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Sting 2003 - Performing violence and social commentary
published: Sunday | January 4, 2004

Donna Hope, Contributor

THE APPALLING events last Friday, December 26, at Sting 2003 have been met with the expected passing of the buck. Supreme Promotions is not responsible. Vybz Kartel is not responsible. Ninja Man is not responsible. Indeed, the Sting audience and the entire dancehall fraternity are not responsible.

Beneath the sensational media headlines that have highlighted the "horror and terror" at Sting 2003, there is an underlying theme that maybe some nebulous entity and faceless authority figure is responsible. The venue is at fault. The structure is at fault. The Government is at fault. In short, Mr. Nobody is responsible.

DISTURBED

I am particularly disturbed by the debates and discussions that have followed the Sting event, where the intelligentsia in the media, academia, politics and corporate Jamaica has sought to place as much distance as possible between themselves and this "buggu yagga", "downtown" phenomenon. It cannot be that easy. Where Sting and the dancehall are concerned, we are all responsible.

In the main, the Sting audience represents the hardcore adherents of dancehall and inner-city culture (local and international). Sting's hosting in the last week of December means that it is literally the crowning glory of the dancehall.

For the record, performances at Sting are used to crown the lyrical gladiator for that year whose reign the ensuing year is peppered with lyrical challenges from other aspirants. Therefore, many dancehall artistes use the months following the summer dancehall events (like Sumfest) to prepare and perfect lyrics that will give them the lyrical "edge" over their rivals at Sting.

Sting is promoted and hosted by a group of individuals known as Supreme Promotions. However, it is common knowledge that Sting is identified with Isaiah Laing, that famed crime-fighter who has been immortalised in dancehall legend by dancehall artiste, Tiger in his hit song "Whe di bad man police name?

Laing! Seen

Come again!"

SNOWBALLING

Snowballing from this identification of the premier promoter, Laing, as a "bad man police" Sting is identified not only as the crowning glory of the dancehall entertainment, but also as the place and space where the audience is served a special diet of violence and crassness. Why is this so? I sincerely believe that this resulted from an original and continuing perception that the dancehall audience was/is unilaterally made up of "ghetto people".

In true Jamaican condescension, these ghetto people are all identified as violent, dunce, boorish, aggressive and crass, and would, therefore, more than appreciate this special diet. Give the people what they want indeed! Little note is taken of the fact that in the first instance, there are overwhelming numbers of "ghetto people" who are decent, upstanding citizens. And in the second instance, that the Sting audience is made up of a diverse crowd.

Like so many other large-scale entertainment events in Jamaica, the Sting crowd is representative of our diverse society. Lawyer, doctor, Indian chief, uptown, downtown, country and town, foreign and local all rub shoulders at this event. The fact that, over the last 20 years, the Sting profile has been immortalised as one of violence, boorishness, crassness and confrontation and clash means, however, that many opt out of this cultural experience because of the "almshouse" that has become the common fare of Sting.

Like Isaiah Laing, Ninja Man also holds a special place in the Sting genre. Ninja Man's spectacular and successful lyrical 'murderation' of Shabba Ranks at Sting 1990 and Supercat at Sting 1991 resulted in his being crowned as the ultimate lyrical gladiator in the dancehall. At Sting 1990, Ninja Man's lyrical jibes, jabs and volleys succeeded in flustering Shabba Ranks who was rendered lyrically bankrupt on-stage. Shabba Ranks lost his composure to the extent that he was reduced to tears and was forced to exit the stage hastily.

The following year at Sting 1991, the lyrical war on stage between Ninja Man and Supercat resulted in incensed supporters of Ninja Man lobbing glass bottles on stage, one of which hit Supercat. Supercat's fast fading composure fled altogether and he picked up a bottle off the stage and ferociously flung it back into the audience. He then turned to the Sting audience and threateningly informed the crowd that he had his gun with him at which point he was hastily escorted off-stage by Isaiah Laing of Supreme Promotions.

In both instances, Ninja Man triumphantly declared his lyrical prowess to the cheering and exuberant Sting crowd over the now lyrically "dead" body of his opponent. Both events remain immortalised in dancehall legend and serve to remind the dancehall body of Ninja Man's undying prowess as the ultimate lyrical gladiator.

It is therefore an open secret that Ninja Man remains the one true lyrical gladiator of the dancehall and he is highly respected by many Jamaicans as a true icon of popular culture. Therefore, while other contenders may come and go at successive Sting events, the lyrical crown has never really left Ninja Man's resting place.

Any artiste who wishes to claim this space must lyrically and literally unseat Ninja Man from his throne as lyrical gladiator in the dancehall and as a popular culture icon in Jamaica. This is no easy task.

In 2003 the meteoric rise of newcomer Vybz Kartel, as another of the myriad contenders for space in the dancehall is important. He represents that generation of the children of the dancehall many of whom migrated from Kingston to Portmore in the early 1990s. This generation has now come of age and is demanding a space in the front rows of dancehall culture.

Vybz Kartel's lyrics speak to a reality of life as a youth from Portmore who contends with the struggles of that experience in this premier dormitory community of St. Catherine. To this end, his lyrics are both similar to and different from that of his peers who hail from the inner cities of Kingston and St. Andrew.

'MAKE A FOOD'

Further, it is clear that, like many dancehall artistes, while this new group of artistes intends to "make a food" from their career in the dancehall, they have no sense of their role in the wider dancehall fraternity and Jamaican popular culture.

They see themselves as individuals in a very materialistic place where everything is equated with one's money and the exchanges that one can make. This dismissing of history, loyalty and the natural respect for seniority placed the newcomer, Vybz Kartel, in the position where he felt justified in attempting literally to unseat Ninja Man from his lyrical throne.

And Sting, with its history of clashes and violence and its place in the dancehall as the crowning glory, provided the stage for this debacle.

As a scholar of the dancehall, I find it both dismissive and simplistic when reports claim that the melee in the Sting 2003 audience resulted from the disgusting spectacle of the fight between Vybz Kartel and Ninja Man.

No. The clash between Ninja Man and the group of artistes that Vybz Kartel associates with has been brewing since mid-2003. The tensions that flared on-stage during dancehall night between Ninja Man and members of this group at Sumfest 2003 had been brewing from early on in the year. Because of Sting's particular placement in the dancehall and entertainment calendar, these issues and tensions were set for resolution at Sting 2003.

This is a part of the dancehall hype.Though representatives of Supreme Promotions clearly stated that there would be no clash this year, it is an open secret that the artistes and their management, the Sting 2003 audience and the wider dancehall fraternity were fully primed for the lyrical war between Ninja Man and select members of the group of dancehall artistes with which Vybz Kartel associates. This is a part of dancehall performance.

However, no one was prepared for this lyrical parody to break out into a fight on stage. For those of us who have attended too many dancehall events, it was clear from very early that the hyped-up Sting 2003 crowd was on edge. Early on in the night, they decided that suspicions about his sexuality merited their bottling Frankie Paul off-stage. And German-based DJ, Gentleman simply did not live up their hardcore expectations so he received his share of bottles.

During the fight on stage supporters of both Ninja Man and Vybz Kartel flung bottles on stage. The tension broke into a violent rage when the crowd realised that, after waiting all night, headline act, Bounty Killer, had decided not to perform.

UNWRITTEN CONSENSUS

Sting has developed along the lines of an unwritten, unspoken and unacknowledged consensus that this is the place where the ultimate symbolic fires are lit and the phoenix consumed. It sets the stage for the rebirth. Cultural kings are dethroned and new ones crowned.

It is the dissolution. And like all dissolutions it must be violent.

The Sting consensus has come of age. Last Friday into early Saturday morning, Sting delivered its greatest spectacle of violence to a sold-out crowd and the mediated audience via live Internet feed and subsequent media reports and talk show discussions.

Where do we stand now that the bottles have subsided, the mob calmed, wounds patched and sanity about to be restored? Where do we stand as we look forward to Rebel Salute, the resolution?As Jamaicans, we are all responsible for Sting 2003.

Dancehall culture is an organic product of Jamaica. For good or evil it is our culture. We can hide behind our perceived status as separate and different from the rabble and mob.

It is imperative that we all take a resolution to force promoters to clean up their act. To force artistes to take responsibility for their actions and to insist that some modicum of decency be a part of these events. We must break the consensus.

Indeed, violence as parody and performance is creative and spectacular. But violence for violence's sake is detrimental to our struggling society. It presents us to the world at large as a bunch of rabble rousers and loggerheads.

These border clashes, riots and social upheavals foreground the negative while hiding the positive that makes us Jamaican.In the final analysis, Jamworld is an excellent venue.

Sting is a spectacular event. Ninja Man is a consummate performer and Vybz Kartel is a youth who needs some guidance. And the Sting audience is "all ah we". The buck must stop somewhere.

Donna P. Hope is a Ph.D. candidate at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. Emails may be sent to dhope@gmu.edu.

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