Dancehall vs. Afrobeats: The Battle for Global Dominance and the Evolution of Music Industry Dynamics

When Murray Elias sparked a fiery debate with his take on Dancehall versus Afrobeats, it was a call to arms for everyone in the music industry. He joined popular Jamaican music podcast The Fix

This episode peels back the layers on his claim that dancehall is stumbling in unity and being outpaced by afrobeats artists in the international music arena. We not only wrestle with the question of dancehall's global appeal but also dig into the historic connection between reggae and Black American audiences, pondering if Bob Marley's vision truly came to fruition. The episode also sheds light on the symbiotic growth of dancehall and hip-hop, their impact on club culture, and the myriad of experiences for West Indian descendants within these musical spaces.

In this solo episode I react to Elias' comments on the the shifts of the music industry  in the following areas:

• How the once-heralded role of A&R is being eclipsed by the juggernauts of streaming and the influencers of social media
• The critical need for artists to understand their value and the deals they ink. 
• How dance crews are revolutionizing Dancehall's visual and physical landscape, questioning if this intricate choreography is narrowing or expanding its appeal. T
• The challenges and opportunities presented by social media for artists striving to create content that resonates with brands

I conclude this episode with a few thoughts to consider on the allure of crossover success versus capitalizing on regional markets for those aiming to make their mark without chasing global stardom.

Bring home Bob Marley: One Love on Digital now! Celebrate the life and music of an icon who inspired generations through his message of love, peace, and unity.  Buy Bob Marley: One Love on Digital today and get over 50 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes! Available at participating retailers. Rated PG-13. From Paramount Pictures.

Transcript

Mikelah : 0:41

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Style and Vibes podcast with yours truly. Today it is a solo episode with Just Me, and you know how sometimes I like to do these just to kind of start some conversation, and today I'm actually responding to another podcast episode in response to an episode on the Fixed JA. They are fellow podcasters in Jamaica. They do a lot of really great interviews and I wanted to react to a lot of things that was said. In a particular interview with a music executive, murray Elias, who used to work at VP Records. I actually interned at VP while Murray was there for a short time. I was there for maybe almost two years and he had been there before me and was there after I was there, and so he's been in this business for a really long time and had some really interesting things to say. So the reason why he went on the podcast was really to discuss his comments in social media. He got a lot of backlash for a comment that he made, so I'm going to read this from my phone as I quote.

Mikelah : 1:58

The conversation was really about Dancehall, unity and Afrobeats and Dancehall in response to Russian doing an interview with Jeff Ross. So it's like podcasts, responding to podcasts, responding to comments and podcasts. But you know how these internet streets work. So Russia was talking about there needs to be more unity in Dancehall. And so Murray kind of responded idiot ding that. And, as you guys may or may not know, he worked with Sean Paul. He A&Red his first project, second project and, I believe, third project. According to what he was talking about on the fix, he said, firstly, dancehall and Unity are oxymorons. It will never happen. Secondly, even if it were to happen, afrobeats artists are better songwriters, better singers, better artists than anything coming out of Jamaica. By better I mean more commercial on an international crossover level. So he got a lot of flak from those in the industry, including artists as well as fans, and so the fix invited him to do this interview and they really talked a lot about his history in the business and I think that his storyline was just so interesting that they actually spent a lot of time on it and it really kind of just helped to give validity to his position of what he said, give some clarity. But his history in terms of what he was talking about was super interesting and I'm not necessarily responding to the Afrobeats versus Dancehall conversation. You know we've had some of those conversations before, but really, as he was talking about his history in the music business, I was kind of left with a lot more questions for us as lovers of the culture, lovers of the music, reggae and Dancehall.

Mikelah : 3:55

To begin with, a lot of his position is really focused on commercial success, and by commercial I mean crossover in the US market primarily, maybe in Europe as well, but they kind of alluded to just being focused on the US market. And by commercial success it means topping Billboard charts, topping the US music charts, and really building a name, a household name, from a pop perspective. He gave some really interesting tidbits about how he came into the business, how he came to really love reggae. He talked a lot about Bob Marley and Black America not really accepting Bob Marley, and so I think that that was pretty interesting as he started to really speak about it. Bob Marley was kind of on this journey to really reach Black American audiences. At the time of his death he was going to be opening for the Commandors. Of course you know Soul Music was still is very popular and trying to reach the Black audience. He made a lot of really good points about reggae not being able to reach that Black American core audience and that was kind of Bob's mission. But then I started to think I don't know if that mission was ever truly fulfilled because no-transcript. To be completely transparent, yes, people recognize Bob Marley as this revered musician. They really know who he is and some of his music, a lot of his most popular songs, are the ones that people really reference. And Bob has the type of catalog where, even if you don't know the music, you kind of know. One love you kind of know. You know because it's used in so many different aspects of culture. But no doubt there was such a huge impact that he had post-death in terms of incorporating a lot of the different sounds that became dancehall and dancehall was, you know, as Murray kind of alluded to in his interview with the Fixes, dancehall music is danceable.

Mikelah : 6:11

So at the time, you know, the entrance for dancehall was easy because it also grew up with hip hop. We talked about that in a press episode as well. So the two genres were kind of brothers and sisters, cousins, you name it, whatever you'd like to call the analogy, and they were kind of growing up at the same time. So there were a lot more synergies in terms of the sound, sonically, the purpose people wanted to dance. This was something that was new and as they continued to grow with each other, there was a lot happening from that perspective where they could cross-pollinate.

Mikelah : 6:51

In addition, the success and Murray was really talking about the club scene so I think that there's a distinction that needs to be made around which types of club scenes, right? So if you are of West Indian descent first generation and I can speak from my own experiences you kind of go to like both hip hop clubs and Jamaican dancehall or Caribbean clubs. Now there seems to be a fusion, but at that time there were very specific parties dedicated to Jamaican and West Indian music and then there were hip hop parties. In hip hop parties they would play dancehall music in between popular sets, right? So if you think of your warm DJ, that's the first DJ and you'd have this second DJ that would come in and somewhere in his set they would play maybe five to 10 of the most popular dancehall songs and people loved it truly for the sonic sound and it definitely elevated the party. It got people excited to hear what was next. But that's what was happening in hip hop parties and even if you go to Spanish or Latino parties, if you go to Everyone really partied by culture, the place where you had this top 40 mix was really in Manhattan. So if you were partying in the Bronx, you were partying in Brooklyn. If you were partying in Queens, those parties looked vastly different than they did in Manhattan. I can only speak for the areas that I know, so I don't know if it was the same or similar for other areas of the country at that time.

Mikelah : 8:45

Now we're talking 90s and early 2000s. Somewhere along the line, soca also became more popular as well as Afro beats. They kind of have sonically similar sounds. So now, like Jamaican promoted parties and I will hear soca. That was never the case in the 90s or early 2000s. You might hear one or two soca songs but you would not hear a full set. Now you will hear full set of Danza, full set of Soca, full set.

Mikelah : 9:17

And again, these are primarily people who are in the culture love all the different sounds, the proximity of closeness. From a cultural standpoint, there are so many different similarities that you can play Afro beats, you can play Soca and you can play Danza and you have a good mix. Now a lot of the dancing and stuff like that has changed. Behind hardcore Danza there's not a lot of Danza bull tracks. I think TikTok has kind of changed the game when it comes to that. There's also this disenfranchised, in fact in the end it's�니다. It hasn't changed from strong to quick. We're not as connected in the sense that what is popular in Jamaica is necessarily moving the needle here, where that once was the case. Right, whatever was moving in Jamaica is what needed to be moving here. And because the sound kind of shifted and changed, they weren't getting the artist, they weren't getting the music and so they gravitated towards sounds that were similar to the ones that they really loved. And this is my core West Indian audience right.

Mikelah : 10:28

Then you have the crossover audience we mentioned in our episode about Sean Paul's Dutty Rock anniversary. You know Sean Paul and Daddy Yankee kind of had their success at the same time, but I think that you know the success that Sean Paul had on like pop radio and pop venues and those types of shows that didn't happen for other Latin artists until post Sean Paul. So therefore, you know, now you have like Bad Bunny, mickey Jam. You got like all these different, you know reggaeton artists that have that space because it's a similar sound, right. And sometimes when we think about crossover markets, they don't necessarily have the same affinity to the artist or the music. They just like the sound of what it is. And with Afro beats and even the reggaeton, even soca like, the sound is more important than what they're saying in the song. They become more popular than the artist and if that becomes more successful then it eventually crosses over into other charts and by crossover we mean it goes from one chart to another, to another and it expands the audience.

Mikelah : 11:53

So in this setup and I explain all of this to kind of go back to my initial thought was Bob Marley's mission of reaching Black America ever really fulfilled? And it's because dancehall music is the music that they most recognize. Reggae music is really where a lot of the positive messages lie around revolution, pan-africanism and really just has that overall positive intention. I don't know that a lot of Black American artists really celebrate the way they do dancehall artists, a lot of reggae artists. I think that that is shifting and changing as more people are being exposed. I know a lot of Black Americans who love Barris Hammond, they love Chronix, they love coffee, but they love like a handful of their songs. I still go to concerts and I don't see too too many, but they also look Black, so I can't really make an assumption on who to. But I think that that is an interesting thought that I had because I would want to say, if we are regarded as only party music, then we're going to be kind of set in this one particular box. If international artists like reggaeton, afrobeats , soca, any kind of reggae or dancehall, if we're only going to be regarded as party music, does that really transcend the way Bob had intended? That's the thought and the question.

Mikelah : 13:40

I think the other piece that really stood out to me is he talked a lot about the deal with Sean Paul and how he was able to create that sound and how a lot of our artists are being signed, but you're not really getting the full picture. It doesn't feel or seem like they're moving the needle in a way, and sometimes those deals are kind of like we're investing behind the scenes. I think he talked a lot about. You know, a&r is now being more focused on the numbers and the stats of different artists, online primarily, whereas A&R before streaming, yes, they paid attention to numbers, but they also went out and went to new shows, checked out the scene. They were actually making sure. They, you know, spoke to DJs.

Mikelah : 14:36

There's a whole, entire role around understanding who's next who's hot. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong, but that personal touch and that understanding and that connection to the artists and the music that they're trying to make was the key to being signed. Now all you truly need is really good numbers from a streaming perspective or on any of the streaming platforms YouTube numbers being up and Tiktok being really important for discovery. So if that is kind of the primary source of cropping new artists, it's just shifted. It's very different than really getting to know a person and who they are, what their stage presence is like, and it's also different from a cultural perspective. Right, because you have people who are not necessarily as connected to we didn't have a whole lot then, but now probably even less. If we don't have people on the inside who are really connected to the culture to really drive and shift them the needle.

Mikelah : 15:47

When a lot of these artists are being signed to majors, then they end up in bad deals and then they have to wait to get out of their contracts from a timing perspective and then you don't hear music from them. So I think it's really time for a lot of artists to look at signing with a major very differently, understand their own numbers before going into a deal and really understand where their importance lies as an artist. Where do they want to go, what type of music do they want to do and, really, how is the label equipped? Equipped like you're interviewing who's going to be working on your projects. How are they going to be contributing? What's the timing? Don't be so excited to just sign because that's who they are. You have to do your own due diligence as, and follow up on your end of the bargain as well as make sure that they follow up on theirs.

Mikelah : 16:41

The other thing that they really talked about was the shift in dances, and he talked a lot about elephant man and how dancing became more about crews and less about women, and I always say, when the women are bubbling, the men will be there. That's my, my personal model. However, dance crews are nothing new. They've been around for plenty of years and they do offer fun and excitement, but there is a observation that a lot of times, I remember you know videos being really popular, for like different dances and you would see these crews and there would be, like I remember back in the day, like when my mom, you know, and her friends, they would watch videos and it's mostly women that were in it. They were like avoid in the video lights and them kind of thing. But then eventually we saw, you know, men and young men, groups and groups of women really vying for the attention of the video light in that manner, whereas before it was more of like a passive recording. And this is all before social media.

Mikelah : 17:52

So now, like the dances and the dance crews have only just transitioned to TikTok and the dances have become more complicated, so that that element has also shifted the experience in the dance hall setting itself. Maybe there are less people dancing in a all together kind of manner because the dances are a little bit more complicated and not everybody can keep up. So like, if only the dancers can, can't get this piece or you feel intimidated to take the space outside of your Luka area. But it's just an observation of things and I think that is important to kind of highlight these particular different things so we can start to have conversations and think about it a little bit differently. I really enjoyed the interview. There were so many pieces around the changes in the industry and I'm sure that they could have had a much longer conversation, but they have, of course, had limited time. But I think, as we are in reggae month currently February, if you don't know, is a black history month and reggae month so that is what really inspired this episode, as we think about these events that happen and shift the music culture, and there's a lot of conversations, a lot of people are talking about the industry and how we can make it better and criticize it. Get there are a lot of really great things happening.

Mikelah : 19:25

It's really become such a huge numbers game like you have to stream so much more than you would have. You can't just buy an album, right? Most people are not buying physical copies of things. If they are, it's primarily vinyl and they're buying merch, but they're not buying music. They're buying tickets to your experience and they're streaming your music, and so streaming the actual catalog is the bigger promotional tool outside of pushing people to see your shows by your merch and be engaged as a consumer of your brand of music content, whatever that is and I think, the content creator space for artists. A lot of artists don't like it, like they don't really want to do social media like content creators, but unfortunately some of that kind of comes with. Depending on what level of success that you want in today's market, you have to do it to some extent. So the key is really to figure out how to make social work for you as an artist If you are in a space where you want to grow.

Mikelah : 20:40

I also think the the idea of crossing over is different. Like there's different markets. You can be popular regionally and be okay, and then you start to kind of grow out of that market and go to another one. But there are so many different markets. I see more, you know Jamaican artists traveling to islands like Dominica or even going to, you know, music festivals in Latin America. And there's the entire continent of Africa. There are so many countries there who love dancehall music and reggae music that we need to start shifting and thinking about what crossover really means and crossing over into other markets, because the volume is really in other spaces as well. So you know, not just thinking about the US although I'm biased, I do want you guys to think more about the US.

Mikelah : 21:36

I think we don't have as many interviews from artists. We don't have those long press runs that we used to have. As a media person, like you get an artist in New York for like one or two days and they barely have time to do any sort of interviews and that sort of thing. So I think that the market is shifting and changing constantly and we have so much to kind of keep up with. But I do think that having these conversations and making these observations makes it top of mind for not just the artists but also the consumers.

Mikelah : 22:14

I was so happy to see so many artists get involved in this conversation and the comments, because a lot of times they just say, stay silent and they don't share their opinions and or thoughts. But also, does it give the battery in your back, does it inspire you to do more? That's what I really loved about, you know, the comments that Murray made. Is he made them out of love, like he really wants to see dance halls succeed, reggae music succeed, and we can love a thing and still be critical, as Kerry would always say. So these are some of the things that we should think about. You know, did Bob's mission of getting to his messages to Black America? Is that fulfilled? I don't know. I think I'm gonna be looking out for that, and it might be something we can circle back on.

Mikelah : 23:08

What does crossover really look like? How does the market look in different areas and what does the scene really look like? I don't know that a lot of artists really know what the music scene and how it varies from region to region, even here in the States. So I think that that's important. And if we're going to be relegated to party music, have we ever really kept up with providing that party vibe so that we remain in that mainstream limelight, whoever is in there, right? So it can't just be one or two people, it gotta be like a few people in rotation, a few danceable songs that reach a Black American audience in the party scene. And even that scene has completely changed and shifted. It's all about the vibe, and by vibe it's just like laid back. It's a little less you know party, unless it's like a small tic-tac moment. So I don't know. I think we have a lot to think about. So I'm just really gonna end it there.

Mikelah : 24:17

I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Happy reggae month. Please stream by merch, by albums, if that's your thing too, but make sure you support all of your favorite reggae artists this month and beyond. I know you guys do it anyway, but we have so much farther to go, so keep doing it, sharing it, creating content to it and let me know your thoughts. Did you find this episode valuable and I really wanna hear your thoughts? So, as I share clips in social, please make sure you guys respond. I'm looking forward to responding to them. Until next time, leah Tommy-Peebs. Thanks for listening to the latest episode of the Style and Vibes podcast. If you like what you hear and I know you do share it with your friends and family. If you want more, make sure you visit styleandvibescom and follow us on our social channels, twitter and Instagram at Style and Vibes. Until next time, leah Tommy-Peebs. No-transcript.