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For Him, Reggae Is the Family Business

THE new hit-making force in Jamaican music doesn’t live in the steamy downtown ghettos Bob Marley made famous but on a leafy residential road high on a hill here, in the upscale neighborhood Havendale, St. Andrews. Just 18, Stephen McGregor, also known as Di Genius, is a member of one of reggae’s reigning families: the clan of the veteran singer Freddie McGregor.

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How Jamaica’s Volatile Dancehall Scene Can Avoid a Biggie vs. Tupac Tragedy

It’s that time again: Dancehall reggae is taking the heat. Not that Jamaica’s resplendently lewd and crude export ever stops courting controversy—a lyrical bounty of violence and slackness, not to mention sporadic yet egregious forays into homophobia, make it ever-ready for reproach. But for months, the backlash has intensified. As gun-talking dancehall stars escalated beefs with each other, the Jamaican government began beefing with them, performing weapons raids at concerts and selectively enforcing the Noise Abatement Act, which holds parties and other public events to strict curfews. Meanwhile, media pundits went into attack mode, blaming dancehall for Jamaica’s record-level murder rate and epidemic of violence. Climactically, Red Stripe, after a peaceful seven-year partnership, nixed its sponsorship of Reggae Sumfest, the premier festival held every July in Montego Bay.

So, in time for the genre’s warm-weather close-up—on American airwaves, at the West Indian Day Parade on Labor Day, and, especially, at the premier Irie Jamboree show in Queens on August 31—I humbly offer five bits of advice to the dancehall massive: artists, listeners, critics. This wisdom comes not from me but from dancehall’s close relative, which has been there and done that, enduring many a beating from pundits and cultural gatekeepers yet still maturing into a multibillion-dollar industry: hip-hop.

Lesson #1: Monitor the beef.

Beef has been a staple of the reggae diet since the ’50s, when legendary sound-system pioneer and proud gunslinger Duke Reid went viciously sound-to-sound with Studio One’s Coxsone Dodd. And while dancehall feuds, from Super Cat vs. Shabba Ranks to Bounty Killer vs. Beenie Man, were once entirely lyrical, that’s no longer always true.

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