Contents - Beth Lesser

Slackness
T he media, along with those within “proper society” who felt they had the
right to dictate what were acceptable social standards, didn’t take long to
start attacking the new ‘dancehall’ style music. In a barrage of invective that
lasted the entire decade, the press, the police, the government and all the upper
echelons of society proclaimed that the music and lyrics were pandering to
the lowest common denominator and compromising Jamaica’s image abroad.
The venues were patronized by gangsters, they complained, and that the lyrics
encouraged public lewdness, drug consumption, violence and crime.
It is interesting to note that not a single one of these complaints was new
to reggae music or exclusive to dancehall. Rastafarians had been totally open
about promoting ganja use for years (as had Bob Marley) through their music.
Mento music was rife with sexual references and innuendo. Rock Steady and
Reggae often celebrated Rude Boys and their lifestyle.
Just as ‘the establishment’, from the press to the police, had fought Rastafarianism,
it now honed its sites on dancehall. And as with these earlier
instances, the typical response was to resist change and blame music for society’s
shortcomings. And dancehall, with its strong ties to ghetto culture,
seemed every bit as threatening to middle-class morals as Rastafarianism had
a generation ago.
By the ‘80s, Bob Marley had done much to promote the image of Rastafarians
in both Jamaica and abroad. Having been cleansed of his revolutionary
image, Bob was elevated to the level of Jamaican National Hero, and wearing
dreadlocks had become more a fashion statement than a political, social or
religious statement. Now that Rastas were no longer seen as crazed murderers
or members of a revolutionary army, the government and media began to view
them as something benign enough to start including their images in tourist
campaigns. Whereas, in the ‘70s, grandmothers used to tell their grandchildren
to stay away from the ‘Blackheart man’, she was now more likely to
threaten kids with a good hiding for repeating slack lyrics.
When Bob Marley passed away, people in society even grew nostalgic for
the dreadlocks era, and were ready to forgive Rastamen all the sins previously
imputed to them. Anything to keep the new threat of dancehall at bay.
Articles in the Jamaican Gleaner warned of the calamity to befall Jamaica
because of this new form of music anarchism:
“Dancehall as a way of life emphasizes the unproductive elements in society.
It does not contribute to the development of human capital and, like the
posses, is a challenge to our social order since it threatens to grow beyond the
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