Zim Dancehall Debate: Just Stop Playing The Music

This week came something of a weird debate in the Zimbabwe Dancehall circles which centred the content being released by the genre.

Some artists like Ricky Fire said they would start cleaning up their acts. Winky D has been doing that for a while and when the Ninja President made a statement on this he received a backlash from some artists.

Now this week, Seh Calaz, a man who does not believe rules on content should apply has come out and said he would not stop using violent lyrics in his music. He said if people want clean lyrics they should listen to Tocky Vibes.

One thing that must be clear from the start is that I do not believing in censoring the artist. He is allowed to create whatever he likes even if it is an ode to a pile of poo. We should never ask him not to do that.

That said, the mainstream cannot be seen to be giving airplay to his dedication to his fecal matter. Public interest is what the mainstream and it is what it must defend. Where the individual abdicates responsibility from defending morality then someone must step in.

What some do not realise is that embarrassing scenes like those at Old Hararians when Kalado came to Zimbabwe are as a result of the unfettered access to degenerate lyrics with the radio stations shamelessly playing songs about violence because they find resonance with a hoard of already misguided youths.

That we can ignore that effect of violence and sexuality on adolescent minds is shameful. Those who disagree would do well to read Alex D Crawford’s paper titled The effects of dancehall genre on adolescent sexual and violent behavior in Jamaica: A public health concern.

The solution is simply not allowing artists to perform certain material in certain spaces. Sure, if one wants to perform these things in a bar in corner of who-cares-where, then they can do that as long as that place satisfies conditions of public security and things of that sort.

Seh Calaz knows that the radio stations are eager to play his music no matter what it is. If he finds no traction from doing business as usual, then he will behave differently.

We need to act now to protect the future.