In May, 2017, I attended Jive Zimbabwe’s online music sales event at the Jameson Hotel. This was hosted by The Jive Zimbabwe director, Benjamin Nyandoro who brought Soul Musaka aka Soul Jah Love. Jah Love praised this project and stated that whatever money he makes from it, will be his pension. I then pulled Soul Jah Love to one side for a quick interview. He started off by calling me Chibaba. I was not surprised at this name-calling as he is the one who had been very innovative in Zimdancehall circles with words such as mboko, mabhanditi, pamamonya ipapo and makuruwani as part of his word file menu. I asked him about the vulgarity in some of his lyrics and he told me that he was merely imitating the everyday words they use in Mbare. “We don’t even see such words as vulgar. It is normal language to the ghetto youths”. He said he was not the only one with such lyrics. Indeed, I later discovered that many Zimdancehall artistes use some lyrics or innuendos, which are not easily acceptable to elders in this society. Examples are in songs such as Kana Ndanyura by Killer T, Hombe by Blot, Pinda Mukati by Jerry B, Pombi by Freeman, Bhurugwa by Poptain, Stonyeni by Jah Signal, and Zunza Mazakwatira from Legend Elly. I asked if he thought dancehall had brought about 'slackness', 'vulgarity', ‘drug-taking’ and 'obscene behaviour' among Zimbabwe’s youth. He said that all these things happen even if there is no music ‘Vanongosticker’, he said.
I also asked Soul Jah Love about his musical influences. He told me that he watched a lot of Jamaican performances and tried to incorporate them into Zimdancehall. In 2017 he and his team were into watching and imitating the Jamaican daggering dance style. “It’s got nothing to do with daggers or knives, but it’s a new dance style”, he said.
I went on to do my research into this area.
What is the daggering dance style?
Daggering is a form of dance originating from Jamaica. The dance incorporates the male dancer ramming his crotch area into the female dancer's buttocks, and other forms of frantic movement. Daggering is not a traditional dance; it is of recent origin, associated with the wave of dancehall music.
Jamaica is the country where dancehall was born. It has since spread its wings to reach countries like Zimbabwe where the Zim-ghetto youths have labelled it Zimdancehall. In Zimbabwe this genre has almost toppled other genres as evidenced by its popularity on radio stations.
However, despite its popularity, dancehall is often viewed negatively by the society at large mainly due to its negative lyrics, lurid sexual promotion, drug use, violence and misogyny.
As if that is not enough, a new craze called 'daggering' is, according to the Jamaican Gleaner, sweeping Jamaica’s night clubs. No, it's not murder on the dance-floor, it is a new dance craze where couples are seen simulating sex. Women, in particular, are seen on the dancefloor flaunting their big boobs and buttocks.
According to the Gleaner, broadcasting regulators are trying to put a stop to it.
Jamaica's Broadcasting Commission is trying to put an end to ‘daggering’, a fad that is sweeping the country's dancehall and soca clubs. While the term suggests knife attacks, it is actually a sexy dance where fornication is simulated in relatively graphic movements – and, well…… the scene is like boy stands behind a semi-nude girl and pretends they are having sex while moving to the music... that's it.
Though an initial announcement explicitly targeted daggering and daggering-related songs such as Buoy Lick My Pussy and Girl I Want Your Punani, the latest ban is much broader. Banished from the airwaves in Jamaica is "any recording, live song or music video that promotes and/or glorifies the use of guns or other offensive weapons; any recording, live song or music video which promotes or glorifies any offence against the person such as murder, rape, and mob violence or other offences such as arson."
Music does influence behaviour, after all. Zimbabwe’s censorship board should take heed as our youths seem to emulate anything that comes from abroad and think that is cool.
Will ‘daggering’ ever reach Zimbabwe? My answer to this question is that it has already arrived.
In 2011, Zimbabweam promoter, Clint Robinson and his partners in C&A Entertainment brought into the country a well- known Jamaican dancehall artiste and ‘daggering’ activist, Mr Vegas, to perform in Zimbabwe. Those who attended the concert say that it was very exciting and that they learnt quite a few dancing tricks from Mr Vegas. Those dancing styles are still being practised here in Zimbabwe today.
“Gee it was so amazing! I learnt to do a few clarks dancing styles and also the Taliban dance from that man,” remarked Jennifer Daniels from Arcadia when I asked her about her experiences at the Mr Vegas show. Another interviewee, John Mabaya said that he did not enjoy the show because it was full of ‘dirty dancing’. “If the culture of throwing cans at the performers on stage was in existence then, I would have knocked Vegas over with beer cans. He was full of nasty dances. They were ghastly and dirty”, he elaborated.
A lot has changed in Jamaica regarding the broadcasting of music. Radio listeners in Jamaica have been forced to say goodbye to many of their favourite songs, thanks to a new ban on tunes that "promote" sex, violence, murder or arson.
The ban applies equally to "soca, hip-hop or any other music", making the Angels' My Boyfriend's Back ("and you're gonna be in trouble") just as verboten as Mr Vegas's hit dancehall tune, Daggering.
The new legislation will not allow radio stations to censor the offending songs through bleeping on the offensive word as they used to do before.. According to the ban announcement: "There shall not be transmitted through radio or television or cable services any audio recording, song or music video which employs editing techniques of 'bleeping' or 'beeping' of its original lyrical content," the commission ruled.
With naughty behaviour inspiring much of the past 50 years of popular music, there may not be much left on Jamaican radio by the time the Broadcasting Commission has its way. We can imagine the charts now — a little classical music, part of Tiny Tim's discography, and some soca tunes about taxes. Imagine, going to Kingston, Jamaica and turning on the radio, only to hear Beethoven, Mozart, Bach or Tchaikovsky’s music blurting out of the radio stations! That is not the Jamaica we all know.
I am still yet to carefully listen to Mr Vegas’s Daggering to judge for myself. I tried to sample it from YouTube before I began to write this article, but my network was playing up. I will give it a listen soon. If the Jamaican Broadcasting Commission gets its way, it will be goodbye to Mr Vegas aka Clifford Smith and his music unless he changes to cleaner lyrics. He has often been labelled a troublemaker.
Clifford Smith was born in Kingston in 1974. The moniker "Mr Vegas" was given to Smith by his schoolyard football-mates, who thought that he kicked the ball like a Las Vegas dancer. In his early years as a singjay, Vegas sang covers of Jamaican hits at local parties and shows, and acquired a reputation as a troublemaker for his lyrics. During a scuffle over stolen master tapes, Vegas was hit in the face with a crowbar and had his jaw wired shut for six weeks. Vegas claims that, after hearing Beenie Man’s' hit, Who Am I?, he immediately demanded that his still-healing jaw be unwired, changing his speech pattern but allowing him to practise toasting.
He found fame in 1998 with hits such as Yu Sure, Jack It Up, and Latest News. For his first major hit, Vegas versioned the wildly popular Playground Riddim (Sean Paul's Infiltrate among others) to create Nike Air, which became a huge hit.
One wonders why a man who had almost retired from music in 2008 because he wanted to be close to Almighy God, would suddenly compose a song called Daggering?
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