By Jacqueline Charles, The Miami Herald

KINGSTON—Men in tight jeans bounce up and down to the thumping beat, moving suggestively against scantily clad girls in neon-coloured bikini tops and supershort shorts twisting their bodies to the catchy lyrics.

As the DJ raps over the stuttering tracks, partygoers show no sign of the anxiety bubbling in this Caribbean cultural capital over the future of dancehall reggae, one of the island’s chief musical exports. Its sagging status seems particularly poignant as the nation looks back at the evolution of its music over a half century of independence.

“It’s hormonal music. It’s young, feisty, anti-parent, youthful,” said Josef Bogdanovich, who runs a recording studio in West Kingston and is one of the few still gambling on the island’s signature, dancehall reggae. “Dancehall is real street and it’s real tough.”

After years of surging in popularity and enjoying mainstream U.S. radio airplay success in the ’90s, the music born in the underbelly of Jamaica’s urban culture in the 1970s as an edgy derivative of reggae is hitting a sour note. Some of its biggest international stars — Buju Banton, Vybz Kartel and Busy Signal among others — are fighting criminal charges and others face visa revocations and cancelled concerts.

Much like the drama that encircled hip hop in the 1990s, dancehall reggae is accused of nurturing slackness, glorifying violence and negatively influencing a whole new generation of Caribbean youth with its sexually explicit, sometimes violent, homophobic lyrics. International organizations and gay rights groups have long complained the music incites anti-gay violence.

Now Jamaican culture critics are calling for a cleanup amid dwindling records sales here and in the United States, and the increasingly bad rap it’s getting.

Some blame artists’ legal troubles for the negative vibes, while others say what’s happening in dancehall is a larger reflection of Jamaican society and its highly competitive, unorganized music industry.

“It’s unfair to paint a situation that says dancehall is this renegade faction within the society doing (messed up) things,’” said Dylan Powe, a Jamaican music expert.

“Dancehall and reggae music are indicators to some extent of an overall decline in the moral values of the whole society. There are politicians and police who have been accused of a lot of the same things as a lot of these acts who are currently in jail.”

But where some see crisis, others see opportunity.

Promoter Bogdanovich says it’s already happening.

“A new generation of artists is starting to get the confidence and desire and strength to do their thing. That’s a different kind of generation. The words are shorter, not as long, get to the point quickly. You might call it Attention Deficit Disorder.”

For more on this story go to:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1263891—hormonal-music-gets-a-bad-rap-in-jamaica