Govt should ban Alkaline and similar singers from coming to perform here

Dear Editor,

I saw on most of our TV stations that the dance hall singer Alkaline is coming to Guyana to sing. These TV promoters are promoting this Jamaica singer as if he is some sort of a messiah coming to Guyana to create a revival for our nation.

I am no fan of Alkaline and many of his contemporaries but I can differentiate what is a song from ‘’loud cussing’’ on a video.

I took some time to listen to Alkaline songs and in his songs he used the F words and tons of expletives and profanities. For example, his famous songs are ‘’Fleek, Wining down, Ride on Me, Side Gyal, One more time, City and a long list of songs loaded with cuss words degrading women.

In his music video Fleek he has tons of cash in his hands as he smoked drugs and has a woman practically naked wining up on a pole. In the music video ‘Side Gyal’’ he and a girl having sex explicitly and he sings his sex song to her explicitly depicting sex in a real immoral manner. He starts his next music video ‘’City’’ with tons of F words.

My concerns about this Jamaican Dance Hall singer are many? Why would promoters want to bring this immoral singer to our country? Who is responsible for bringing him? Are they aware of what he sings?

The lyrics of his songs are obnoxious and very degrading to women and young people.

Songs by Alkaline, Vibez Kartel, Mavado, Popcaan, Konshens, are very vulgar and many of our Guyanese singers joining this vulgar crew. A very careful view of these music videos and one would see that it is musical pornography invading our society.

I am calling on the Minister of Public Security and the Minister of Education and the Minister of State to ban Alkaline from coming to perform here. We must also remember that Kartel is currently serving a prison sentence in Jamaica for murder.

Our government should ban all the songs of these dance hall singers from entering Guyana so as to create a clean society. I challenge our ministers including our President and Prime Minister to listen to Alkaline songs, I bet they won’t hear it for five minutes. Our young people have fallen morally, spiritually, and academically because of all these filthy music entering our nation.

I have taken time off to view some of the shows which are replayed on TV. What I have seen and listened to is very immoral and disturbing to my soul. Songs from the Trinidad group by the Hit Man and our own Terry Gajraj and Adrian Dutchin promote rum drinking, and we are fully aware that rum is the cause of family break-ups and domestic violence in our society.

Many of these songs have sexual overtones, and promote violence against women yet they are given a stage in Guyana. Some of our own singers join them by singing songs that promote vulgarity of the highest nature.

Another song I viewed is called ‘All Night’; the message of the song really promotes sex, but does that really help our nation while we battle against AIDS?

Are these singers and entertainers really helping our nation morally? Are they helping our young people spiritually and academically? While some of our singers and artists are very talented they can do better by singing cleaner songs with meaning like those of Bob Marley and Eddy Grant.

I also observed that lots of singers today are performing very scantily dressed, from lady GaGa, Britney Spears, Niki Minaj, Beyonce, Madonna, and including many of our own singers. Most of the females in these music videos are in their underwear gyrating and ‘wining.’

We have fallen from grace as a nation in this fast moving world of lawless and ignorant singers who became millionaires by promoting sex in their songs because sex sells in various forms.

It seems to me that those who are bringing Alkaline here don’t care about the harm they are doing this nation but their major concern is to make money.

God admonishes us in Holy Scripture that: ‘’ For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.’’ 1 Timothy 6:10

I discovered that people in this world can do anything for money even if many people have to die for them to get rich. I call on our present administration to ban all these immoral singers from Jamaica, Trinidad, and from the USA too, from coming here to perform their filth.

When I talk about great singers I can call a few here like: Bob Marley, Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, Paul Anka, Mohamed Rafi, Sono Nigam, Whitney Houston, Celene Dion, Shania Twain, Marc Anthony, The Marley Brothers, etc. To hear just a few of these singers can transform your soul when you hear them sing.

William Shakespeare wrote: ‘’If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.’’

What is the Ministry of Culture doing about these immoral shows that are invading our country? Can we really define our culture or do we have what it takes to comprehend the meaning of the word ‘culture.’

We also need to take another look at the vulgarity of Mashramani and ask ourselves if these events are helping the moral and intellectual fabric of our society.

It’s about time our citizens stopped supporting these shows because these entertainers are getting rich from our nation, which is poor. We can only value our nation by what we have produced and achieved over the years, and we have not arrived as yet.

As VS Naipaul wrote: “We have produced nothing in the Caribbean.” What we have produced is Carnival and vile music that gives us more poverty, illiteracy, immorality and misery.

Yours faithfully,

Rev Gideon Cecil