The good folks at the MOJO blog have alerted me to a major music controversy in Jamaica.
The spiraling popularity of “daggering” — a “lewd” dance style with accompanying, explicitly-lyric’d dancehall tunes — has led the Jamaican government to take an unprecedented step: an all-out radio and TV ban on songs and videos with blatantly sexual content.
Here’s the background, from MOJO blogger David Katz:
The storm began brewing when a series of “daggering” hits gained widespread airplay… To the uninitiated, “daggering” is a super-lewd “dance” that leaves little to the imagination, in which groin-locked couples enact rapid-speed dry-humping. “Daggering” dancers basically enact simulated sex, since the term is roughly the Caribbean equivalent to “cabin stabbing.”
(Am I the only one who paused at this point to google “cabin stabbing”? And regretted it?)
Grumbles about the craze were already building, and things came to a climax (har har) when the Vybz Kartel and Spice duet, Rampin Shop, hit #1 on the local charts.
Katz again:
Five days later, the Jamaican Broadcasting Commission took the unprecedented step of banning all songs with explicit sexual content from radio and television, as well as songs that glorify gun violence, murder, rape or arson. The ban is absolute, meaning that such songs can no longer be aired as “clean” versions that make use of “bleeping.”
Responses to the ban have been extremely mixed. Some feel the government’s stance is hypocritical: Given that human rights campaigns have fallen on deaf ears for years, why should it take a bit of dry-humping to bring action?
I’m torn on this one.
On the one hand, I’m never a fan of censorship — and this full-on ban seems to be casting a pretty wide net. Who gets to decide what constitutes “explicit sexual content,” after all? If we let them come for our daggering tunes first, will they be after our Marvin Gaye albums next?
But on the other hand, I do worry about the overly sexualized world kids seem to be inhabiting these days. (I bet there are a lot of young’uns that wouldn’t have had to google “cabin stabbing”…) Jamaican reggae singer Horace Andy is quoted in the MOJO blog post: “I don’t think it’s right to play those kind of lyrics on the radio, cause if you beep it out, the kids still know. My daughter is four years old, and she knows every word of ‘Rampin Shop’.”
Check out a few examples and see for yourself.
Here’s Bragga’s “Dagga Dat”:
And Mr. Vegas, “Daggering”:
Finally, a homemade daggering demonstration, to the hit track “Hundred Stab”:
Call me desensitized, but they don’t seem much more objectionable than your average rap video. (But of course, just because we allow tracks like “Candy Shop” to play in prime time doesn’t mean Jamaica necessarily should, too…)
What do you think of the “daggering” craze? Harmless or sinister?
Top photo by sick of goodbyes (Creative Commons)
Bottom photo by Alex Barth (Creative Commons)
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You said it well at the end: “Call me desensitized, but they don’t seem much more objectionable than your average rap video. (But of course, just because we allow tracks like “Candy Shop” to play in prime time doesn’t mean Jamaica necessarily should, too…)”
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I think it’s kind of silly actually :s
It also kind of makes me feel bad for the declining morality of America when this looks tame to me compared to most other rap/hip hop stuff. -_-;;;
Oh well, freedom of speech, expression and all that stuff right? I don’t think they should have banned it anyway, considering people are going to continue listening and doing stuff progressively more risque despite, or maybe even because of, the ban XD↵ -
“Who gets to decide what constitutes “explicit sexual content,” after all?”
You make the assumption that explicit sexual content, by some definition or another is a bad thing that should not be allowed to be seen by the general public. I suggest you re-evaluate this line of thinking in order to decide whether or not censorship of “daggering” is justified.
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MAJOR LAZER PON DE FLOR
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EXACTLY what I was going to say. These are pretty tame (and less hilarious) by comparison
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If you want to stop this, you’re 20 years too late. Raggamuffin and Reggeaton are here to stay.
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@Jay. From a mature perspective, teenagers are biologicaly wired to be more concerned with smashing little Julie than the direction in which they want to take their lives. Sex is the purpose of life itself, to perpetuate itself, and dance is the most natural way to express sexual courtship. To dance in a sexual manner shouldn’t even be put in the category of rational thought or action become it’s emotional and instinctive at its core. That’s the way it always has been and always will be. If you think that this “laid back” society is going straight down the hill, check the middle ages when sexual repression was at an all time high, you think there weren’t STD’s and pregnant 13 year olds? Consorship or abstinence propaganda will never work because the biological drive is stronger than any social construct. For the most part, sexual restriction causes nothing more than personal complexes and psychological frustrations. What do you mean when you say “to distract people from what they really need to be thinking about”? Seems to me that every little action that people do whether its becoming an artist, doctor, lawyer, writer, basketball player, or what have you, can always be traced down to the desire to be more sexually attractive, even if at a subconcious level. Remember that 14 year old girls were more than capable of getting pregnant long before mass media came around.
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At least they’re having fun doing what they want to do.
People don’t realize that dancing is an alternative to crime in places where blacks live under oppressed conditions (which is pretty much everywhere).
Personally, I wish Yellowman’s style would come back, but it probably won’t.
Sex is fun and positive — it sure beats blowing up the World Trade Center and blaming it on imaginary terrorists.
So I think we should let them have their scene (if that’s what they want) and try to tackle real problems like crime, war and racism.
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I honestly believe that the ban was the right thing to do in Jamaica. Believing that just because sex is part of our lives doesn’t mean it IS life itself. With the free spread of daggering and other kinds of explicit sexual material(whether rap videos or Marvin Gaye), whole societie become less rational and progressive, creating conditions for more poverty, starvation and ignorance in the crowds; maybe something Jamaica has been living for some time.
Having sex is a really intimate thing, and by letting some damaged minds to freely spread pervert concepts about it as the ‘greatest thing in life’ is really destructive. I just hope Jamaican moral organizations can take advantage of this ban and start a counter movement against this and other sick things that may come in the future.
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well it seems that you dont undestand what daggering is or todays music in general thus you said rap videos or marvin gaye other wise you would know that no one under the age of 30 listens to marvin gaye, and music and dancing is a release from the day to day monotony and yes jamaica is gripped by poverty due to a corrupt government so music and dancing is one of the ways to enjoy life.
you think that sex is a intimate thing and no one is disagreeing with you but daggering isent sex, there is no penetration happening, its simply a dance that has developed from another dance called the “dutty wine”.
and you must be christian or religious in some way that’s why you said “letting some damaged minds to freely spread pervert concepts” and who is to deem this a perverted, they are grown adults and are both consenting because if they were not one of them would simply not do it and daggering gets bashed for being perverted and lewd and wrong but priest having sex with little boys get swept under the rug every time another case arises so who is truly really sick and perverse?
and you have obviously never been to a dancehall club and daggered because if you did you would see that this is the greatest feeling you will ever have with your clothes on.
and sex is what we are programmed to do as human that we are and the animals that we are is what we do and sex should never be looked down upon as a bad thing or that is should be banned.
and who are the jamaican moral organizations? churches? the same churches that bash homosexuals and kill them, the same churches that say that condoms give you AIDS and the same churches that molest children and help to fund child pornography, the same churches whose bishops and even the pope live in huge houses in unbelievable luxury whilst people in Africa and south america die from poverty and those are the two continents with the highest chirstian percentage, so dont talk about moral and what is wrong and what is right, stop living is your safe little world telling people that they are wrong.
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