The Jamaica Star :: Entertainment :: We need 'de tape' from Guyana

Bounty Killer. - File

Last weekend's 'Ignition' concert in Guyana certainly ignited a storm, what with the bottles during Bounty Killer's concert-ending performance and the speculation as to the cause of the missile-throwing.

A s reported in THE STAR on Tuesday, One camp, including his manager Julian Jones-Griffith, says it was due to frustration with technical difficulties. The other says the cause was lyrics against homosexuality.

I, of course, want to believe that it was the constant interruptions which caused the people to get 'cross, angry, miserable' and behave in a manner associated much more with Jamaica (although we seem to have cooled off that practice). Get bottle? For lyrics against gays? In the Caribbean? And it's not carnival with the price so high that the downtown and mid-town people can't come.

However, I have been very disappointed with the reporting on the incident. I have checked the Internet, repeatedly, and I have not been able to find a single report which specifies what went on. Sure, there are comments from the organiser of the show, held at the Guyana National Park, who spoke about warning Bounty Killer against using anti-gay lyrics.

But there is no blow-by-blow (no pun intended) report of the concert, what was said, when the bottles were thrown, when the gunshots were fired or when the audio went. The details of the sequence of events would go a far way to clarifying the cause of the bottles and gunshots.

Since we don't have 'de tape' of the event yet and the fact that none has been reported of so far might indicate the unthinkable - that none exists.

Crucial juncture?

In this case 'de tape' is crucial to our understanding of an incident that could just mark a watershed in dancehall (that is, if the anti-gay theory is correct). However, generally, the lack of detailed reporting makes the reading experience less than it could be.

After all, most entertainment events do not get televised coverage, and those that do have only a few of the many hours put on screen. And that, often, happens long after the fact, or the gap is so big that the desired impact is not there.

It is the written word which can and should capture all of an event, with details of critical points. In this case we simply do not have it and have to rely on speculation, charge and counter-charge.

It's a pity.