Cayman Islands politican trashes dancehall

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of The Cayman Islands William McKeeva Bush has charged Jamaican dancehall entertainers to clean up their act and dump the "fool-fool stuff".

Bush was closing out his address at the opening ceremony of the 67th Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show in Denbigh, Clarendon, last week when he made the comments.

"Jamaica has come a long way in the last several years, and you have much to be proud of, and you should continue to be proud of your agricultural products, your music. And, for God's sake, take some of the dancehall fool-fool stuff and play good music as you used to play," he said to applause.

In an interview afterwards, Bush defended his remarks.

"The quality of music has gone down. Because unless they change it, what you hear is 'cuss cuss' and 'pie pie'. Violence is what it demonstrates, and that is not what I know that Jamaica has been used to... . Jamaica produces good music, good reggae, from rocksteady, from mento right up to good Bob Marley reggae, Eric Donaldson reggae, and others, of course, many others," he told THE STAR.

The former premier of The Cayman Islands, who described himself as a musician, wasn't quite finished excoriating present-day dancehall ambassadors. He, however, made it quite clear that these were his personal views.

"What you have here now, in this dancehall run, is not something that I encourage. The emergence of dancehall music, as it has been, probably since the 1990s, when it reared its head, has not done anything, from my perspective, to raise the standard," he said.

"Jamaican music, in that regard, has gone down, and because I love Jamaica, and because I feel a part of Jamaica, I would like to see a strong emergence of good, clean dance music."