OUT AND RAW

Melville Cooke and Krista Henry, Staff Reporters


Left: Tanya Stephens sings about 'public sex' in 'Don't Play' a song from her 'Rebelution' album. Right: In 'Pharmacy' Busy Signal puts a social spin on public sex.

In this age of cameras probing everywhere and recording what was once considered private and even taboo to venture too far into public, dancehall has brought sex out into the musical open.

This does not mean, of course, that sex is a new topic, any number of dancehall artistes from General Echo to Shabba

Ranks and Mavado, Lady Saw to Spice and any number in between have delved deeply (very deeply) into the subject. In the same way the video light has moved from showing off what is on a female to making public what is under her.

But bringing the matter physically into the open in a county where it is still unusual to see couples holding hands, is something different.

In Pharmacy Busy Signal puts a social spin on public sex, as he introduces a 'high society' to the other side of the tracks. Or, more accurately, the bushes. He deejays that "me buy a pack a condom uppa de pharmacy, wuk a stoosh gal inna de bush an mek de farma see."

While Busy Signal is happy to expose his conquest and prowess to the man who tills the soil, in Squeeze Breast Mavado makes the publicity of the private act an audio style one, as he encourages the lady to make noise "because de lane waan hear".

And Tanya Stephens wishes to silence the sound that masks the evidence of pleasure in Don't Play, as she instructs her partner to "pass de remote mek sure de Magnavox mute, so when de neighbour dem see yu dem sey respec' my yute".

Sex in explicit terms

One of the latest songs to explore sex in public comes from Assassin in his collaboration with Usher for Love In This Club. The song itself talks about sex in explicit terms but Assassin brings it to the public area as he deejays "di way wi inna di zone is like nobody else no inna di club" then sweetly croons to the girl "because yuh looking so fine and yuh have di likkle miniskirt weh mi like so yuh can mek it ride up pretend no one's beside us."

Vybz Kartel, known for his risqué lyrics takes sex into the light of a national reggae festival. In Tic Toc Kartel talks about women being proud of their 'assets' and body by having sex in public, as he says "Gal pull yuh bre mek u man tun bres/&% him all inna Reggae Sumfest."

A changing world seems to explain why there is a sexual shift. In an interview with the STAR, writer and lecturer at the University of the West Indies Dr Donna Hope explained why dancehall drew so much on sexuality rather than its predecessor reggae music.

She said, "reggae music is a part of our culture, it produced dancehall. Dancehall is the more contemporary version and it draws from contemporary issues such as sexuality."

Whereas Jamaicans were once reticent about sex it seems to have become more accepting in the public domain as the songs get more raunchy.


Vybz Kartel in 'Tic Toc' talks about a woman being proud of her assets.