‘I was speaking from my heart,’ says Beenie Man of ITV interview

The Beenie Man brouhaha continues to generate memes, a whole lot of conversation and now – not surprisingly – even a song. The dancehall artiste, whose real name is Moses Davis, has now released a song titled Weh Di Money Deh, using the visuals of one of the memes with him dressed as the biblical patriarch Moses, carrying the rod as he leads his people from exile in Egypt to the Promised Land.

Weh Di Money Deh falls neatly into the type of social commentary that is not alien to reggae and dancehall, but Beenie Man told The Gleaner that it wasn’t his intention to go down this path.

“I was unexpectedly asked a question, and my answer was a genuine reaction. I never had no song planned, none at all whatsoever at that point. I was speaking from my heart, out of concern for the people who have been affected by the hurricane. Weh Di Money Deh came after. Trust me,” Beenie Man said, adding that the song will be officially released as a digital single by 12 midnight on Monday on all major platform”even on your phone ringtone”.

The song is the latest salvo in a debate that has its genesis in an interview that Beenie Man did with Britain’s ITV News reporter Cree-Summer Haughton. On the cusp of Hurricane Melissa’s one-year anniversary, Beenie Man was questioned about relief efforts, specifically the distribution of recovery and donation funds. In his response, Beenie Man expressed his criticism of the government’s handling of the donations

“This is nothing new that the government get the money, the government distribute the money the wrong way. The people who supposed to get the money haven’t been getting any. These things, it’s a regular thing that happens. The money comes in and you nuh see where it go,” Beenie Man said.

At last Wednesday’s reopening of the Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, told the gathering that $300 million was spent on the rebuilding effort and he called out Beenie Man by name.

“The Minister [of Health] neglected to invite Beenie Man, because then he would see first-hand how the Government has been spending on the recovery,” Dr Holness said.

The prime minister also said during his time at the podium that “It is a lie that was told on Jamaica by someone who benefits from Brand Jamaica ... . We must call them out because they go and wave our flag and get people to come to attend their shows, while they’re out there tearing down our country.”

Calling out Beenie Man by name created the perfect storm for going viral, and the creation of a slew of memes alongside arguments in favour of and against the Grammy Award-winning dancehall deejay.

Beenie Man told The Gleaner that he has “received encouragement from people who understand why I spoke up, including Jamaicans at home and people overseas who love Jamaica”.

He added, “What matters most to me is that the attention leads to meaningful help for the people affected. Their recovery must remain the priority.”

The veteran deejay also spoke about his mission as a musical ambassador.

“Reggae and dancehall have always given a voice to the people, especially those who feel unheard. For more than three decades, I’ve helped carry Jamaica’s name around the world through my music, and that love for Jamaica also means speaking up when our people are hurting,” Beenie Man said.

CLAPBACK AND BLOWBACK

Entertainment analyst and cultural commentator, Clyde McKenzie, in responding to the issue, notes that this is “delicate” since it now involves “both personal and political – not partisan politics”.

“An opinion was expressed and, given the exigencies of this new paradigm, there was a clapback and now a blowback,” McKenzie told The Gleaner.

Noting that it is the right of every citizen to express his or her opinion on government policy, he stressed that it should be done respectfully. The government, he stated, should respond “if it is deemed to be of national importance ... and if it is deemed to be inaccurate ... and this response should also be respectful”.

He cautioned, however, that “sometimes, when we respond to comments made publicly about us, all we do is amplify the volume of what was said”.

“Beenie Man is a citizen with a soapbox – he has a huge platform – but, at the end of the day, he is an ordinary citizen. The Government feels wrongly done and is responding, However, from what I can gather … what people are concerned about is the nature of the response,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie, who was an integral part of Beenie Man’s former outfit, Shocking Vibes, and even has credits on his Grammy Award-winning album, told The Gleaner that he was “not surprised that Beenie Man responded the way he did” during the ITV interview.

“Beenie Man responded to a question [that was] posed to him. Sometimes he responds off the cuff and he may not say things as delicately as some would want them to be,” McKenzie said of the Girls Dem Sugar deejay.

Beenie Man’s publicist, Claude Mills, told The Gleaner that his client “has the charisma and the creative skill to overcome even a mild rebuke from the Prime Minister”.

“I was surprised that the Prime Minister would have made this story even bigger by responding in the manner he did but he provided the perfect opportunity for Beenie Man to ‘seize the moment’ and chef up a major hit out of this controversy. And the Prime Minister actually stirred up a hornet’s nest on social media and in every rum bar and every street corner,” Mills said.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com