Archbishop pledges to seek out more current dancehall songs
FOLLOWING comments that he should have gone for a more recent dancehall song from a current artiste, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston Kenneth Richards said that wouldn’t be a problem in the future once he finds the time to become familiar with the music.
That means, in the near future, we could hear the bishop remixing the likes of Masicka, Skillibeng and Alkaline to spread the gospel.
“When I was younger, I used to have a sound system in my car, and I’d be hearing those [old-school] songs regularly. But now, I hardly get the time to listen. It’s only when I’m in my car and I get to listen to the radio to hear the songs. So, if I get the time, well, I’ll see,” Richards told the Jamaica Observer in an interview.
“I’ve always, time and again, used popular music and change the words to bring across a message, because persons are really in tune to those things and sometimes it gets the attention of especially the younger persons, etcetera. When I was in the inner city, that’s Waterhouse or Seaview Gardens, I would pull on reggae songs or even blues songs and change the words to communicate a message to people.”
Richards, who was speaking during the National Day of Prayer at the Power of Faith Ministries church in Portmore, St Catherine, last Wednesday, remixed Bounty Killer’s 1995 single Run come up inna me Magnum, urging young men across Jamaica to ‘run come up inna di church’.
Replacing Bounty Killer’s violent lyrics which warned his enemies of the consequences of disrespecting “Miss Ivy last son”, the clergyman in his remix sang:
‘Run come up inna di church now, bwoy
Listen to the gospel, bwoy, Siddung pon di church bench And yuh life will change’
Behind him, Prime Minister Andrew Holness cheered — nodding in agreement and clapping.
Richards continued:
‘A nuh warn me nuh warn yuh
A nuh tell me nuh tell yuh Listen to the gospel
And yuh life will change’
To Richards’ surprise, a clip of the performance has been making the rounds on social media.
Bounty Killer himself reposted the Archbishop’s performance on his Instagram account with the caption: “Run go up inna di church now bwoy… government badness meets church badness.”
“I didn’t expect it to go viral. I thought it would just be at the function and that that is where it would end, actually. But I was hoping that the gun toters would hear the song and give us a new approach to our social engagement and to put down the gun. Most of the gun toters, they have a little New Testament Bible… most of them believe in God,” Richards told the Sunday Observer.
“But they need to recognise that it cannot just be that you pray to God for protection while you do evil. There must be respect for their own life and the lives of other persons.”
Richards added that this is what the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches (JUGC) and the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) hope to achieve this year.
“We’re hoping to formulate some interventions in communities, focusing on self-respect.
So out of that we can start developing respect for self and start respecting other persons. And of course, with respect to the family, the family bond needs to be re-established because I think that most of the alienation and disconnect takes place within the family unit. Our young men and young girls, that alienates them from that kind of bond, and it becomes [normal] for them to turn against their parents and turn against others.
“The Christmas season that we just completed, it’s about the incarnation that God who is divine came and dwelled among us. He took on our human nature, and so, incarnation is important in respect to evangelisation. And we have to be with the people if we are going to minister to the people. And especially the dancehall culture, reggae music etcetera, it stimulates people in their social engagements and sometimes we can use it as a means of getting through to people, so that is what I do.”
Many Jamaica Observer readers endorsed Richards’ approach on Facebook.
One woman commented: “This is the way to get their attention by the leading of the Holy Spirit; going into their territory and then open the way for conviction with the Word, which will then lead to conversion and transformation. Too many people in the church are afraid to go into the enemy’s camp and take back the Lord’s creation.”
Another said: “That’s right. I don’t see nothing wrong with that, because the Lord said go on the byway and sideway to gather His children! So, in order to get some people in the church, you have to use what they love the most.”
One man wrote: “Get them through the door and you’ll have a vibrant worshipping community with a long future ahead of it. But, as any church leader will tell you, attracting young people to church is easier said than done. How do you go about drawing them in? And, more importantly, how do you keep them engaged? Churches cannot just expect young people to come to them. They must go to them and sadly, many have failed miserably in this regard.”