ALAS

BY STARAPPLE

Last year was the Gully Gaza Year and at the close a truce was called, Thank God. Since the start of the year it’s been a bit more enjoyable to party. It’s like there has been a tension lifted from the partying atmosphere. Persons who would like a Mavado song, but before the truce wouldn’t rail to it are now doing so joyously and a lot of other songs are getting to the ears of listeners. What the deejays who spin music can now do is please stop discounting party goers and play a wider selection of music. That is for another article.

So far the men have called a truce even though Stephen McGregor has issued a song which is clearly throwing darts at Vybz Kartel; let’s see what the response will be to this.

Remember the year before coming off Sting, Kartel and Mavado had a clash to which we can’t clearly call a winner and the rest of the following year (2009) we had a rather factious year. Well last year Lisa Hyper (nee Hype) had a nasty expose which found her grappling with the Emperor’s Mic. Everyone except maybe those doing battle in the Middle East and those suffering in Somalia and Rwanda saw the pic and tongues were set wagging.

Stacious did a song which Hyper felt came as a direct attack at her, IKAYA did a song, apparently Face did a song. Well Timberlee, Baby Tash, Tifa and Pamputtae did not do songs so it begs the question, how did they get embroiled in the Hyper Soup?

Lisa Hype came out with guns blazing and responded to Stacious’ song since she perceived it as an attack on her. The Gangstress responded and the former 1st Lady of the Empire retorted. Well that war was soon shortlived since The Gangstress had loftier future ambitions.

Sting 2009 came and Hyper came to war, but with whom? She received forwards and boos and recovered from her boos by persisting. Well Pamputtae had finished her performance and Spice was next in line for the stage, but there was no performance by her. Why, what happened? Instead we had General B and Kiprich. The General became only known by B and had to buzz off. Well that aside Spice’s absence cause a lot of furore post Sting.

Nuffy called her a coward. Spice asserted that she was next in line after Pamputtae and Nuffy saw her, but because they had personal differences he ignored her and called up the other act. Nuffy claimed he had seen her and then he did not and so he moved on to the next artiste because he figured since he knew she was a coward she was afraid of the ball of fire that Hyper had built.

Hyper’s set primarily constituted a machete wielding exercise at the women in dancehall. She has since gone on to explain that she was sparing no one and was doing what was never done before. If Hyper is as bad as Nuffy claims why did he not allow Spice to go on the stage and have Hyper run in on her performance so that we could have a LIVE WAR instead of a studio wars. Spice penned a song addressing Hyper who had voiced a slewing song post Sting. Spice shot back like a sharp shooter, Hyper came back with two songs (one of which uses Baby Wayne’s flow from THE TRUTH, note carefully that she also uses a piece of Lady Saw melody from If Him Left). The last piece interesting given that Lady Saw has expressed her displeasure at the direction that the music is moving and how Hyper has behaved. She even went further to advice Spice publicly on Ragashanti’s programme telling her it was a war that was not worth it and that she needed not to respond any further as her career was more international than that.


Let’s hope that Spice heeds the advice and not descend into the quagmire that Hyper set for herself. We are a country of 9 day wonders and seem to relish scandal after scandal. Hyper not only sets a bad precedence for young women (gloating at sleeping with the boss), but display a trait that is highly destructive: TRAMPLING ON ANY ONE JUST TO GET AHEAD. Including those who were not critical of her career in the war, at least Tifa while being physically challenged has not allowed it to hold her back. Whether the ‘file’ that Nuffy has given to Hyper for Spice is incomplete or incorrect is irrelevant, he was afraid and unable to resolve his differences with Spice and used another female to do his deed. Maybe we ought to examine our men in dancehall. How are we so homophobic yet our men in dancehall trace more than the women? NOT ARGUE, but TRACE.

Let’s hope all the women in dancehall ignore HYPER so we can get on to good music and not big fish in a little pond behaviour as lyrics of this kind does nothing to further the genre overseas.