Jamaica’s Prime Minister just told one of dancehall’s biggest names to put it on a riddim. “I will continue to say it over and over again, and I don’t care who vex.
Go make a song of it,” Dr Andrew Holness said on Wednesday, in what looked a lot like a direct shot at Beenie Man.
The thing is, Beenie Man already did. The entertainer, born Moses Davis, released a track called Weh Di Money Deh, putting a spotlight on Jamaicans still trying to rebuild a year after Hurricane Melissa tore through the island as a Category 5 storm.
The spat kicked off when Beenie Man sat down with British broadcaster ITV News and questioned if donated relief funds were actually reaching the people who needed them most. The song followed, and the debate spilled well beyond the dancehall.
Holness picked an unusual stage for his response. He was speaking at the National Housing Trust’s Construction Scholarship awards ceremony at Jamaica House in St Andrew, in front of 50 young scholarship recipients.
He came armed with numbers. According to the PM, the NHT has spent roughly $13.3 billion on hurricane assistance, including $2.9 billion in grants handed out to 7,600 Jamaicans, with individual grants ranging from $75,000 to $500,000.
Holness said the Government has also spent close to $12 billion on direct assistance and is seeking another $9.6 billion to cover outstanding needs.
Of the roughly 110,000 households identified as needing help, just over 50,000 have received support so far.
That last figure is where Beenie Man’s side of the argument gets its weight. By the Government’s own count, more than half of affected households are still waiting, and Holness didn’t dodge it. “It is also true that there are still many Jamaicans who have got no assistance,” he acknowledged.
His real line in the sand is about framing, not pace. “Did it happen quickly? That’s legitimate. Is $500,000 enough? We can debate that,” he said, before insisting it is “patently untrue, false, to say the Government hasn’t done anything.”
He went further, warning that claims of total inaction circulating on social media could do real damage. “And what that does is to undermine and destroy the legitimacy of Government. And in undermining the legitimacy of Government, your society ends up in chaos,” he said.
Holness also urged the scholarship winners to push back on what he called falsehoods. “I’m not asking you to defend the Government.
But defend your society,” he told them, adding, “If you tear down your society, you are tearing down yourself.”
For longtime dancehall listeners, none of this feels out of character. Beenie Man has been one of the genre’s loudest voices for decades, and Jamaican music has always doubled as a running commentary on life, hardship and politics on the island.
So the PM wants the country to stop saying nothing has been done, and the artist wants to know where the money is.
With close to 60,000 households still waiting on help, the next reply might just come from a recording booth.
