Editorial - The Red Stripe & Reggae Saga

Earlier this year senior executives at Red Stripe Beer decided to withdraw its sponsorship from a number of local live concert events including the world renowned Reggae Sumfest Music Festival.

The decision was met with strong resistance from the Reggae fraternity, and many of its members including the Dancehall Doctor, Beenie Man, and his arch rival Bounti Killa spoke openly against the company, launching an anemic boycott of the worlds coolest beer company.

Their claim for complaint is that the beer brand has built its popularity and market visibility by capitalizing on the international appeal of Reggae, and its desertion is simply another imposition by the Gay war campaign to cripple the dancehall movement worldwide.

In all fairness, Red Stripe had become a synonymous figure of Reggae Music.
Since the first wave of hippies and ganja connoisseurs hit the Negril beach strip in the late seventies, Red Stripe and Reggae have been two peas in a pod. The harmonious relationship between the two continued into the early nineties, and when Reggae Sumfest became the premier Reggae festival, Red Stripe joined on board as a title sponsor.

For the next 15 years, the two existed in harmony.

Circa 2008.

Red Stripe, now an international brand had extended its scope beyond the shores of Jamaica. It had become a global icon in its own right and with it the responsibility to protect the brands viability and international appeal overshadowed the existing relationship between the two entities. The issue was further complicated by the acquisition of the brand by European brew giant Diageo, who introduced a corporate sponsorship policy which further suffocated the already deteriorating alliance.

Red Stripes’ decision was not just a blow to Reggae, but a bombshell on the Dancehall. The announcement resonated throughout the industry and when the smoke cleared, Diageo’s Policy was hailed by Gay rights group Outrage, as a positive strike for the ongoing murder music campaign.

Dancehall had become a causality of circumstance.

The predominance of Dancehall in recent times as Jamaica’s primary music genre gives its artisans no credence to complain of abandonment. Its’ evident mediocre presence on the mainstream circuit has been overshadowed by the looming global presence of Red Stripe, and its intrinsic value has been overstated by the glitter and glamour of a cottage industry that has yet to bear any real fruit.

Truth be told, the retarded growth of dancehall music has been caused by its own fraternity, and the self destructive nature of the art form continues to create commercial hemorrhaging for the entire industry.

The simplistic problems that plague the innards of the dancehall, has sapped and soaked the enthusiasm of the mainstream market and the surrounding stigmas have made many worldwide wary to deal with the dancehall.

Let the fact be noted. Red stripe has outgrown dancehall, not because of bandwagonism, but because Dancehall has refused to grow.

The small island beer company became a premium lager and Dancehall decided to play dunce and stay home.

The mind numbing ignorance of the dancehall domain has refused all the offered opportunities to expand its horizon and establish its presence on the world music scene as a commercially viable business.

But it’s still a hustle, operated by hustlers, bent on hustling everyone, including themselves.

Sadly, it seems the only lesson we have learnt from our Afro-American counterparts is the art of materialistic consumption, the primary ingredient of self-destruction.

Until we decide collectively to become a business, with parameters of professional ethics and etiquette, Dancehall will remain a retarded underground sound trapped in a constant regret of did have, should have, could have.

Selah

Lloyd Laing
Chief Editor
The Reggae News Agency

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