Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
LEFT: Professor Heather Russell Andrade addressing the audience at the Reggae Conference at the assembly Hall at the University of the West Indies on Thursday, February 21.
RIGHT: Buju Banton
Carolyn Johnson and Mel Cooke, Freelance Writers
The fourth day of the 2008 Global Reggae Conference, hosted at the University of the West Indies, Mona, opened with presentations on some of the major themes within dancehall. All were summarised in one topic: 'Badman, Bad Gyal and Batty Bwoy; Gender, Sexuality and Dancehall in the Global South'.
The first paper to tackle the issues came from Sheri Harrison of the Department of English at the University of Miami.
In her absence, the paper was read by Andrea Shaw. Harrison's paper, 'Badman Don't Apologise to no Batty Bwoy: Negotiating Dancehall's Homophobia in Caribbean Critical Discourse', delved into the treatment of homosexuality and homosexuals within Jamaica's society and popular music, touching on real- life consequences like HIV/AIDS.
Artistes content
Drawing from the context of Sizzla's Badman Don't Apologise, one question the paper explored was homosexuality as the ultimate sin. Speaking from biblical authority, the artiste refers to Leviticus, and Harrison specifically to Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
Harrison argued that it is the Bible's denouncement of the act that has led to legislative policy in Jamaica against homosexuality, with reference to the Buggery Act. It is also upon this authority that terminal violence is meted out to homosexuals. This, the paper said, is seen as an act of cleansing the sin of all sins, sanctioning the violence carried out by God's servants on earth.
The second presenter, Heather Andrade from Florida International University, shifted focus to explore another section of the session's blanket topic. 'Calls Pon Di Celly: Gender, Technology and Form in Tanya Stephens' Soundscapes', Andrade said, was rated PG-13. The warning, however, was more of a disclaimer than an apology for the exploration she undertook, described as "unapologetic" mainly for its frankness and use of popular language.
In discussing Stephens' work Andrade described the artiste as a poet extraordinaire who is "unabashed in the articulation of female sexual desire and the need for sexual fulfillment, (and) the realities of man-sharing. Stephens also intertwines the uses of technology and poetry in her songs, as seen in Tek Im Back and The Message.
Various concepts
Starting with Tek Im Back and Toni Morrison's character 'Sula', Andrade sought to decipher the concept of stealing or 'tekking' a man as the description for acts of infidelity. In a paradigm of three-party relationships, husband, wife and matie, Andrade noted that the responsibility for the action of transgression is placed at the female's feet. This, she explained, was because the notion of stealing was not a lament for the sexual transgression or sexual transfer but to the loss of property, money, goods, and/or service. This, she said, becomes more important in stratified societies with economic strains. With that, references were made to Gwen Guthrie's Ain't Nothing On But the Rent, Pay Down Pon It by Shabba Ranks and Destiny's Child's Bills, Bills, Bills.
Shaw read her own 'Born in Chanel, Christen in Gucci: The Rhetoric of haute couture in Dancehall'. Playing the relevant songs throughout her presentation, Shaw outlined that in Sean Paul's Deport Them women who were not "up to date" should be put out of the session. In addition, to not be fashionable exempts a woman from the realms of sexual visibility, while in Fight Ova Man deejay Spice actually brands the vagina.
It is from this song that the title of the presentation came.
Buju Banton's Driver A, on the other hand, Shaw said, presents a masculine discourse on female designer wear, with the line "my gal waan wear Victoria Secret drawers".
Hence, one of the reasons for the marijuana shipment venture is to secure and maintain a woman in designer underwear.
With Vegas and Lady G, Shaw introduced the concept of the 'skettel name bran' and, quoting an interview with designer Earl 'Biggy' Turner, illustrated the tendency towards clothes from abroad.
She noted that early European settlers imported their clothing, then likened the wearing of overseas designer gear in dancehall to a type of skin bleaching, as there is "a blending of black bodies and white-designed clothing".
And the copious consumption of these clothes in the dancehall space may just represent a desire to be distanced from the 'primitiveness' of the dancehall space.
In the question-and-answer segment that followed, one person pointed out the influence of the dancehall on the designers themselves. The panel, scheduled to start at 9:00 a.m., begun late and, in the absence of the slated chairperson, was started by the two panellists present.
