Dancehall is alive and well - Razor B

When deejay Vybz Kartel was found guilty of murder in 2014 and sentenced to 35 years in prison, many dancehall fans expressed that the genre would have died a slow death. They believed that with the man leading the charge no longer on the front line, dancehall would eventually become irrelevant.

Our Star of the Month, Razor B, weighed in on the issue and declared unequivocally that dancehall is very much alive and well.

In a recent interview with THE STAR, the deejay, who has been burning up the airwaves in the dancehall, revealed that while he respects Vybz Kartel and what he has done for the music, he doesn't believe the genre is behind bars with the deejay.

"Dancehall nuh live a nuhbody yaad," he said. "I respect the fact that we had a great dancehall artiste that put us there for the world to see in the form of Kartel, but dancehall nuh live a Kartel yaad, and it definitely nuh deh a jail. There are so many people in the world that dancehall is yet to reach, so it can't be behind bars."

He said there are many artistes in the dancehall who are doing the same things for the music that Kartel did. "The same thing weh him do, I am doing it and I'm going to continue doing it; and I want to do it, even bigger."

Razor B, who is fairly new in the dancehall circuit, also talked about what changes he would like to see made in the industry to take the music to the next level. "First of all, you have people who judge the music and say its negative; but I want to tell them that the music is not negative, it's the people who are negative," he explained. "Dancehall music is fun. People in Jamaica have fun, that's what we do, and dancehall a we everything as the deejay said. It's just that we have a few people within the industry that do some things sometime that make people look at the music in a bad light."

He added that dancehall is not just about the artiste and explained that if the industry insiders would understand that the music involves everybody as a unit, then the entertainment fraternity in Jamaica could do a lot better. "Dancehall is a family, it's not just made up of one individual. It's made up of selectors, producers, dancers and managers, so we all have to come together and work as a unit. There is no unity in dancehall and that's coming from the hype. Everybody want to be the man, the king, and dancehall is everybody as a unit; so we need to understand that if we are going to move forward."