Black Immigrant Daily News

The Voice Newspaper has reported that the UK Home Office has launched what has been described as the “biggest attack on a Black music genre by British authorities, since Dancehall in the 1990s”.

According to the publication, Afrobeats artists are now the subject of scrutiny, as the Home Office has denied dozens of the genre’s stars’ visas to perform in Britain.

The Voice report, which was published today, said that the publication had conducted an investigation which found that the department had stopped at least 20 singers from entering the UK to perform at Afrobeats festivals.

It also said that both singers and producers have warned that “the hostile environment against the world’s fastest-growing music genre risks top names boycotting the UK.”

The reference to Dancehall which was drawn by The Voice, though, appears to be to the 2000s and 2010s.   In 2012, for example, Sizzla Kalonji was banned from performing in the UK, while Beenie Man, Buju Banton and Elephant Man were placed under investigation for lyrics that the authorities thought were inciting violence against homosexuals. 

In April 2011, several of Vybz Kartel’s shows which had been set for the UK, were cancelled due to his work visa application being denied by the UK High Commission in Kingston, just days before his schedule European tour. This denial had resulted in a several promoters cancelling shows booked in Germany, Italy, England and France.

In November 2004, the Manchester Evening News had also reported that Government sources had denied Sizzla Kalonji a visa to enter Britain, as his lyrics “are claimed to incite attacks on gays”.  

According to the publication, all five of the shows for which the Dry Cry artist was booked “were scrapped after gay rights group Outrage! launched a massive campaign” to have him barred.

Back in July 2006, concerts for which Buju Banton and Beenie Man were booked were canceled in Brighton and Bournemouth after complaints from gay rights groups and a warning from the local authority that it risked losing its license because the performance could endanger public safety.

Unlike the Dancehall artists however, The Voice notes that in the case of Afrobeats, “West African artists are treated with more suspicion despite being part of a multi-million dollar industry, and when visas are granted to stars, their dancers have been turned down.”

“Afrobeat stars fume that Britain is the hardest embassy in the world to deal with, and they are routinely given short stays of just two weeks which prevents them from making the most of their visit,” the publication said.

In August last year, the Home Office was also rebuked for what some Britons described as hostility to iconic Roots Reggae band Black Uhuru after the group was forced to cancel their UK tour after the Home Office issued visas with unreasonable time limits.

The Jamaican band, which won the first-ever Grammy Award for a Reggae Recording back in 1985, had been booked to perform at the Jazz Café in Camden, London, on Saturday, September 3, as part of their 50th-anniversary tour.   However, the promoters had cancelled the event as the UK Home Office had failed to give group adequate time in the country to allow them to meet the September show date.

Dancehall music has had many struggles in the UK, even in recent times.  In March 2016, the BBC reported that a nightclub owner in London had disclosed that the Metropolitan Police had told him to stop playing Dancehall music, as Jamaican music is “unacceptable.”

According to the BBC, the club owner had said that he was under so much pressure that he had started making disc jockeys sign contracts not to play the genre, as the police want the club’s license reviewed, saying it’s “associated with crime and disorder.”

One Afrobeats artist’s management team with whom The Voice spoke, had reported that all requisite documents were presented, but “that Home Office officials turned the application down after questioning why his UK-based sponsor had so much money when they were so young.”

The report also said that numerous artists from the African continent have had their visa applications denied, but are unwilling to speak publicly about it, due to a “stigma attached to visa refusals from Britain, which many believe will tarnish their brand and reputation.” 

The Voice also said that musicians from Ghana who wish to travel to Britain for festivals and concerts have described the British Embassy as “the most difficult embassy to work with.”

Ghananian Reggae musician and three-time Grammy nominee Rocky Dawuni also gave his views on the matter, noting that once Afrobeats musicians can prove they are “credible” and “established in their own country,” regulations should be eased and assistance fast-tracked for the artists.  

According to The Voice, Dawuni also said he was unsure whether or not there is a “bigger plan to suppress” African music and “keep it at bay” and that it might be due to a “misplaced policy.” 

“It is diminishing the music at a time when African music is on the rise, African music is breaking new boundaries and African music is connecting with new audiences,” he said.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Kranium and Tory Lanez’s We Can is now certified Silver in the United Kingdom, six years after its release.

According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), We Can was issued a BRIT Certified Silver award today (March 24), after it sold over 200,000 units in the UK, as measured by The Official Charts Company.

The late-night jam was produced by Sakpase & DJ Marley Waters and currently has over 27 million views on YouTube. 

In 2021, the song was certified Gold in Canada, for surpassing 40,000 units sold in the country.

During a breakdown of We Can’s lyrics and meaning for Genius, Kranium revealed that he had reached out to Tory for the collaboration, and they later met in the studio for the project.  

He’s no stranger to a wide array of certifications. 

Nobody Has To Know, his 2013 hit which led to a record deal with Atlantic, is certified Gold in the United States, Platinum in Canada, and Silver in the United Kingdom; while Can’t Believe, with Ty Dolla $ign and Wizkid, is also certified Gold in Canada.

“I feel like each time when I get a record that goes big it leads more people to the catalogue. Last year we went gold in Canada with Can’t Believe. These records been going gold in different countries. The consistency of the work leads people to the catalogue,” Kranium told the Observer in 2021.

“Some people do music for music, but I do music for a cause. I’m representing for dancehall music overseas. When Nobody Has to Know came out, my dream was to make a song that a dancehall artiste can do from America. Not every song works, but I’ve never in my life focused on more than one song at a time,” he told the newspaper at the time.

The Montego Bay, St. James native who migrated to the United States at age 12, recently announced that he was leaving Atlantic Records, the major label that had been his home since 2014. 

His last project with the label—a seven-track EP titled In Too Deep—was released on November 18, 2022. It featured Without You (featuring Queen Naija), Paranoid, No Regret, 6ex In The Morning, Early In The Morning,and Wi Deh Yah.

To promote the EP, Kranium will be touring sections of the UK, Canada, and the United States.

This begins on March 29 in Birmingham, followed by Oxford on March 30, and London on March 31. He then heads to Manchester on April 2, Halifax, Canada on April 8, Boston, Massachusetts on April 20, and Brooklyn, New York on May 18.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Bounty Killer has declared that he fully embraces Afrobeats music, and says the genre should not be pitted against Dancehall.

In responding to the question whether “Dancehall music still has a place on the international market with the emergence of Afrobeats,” during an I Never Knew TV interview, Bounty said that the two genres should be left to co-exist harmoniously and not be constantly compared or seen as one replacing the other.

“Afrobeat has nothing to do with Dancehall.  Afrobeat is another genre.  Afrobeat never came in competition with Dancehall or came with intent to take something from Dancehall.    I don’t know why people keep on comparing Afrobeat and Dancehall.  Why? Afrobeat is like a baby from Dancehall; it’s a relative,” Bounty stated.

“Afrobeat and Jamaican music is similar music.   Africa and Jamaican music and I’m so happy so happy for Afrobeat.  Music originate in Africa from the Congo beat.   Africa finally have a sound, so I’m excited and Afrobeats not taking nothing from Dancehall.  Afrobeats complements Dancehall.  Si Nicki Minaj and Skeng deh all ova pon Dancehall beats,” he added.

Since March last year, many comparisons have been made between Dancehall and Afrobeats, especially after Billboard joined forces with music festival and global Afrobeats brand Afro Nation, to launch the first-ever US chart for Afrobeats Songs.  The move by Billboard had come two years after it discontinued its Reggae Digital Song Sales chart, which ranked the top-downloaded Reggae and Dancehall songs in the US.

In January this year, Opposition leader and President of the People’s National Party (PNP) Mark Golding, had expressed concern that the “heydays of Jamaica’s music industry had passed and “Afrobeats has kinda gone into that area and is eating our food.”

However, that same month, Reggae/Dancehall singer Tanya Stephens had dismissed comments made by her compatriot, Dancehall deejay Mr. Lexx who, in expressing discontent with the state of the music, had said that Dancehall music was lagging behind Afrobeats, because the majority of new songs being released are about violence, lewdness, and lotto scamming.

Stephens had come to the music’s defense, pointing out the duplicity in Lexx’s statements, while arguing that artists from as far back as the 1980s, and from his own generation, had never predicated their music on ‘feeling good’, but that sex and violence have always been a part of Jamaican music, as the island’s artists have never operated like a monolithic group.

She had also argued that the reason the Jamaican music was not seeing strong sales, was due to the island’s people not buying their music, unlike African audiences who are more supportive of Afrobeats, which leads to better quality shows and better positioning for singers from the African genre.

The Rebelution artist had also posited that once a Dancehall song is good, it will be successful. She had also said it was duplicitous to suggest that all music from the 1990s era was of a superior standard, as many were regarded as subpar.

In January this year, Anointed singer Bugle too, had declared that there should be no comparison between sales of Dancehall songs and Afrobeats, as the African genre has a continental marketplace of hundreds of millions of people, in comparison to Jamaica’s three million.

Bugle had argued that once an Afrobeats artiste releases a song, it will, more likely than not, instantly hit the Billboard charts and sell “diamond and gold” due to the sheer number of people who subscribe to Afrobeat music.

In November last year, following the release of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) Engaging with Music 2022 study, in which reggae was ranked number 10 out of more than 5,000 genres, University of the West Indies Professor Donna P.  Hope, had said Afrobeats’ absence from the coveted top 10, was a significant point to note.

“While we are being told that Afrobeats is pushing Dancehall out of the way, it did not make it on that list… It (Afrobeats) is a new enough genre; it will take some time for it to get to that level of recognition globally that Jamaican music, Reggae and Dancehall for example, have garnered over many years since the development of our music industry,” Professor Hope, Professor Hope, who is a lecturer in Culture, Gender, and Society, had explained.

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