Daggering

**Warning, pictures posted may not be appropriate for children**

So I thought I was actually finished with this topic until I realized I hadn't as yet covered the latter part of the noughties. I had already covered the Dancing era (probably my second favourite era in dancehall... or tied in first with the early 90s bruk out era), but now its time to look at an era that brought about much controversy: Daggering. Now dont act like you dont know what daggering is... I dont care if you havent been to Jamaica since 1995, the mere fact that you know some Jamaican who has recently moved to Manilla, Phillipines (or wherever you are) and you are reading this journal means that you read about whats happening in Jamaica at least once per week (because we all get homesick),  or you've overheard news from Jamaica... heck our culture is very popular, I'm sure there's some Philipino person close to you who visits you daily for his dose of Jamaicaness. But however you've heard about it, you know about daggering.

Fine, I'll explain since you dont want to admit you already know. Essentially, daggering is a form of couples dancing which involves a man and a woman and... well... to put it intelligently... rhythmic actions emulating repeated aggressive sexual penetration (I deserve props for coming up with that description). Now its really hard to pinpoint when and who started the daggering phenomenon that took jamaica by storm circa 2006-2008 however what we're sure about is that this brought on an era of dancehall where to describe words like raunchy, and explicit would be the only suitable adjectives.

Almost all the songs and dances became sexually explicit and obscene. Charlie Black was one artist who rose to fame due to the daggering epidemic and his popularity started from his first popular song (I cant type the name because it is explicit, but you can click the link... This song is not safe for public viewing or hearing and should only be listened to by adults due to its explicit nature), to his second popular song Backshot Time, and also Bubble, he also has quite a few other songs which have all gained him success. Another artist (or well group) who got popular due to daggering was RDX, who with their songs Bend Ova and Dagger Dagger gained a high level of success similar to Voicemail in the earlier noughties. Almost all the dancehall jumped on the daggering phenomenon and this all culminated with Vybz Kartel and Spice's song Ramping Shop (clean version), (unedited version). It was at this point in time that Jamaicans saw that daggering was in fact getting out of hand and after some amount of public outcry the broadcasting commission banned all daggering songs, and also all songs with explicit lyrics. This essentially brought an end to the daggering era but it stuck out in alot of people's minds.

Badmanism

As with all era's of dancehall and has been described in numerous of my previous entries, clashes have always been a part of the dancehall culture. However with the Kartel vs Movado clash which began in 2008, we began to see a side of dancehall which was never before seen. Yes we had the Beenie Man vs Bounty Killer clashes, but these were all strictly lyrical confrontations. However with Kartel vs Movado we began to see the lyrical confrontation turn into a physical one as die hard fans on each side actually began to confront each other defending the Gaza or the Gully, while the artists did nothing but continue to lyrically confront each other.

The clash began when Kartel after leaving alliance began to diss alliance boss Bounty Killer. Movado and other alliance members stepped up to defend their boss by getting back at Kartel and producing numerous songs about his dishonor... and well, not so pleasant things were said by each side. But it seemed Kartel had a thing for Movado and they both began to hit out against each other really hard. All of this culminated at a clash at Sting 2008.

Now everybody had their own idea and reasoning as to who won the clash at sting, but there was no real consensus as in previous clashes at the stage show. However people's animosity began to show and even as far as in schools people were displaying this loyalty to Gaza or Gully.

The feud went on for some time but in the end the government stepped in and in a move which can only be called... wierd, called a meeting of both sides of the conflict essentially ending the Gaza vs Gully conflict. Strangely enough however during this time alliance boss Bounty Killer who is normally extremely outspoken was very quiet and it was only towards the end of the conflict that he finally came out and started to openly diss Kartel and alot of ... non-pleasant things were said between the two however it did not culminate at sting as in the previous year.

Dancehall Music has certainly been through alot of changes since its inception and will continue to go through changes as our society evolves. This writeup has certainly not described everything which happened throughout the industry, but it did touch on alot of major points. I am lead to wonder what is the next step for dancehall, and how long will it continue to survive. I personally have no doubt about its survivability because the artistes and producers are working on dancehall and making it grow to massive proportions. I just hope it will continue to be as entertaining as it has always been for me.