Noah Powa doubts ‘choppa’ song ban will work

Grammy-nominated artiste and comedian Noah Powa believes that the radio ban on music, or any audio recording, which promotes illegal activities, will not have the impact that the Broadcasting Commission expects.

"Placing a ban on a specific type of music only gives a set group of people a reason to move further away from radio. Also, for the past six, seven, eight years or less, it [radio] has not been the main medium for the consumption or the promotion of music," Noah Powa told THE WEEKEND STAR.

"Radio is not the first place reggae and dancehall acts seek to buss their music - that is for the streets - the only thing that it does is take away one part of the promotion for an artiste. And if the artistes who are making those types of music are looking to make money or sales, there are multiple platforms that they have access to."

He said that for the two-and-a-half decades that he has pursued a music career, bans have not stopped the artistes from making controversial music.

"I don't think this will stop any artiste and their teams from producing music that promotes crime or illegal activities and I don't think we can save all of the artistes from going down a particular path in terms of the message they promote. But maybe it will motivate them to step away from having a one-track mind," he said.

"We must acknowledge that a lot of our local acts have yet to travel outside of Jamaica or the Caribbean to see for themselves that certain types of music is not consumed because of the messages they promote, and that a lot of them are trying to satisfy the local audience that already listens to their trending songs. Reality is, they can still do the music that is banned from traditional media but, hopefully, it will encourage a balance. We will also see if more Jamaicans will be using the digital streaming platforms or YouTube."

Noah Powa expressed that while traditional media plays an important role as agents of socialisation, it is also not the medium that first exposes the younger generation to hardcore dancehall music. As the father of three, the eldest being 14, he has his own challenge of monitoring what, when and where music is consumed.

"While I can tell my teenage daughter not to listen to something, I can't stop her friends, schoolmates from doing so and sharing it. It's still up to the parents to teach their children the way," he said.

The 40-year-old artiste opined that controversial music of the past, though labelled as 'bad', was nowhere close to current content.

"Shabba Ranks was considered raw, but we do not complain about his music now when compared to those that speak to scamming and support the taking of drugs like Molly," he said.