In the early days of Mavado’s career he got a lot of bashing for his crude lyrics, among other artistes, but he got a bit of “extra” attention because he happened to go “Mainstream” even more than Vybez Kartel, Aidiona, Busy Signal etc. People know him; uptown and downtown alike, so critique for his “violent lyrics” was a MUST. He claimed that they were just giving ghetto youth a “fight”.
As of recently Mavado’s career has taking of; and it’s flying high indeed. Rolling stone even named him the the “Best New Reggae”. Act i guess?
But to elaborate on what i really wanted to point out is the fact that our local media and people who criticize dance hall artistes like Mavado for there violent lyrics are full of shit, yes! i said it. Why is it that they bash these artistes constantly about there lyrics, but when they decide to make a change and sing uplifting songs no one commends/highlights them for it? Mavado has a relatively new song called “We Shall Overcome“; it speaks nothing of violence, it does not bash women, gays or anybody of the sort it simply talks about the hardships we(Jamaicans) shall come out of no matter the odds. It should be getting crazy airplay, but i haven’t heard it much. Give these artistes a reason to sing more songs like that.
If he sings it and it gets no attention then he’s going back to his old “Hardcore Gangster” lyrics…so that you guys can give him some publicity, because that’s all it is. Outline him for the right reason not the wrong one. Honestly if i was an artist singing “Gangster: lyrics” and i was getting extreme bashing for it and i decided to change and sing some clean songs and it wasn’t being publiczed and making any money then by god i’d switch back over to my “gangster” lyrics that were actually making me money. Regardless of what anyone says. Whatever it takes to acquire money, eh?
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Originally published on gordonswaby.com on 2008-06-28 (recovered from the Internet Archive).