Dancehall artiste Aidonia has come under scrutiny following his call for unity in dancehall. The Kingston native recently had a few words to say about the music industry on his Instagram live platform. His comments and intentions have now been put to the fore by fans and other dancehall stakeholders. Basically, Aidonia appealed to fans to appreciate music based on merit regardless of the artist. There is a well-documented culture of cliques and rivalry within the dancehall space which segregates fans and Aidonia’s plea was to do away with it.
“Stop de bias, bad artiste ah bad artiste, bad song ah bad song,†he said in the Live session. “Not because you say 6ixx, you cyan say Unruly, or you cyan say ray. Ah dat wha we talk, support the music. Ah whole heap a bad artiste and bad song deh deh.â€
Unfortunately, his message has been construed as a gimmick and a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Buju Banton’s son Markus Myrie replied to his live session calling out the deejay saying he was one of the instigators of the said division as he has refused to feature on riddims due to such issues. Commenting on Twitter the producer went on to say,
“Weird to me when dancehall artistes call for unity knowing say a dem a cause the segregation.. producers can barely give fans a solid juggling because a unu. A dont work wid B cause him par wid C and A nuh wah C get nuh ‘Strength’ from him by being on the same riddim…â€
Myrie is not alone in his hypocrisy claim as other producers have shared the same sentiment. These include Foota Hype and Anju blaxx who replied the post saying,
“Dem a bawl fi UNITY tru dem a look Opportunity! #blackstate #hypocritesofdancehall.â€
From a neutral’s perspective, there is a lot of merit in Aidonias comments. However, do you ignore the message as Aidonia does not necessarily practise what he preaches? How about trying to address the message and not the messenger? Dancehall is still trying to find its feet in growing the genre and life would be much easier if everyone pulled together.
