Anthony B Says ‘Chapping’ Lyrics Are Letting Down Reggae And Dancehall
The Original Fireman Anthony B has deemed Billboard’s announcement—that it will launch its first-ever US chart for Afrobeats Songs—a “wake-up call” for Reggae and Dancehall, which had its Digital Song Sales chart discontinued by the magazine two years ago.
“WAKE UP CALL 📞#jamaicanmusicindustry Players No More Fake Hype,” he titled an Instagram post he made on Thursday.
“I don’t normally do these things but let’s reason #jamaicanmusicindustry big up Wizkid we love his music’s everyday so this is not about WIZ!! Or Afrobeat…,” he noted.
“Now check what this headline says, it’s a wake up call,” he added referencing a DancehallMag article that he shared on his page. “The problem I see is that there’s no good music coming out, not to say there isn’t good music but it’s kept hiding and all u so call stars, Dancehall music has become so destructive and everything is labeled as reggae music.”
According to the Fire Pon Rome artist, the debauchery in new-day Jamaican music, which is supported by members of the media, is to be held responsible for the decline and sidelining of the genre by a critical chart such as Billboard.
“The media is to be blame and everyone who supported all this f-ckery when we all see many career nuh pass sea shore; just a hype buy likes, buy followers buy everything. White folks can’t understand language and it so fast nobody understands what they r saying and it’s all about death, killing, scam, sex, chopping, nothing uplifting,” he said.
“So this is what we have created plus if u realize most of the afrobeat singers singing (Pidgin African English ) (like patois) in their accent which sounds so awesome ain’t gonna lie ✊🏾✊🏾💯❤️on the riddims using our styles but doing clean 💯music our music is filthy. So don’t blame the Africans I say great job I love ur music let’s start cleaning up our mess🇯🇲💯💪🏾❤️,” he added.
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In January 2020, Billboard had ditched the weekly Reggae Digital Song Sales chart which ranked the top-downloaded and streamed Reggae and Dancehall songs in the United States, but had maintained the Reggae Albums chart which continues to be published weekly.
A release from Billboard a few days ago, had stated that the US Afrobeats Songs chart will go live on Tuesday, March 29, 2022, and will rank the 50 most popular Afrobeats songs in the United States, “based on a weighted formula incorporating official streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of leading audio and video music services, plus download sales from top music retailers”.
Billboard has, for years, has been seen as the music industry’s favourite chart, as it validates the work of artists and is considered objective evidence of their audience and the singers’ potential.
In an article on Washington DC-based record label Outerloop’ website titled Why the Billboard Chart is important, the authors noted that next level industry attention gathering is about getting on to Billboard’s charts, and that “even before all this internet malarkey, the industry loved Billboard as it represented the closest thing to objective data it could get at the time”.
“To young and old, the Billboard chart is important. In the US, Billboard represents the cream of all the objective data. And their efforts to collect all the data from all these various sources to create an objective, final tally of each artist’s popularity in a given week, still has merit,” Outerloop noted.