Part I
I'm sorry, but I'm not jumping on the bandwagon to bash dancehall, hip hop and rap music.For the most part, I find it disdainful at best. I am horrified by its "... incendiary (nature)...characterised by the use of raw language and expletives, female battering, valorisation of alcohol consumption, homophobia, verbal violence, donmanship and badmanism...fear of impotence, misogyny, sexual promiscuity, emphasis on sexual prowess..." as Dr Selwyn Ryan wrote in his column last Thursday.
I know people blame the evils of society on dancehall and hip hop music. Still, I'm not ready to vilify this music or blame it for crime.To me, this pat explanation is backward and backwards. It's not that the music is causing problems.Society is causing problems. The music reflects society and its lack of concern for a large part of our population.
Like it or not, this music is a way for many youths to register their rage. It's the voice of rebellion by a marginalised population. I blame irrelevant education, lack of meaningful opportunities for employment and an uncaring society for the social problems we face in T&T.One of my former students, Jahmai, a typical Trini who knows what it's like to come from a tough community, says, "Young people gravitate to dancehall and hip hop music because they relate to it in some way. They relate to the suffering."
Dig below the violence, and Jahmai says dancehall and hip hop actually symbolise happiness for people who struggle to exist."Music gives you a peace of mind," says Jahmai, "–all music. In at-risk communities there's nothing to be happy about. If you don't have hope and faith you have nothing. If you believe in worldly possessions, this music makes you feel you could have that.
No matter how ridiculous it sounds, that's a sense of happiness for people who have nothing and are struggling to survive. The music provides a false sense of relief, a release, a feeling of relaxation. It's a way to release pent-up feelings: rage, fear, insecurity. Most people don't take the violence literally."
Jahmai warns that impressionable youths and violent music are a dangerous combination."There are those who use violent music to work themselves into a state to commit crime. I know this happens," he says, "but I don't think it's the cause for crime. The music works as a catalyst for a feeling or notion that already exists. A normal person wouldn't just go out and commit a crime, but an impressionable youth who is brave enough to do anything might."
The problem is that for many youths there's no alternative music."Alternative music is irrelevant because many youths see no link to the society that is being portrayed in other musical genres," says Jahmai. "Music triggers whatever inner vibe you have from rage to insecurity and sadness. It's a way of fighting the bad feelings you have."The music young men gravitate towards is about far more than violence, Jahmai says.
"There are many themes in this music: envy, grudges, injustice.It's about coming up from nothing and having something. For many youths, these are their only success stories."Those are universal themes, Jahmai says, that relate to everyone–not just ghetto youths."Many young men who are not from at risk communities listen to dancehall, rap and hip hop music. I believe it's like Carnival. Not everyone has the confidence to play a mas every day of their lives, but they go out and do it for Carnival, which is a place to find an identity.
Many young people–rich or poor–don't have an identity. They look to this music to help them define who they are. For poor teens, rappers come from nothing, but they found a way to work the system and people look up to that. Even if they're talking about negative things, what the youths are hearing is that these guys made it in society in some way.
They found a way out; they found a way to make money. It's about survival and making it. Life comes down to that for a lot of people. The rest who are listening, they're just trying to define who they are," says Jahmai.
Jahmai says he listens to a variety of music and he uses music to reflect what he's feeling."I listen to pop, R&B, rap, dancehall, techno, retro–it depends on the feeling."In many ways it's convenient to blame the problems of society on a certain type of music."That's because," Jahmai says, "violent music reflects a problem in society. If we had a high suicide rate, we'd be talking about and targeting sad pop music."
I have no doubt that dancehall and hip hop music reflect a part of society that we don't really want to hear about because it's easier to place blame on the music than to work on fixing the problem.
�2 Next week: "Hip hop music comes like a form of assistance..." A young man once involved in crime talks about the role of hip hop music in his life.