I MUST congratulate Carolyn Cooper on her wonderful piece in The Sunday Gleaner in defence of dancehall music. Make no mistake, the recent statements by the Broadcasting Commission are thinly-disguised attacks on the music of the people whose current form is dancehall.

I am old enough to remember when reggae music and all its proponents were under attack. The so-called 'buggu yagga, ragga ragga' (read reggae) music was deemed by the uptown masses to be NFAP (not fit for air play) and many songs of the leading proponents were banned. Bob Marley and his songs were never liked by the uptowners while he was alive, and it cuts to the bone to hear them now offer Marley's music as the alternative to dancehall.

Ill-thought out ban

With the current wording of the ban, we will never hear Bob sing "I shot the sheriff, but I nevah shoot the deputy" or "I feel like bombing a church" as both of these classics are far too violent for the new found morals of the authority. I remember well when books which taught us about our blackness were banned by self-serving people in authority.

This ill-thought out ban and its attempts to sanitise the airwaves of dancehall music will come back to haunt us. What has happened is that Pandora's Box has been opened and now cannot be closed. What started out as an attack on dancehall has been belatedly expanded to include soca music, so as to deflect the label of hypocrisy from the authority. To take the ban to its logical conclusion, we should no longer be able to see the gyrations of Shebada on TV advertising any more roots play (many may love that), and also we should no longer have any more foreign drama on our local TV stations as these are usually laced with words that are not fit to be heard by our people so the sound was simply turned down on these.

Despite this, we know exactly what was said. Ask any seven-year-old; lip reading is easily and automatically practised by all. TVJ and CVM I am watching on this one and will be writing the Broadcasting Commission to have them enforce their edict that if any part of a film has to be bleeped it cannot be aired in its entirety. But I suppose turning down the sound is not bleeping or is it that foreigners swearing is alright and it is only our own home-grown swearing that has a corrupting influence?

I am, etc.,

WARREN BLAKE

Kingston 10