commission, has made an effort to slap 'daggering' with what can perhaps be termed the 'wickedest slam'.)
