Cricketing legend, now Dancehall artist, Chris Gayle, says he has had to be \u201cgreasing the palms\u201d of disc jockeys for them to showcase his songs in Jamaica, as due to his earnings and net worth, many look at him as a \u201cmoney bag\u201d, and therefore withhold play, unless there is pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey look at Chris as a money bag, you know, so most of them will not want to play Chris Gayle\u2019s songs unless, you know, you grease their palm,\u201d Gayle, who goes by the moniker Universe Boss, revealed during a recent interview with Television Jamaica\u2019s Anthony Miller.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spend a lot of money in Dancehall, even before becoming an artiste as well.\u00a0 Now Chris Gayle doing songs, or doing hits, and the DJ\u2019s say, \u2018hey Chris, it\u2019s just a money ting\u2019.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind doing it but I\u2019m not gonna to do it so often,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In March this year veteran Dancehall hitmaker Admiral Bailey fingered payola (the soliciting or accepting of cash from artists and their proxies in exchange for airplay) by unscrupulous radio disc jockeys and greedy sound system selectors, among the key elements which have, over the years, forced Dancehall music on a downward spiral, and held it down for almost two decades.<\/p>\n
Bailey had said that prior to that relatively new phenomenon, which was done with impunity by, music was played on merit and substandard music was not given precedence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember in those days a numba one song was a numba one song. You didn\u2019t have to pinch the radio man and you didn\u2019t have to pinch the selector,\u201d Admiral had said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think is talent of such that change di music.\u00a0 Di music was forced to change because a greed.\u00a0 If a selector a radio disc jock, want to buss particular song, all when it nuh good, him a guh buss it enuh,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
Admiral said many disc jockeys who engage in the practice, would have artists as their feeding trees.\u00a0 \u201cBecaw some a di ridiculous money dem weh yuh hear yuh haffi gi a disc jock, and by two-weeks time, him stop play it, an yuh haffi re-funds him up again.\u00a0 Yuh caan sustain dat,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The issue of payola had been the bane of the Jamaican broadcast industry for many years and had grown to such a scale and scope in the late 2000s, that the Jamaican Government had to intervene, via the Broadcasting Commission, which also sought to criminalize the act.<\/p>\n
Consequently, in February 2013, Executive Director of the Broadcasting Commission Cordell Green had declared that it would be made mandatory for \u201call content for broadcast\u201d to be \u201creceived, evaluated and approved through a library\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are intent on cutting out the one-man show, where people who produce music get airplay based on who they know or can pay. The library is to be a central operational feature of broadcasting again,\u201d Green had said back then.<\/p>\n
The Broadcasting Commission had also launched an anti-payola campaign for which Queen of the Dancehall, Spice,\u00a0served as one of the spokespersons.<\/p>\n
The payola phenomenon does not only involve cash. \u00a0\u00a0In 2010, former Television Jamaica General Manager Marcia Forbes described it as \u201ca fine art where services are bartered, and good deeds are repaid via replay and placement\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrips abroad, designer clothes and jewellery, vacation at expensive hotels, fine-dining experiences, expensive gifts are all included in the pay for play and placement that is payola,\u201d she had noted in a Jamaica Observer article.<\/p>\n
Forbes had also noted that payola discourages up-and-coming artists who \u201cfeel that with no money to pay for play they don\u2019t stand a chance of being heard on radio\u201d.<\/p>\n
She also said payola lowers industry standards by setting poor role models and examples for new artists and that the \u201cyoung ones with money may be tempted to jump on the payola bandwagon and pay for the play of their inferior material\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, apart from the person(s) who collected the payola, the rest of us all lose,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cricketing legend, now Dancehall artist, Chris Gayle, says he has had to be \u201cgreasing the palms\u201d of disc jockeys for them to showcase his songs in Jamaica, as due to his earnings and net worth, many look at him as a \u201cmoney bag\u201d, and therefore withhold play, unless there is pay. \u201cThey look at Chris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-3689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-breakingnews"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3690,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions\/3690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}