If you’re no stranger to dancehall, then you know that Konshens is a VERY vocal artist and I’m not talking about his music!. Konshens has opinions and he is not afraid to express himself at home in Jamaica or abroad. This is what I love about him.
This week Konshens had something to say about media coverage of his recent performance in Zimbabwe amongst other things. Here’s what the popular deejay had to say:
Now just as I’m looking at this Lamar Odom situation and watching the media parade him around while he is going through his struggle and noticing that most of them instead of highlighting his many great achievements in the midst they bring up all his past demons to add to the “appeal” of their story… I wake up to a message from a friend of mine with the story in the pic above. This is in Jamaica and they are reporting on what happened in Zimbabwe Africa… Now i don’t need to try to edit this reporters story and point out the many errors and wrong information because the persons that were there and YouTube and my social media know how it really went. But the more important issue is to highlight something to you Ive always known it but its always being reintroduced to me.
As an artiste i have a huge fan base in dancehall worldwide, I’ve been touring,selling out shows big and small songs on charts worldwide etc. Ive been doing countless charity ventures most recently back to school treats and paying tuition fees for students as well as taking part in several other charity ventures of my peers/co workers.
One could say that as artistes we don’t do enough to get out our own positive moves and then we expect the media to come and jump and put it on blast for us, that could be the case and we could be at fault… But I think its kinda funny that I can be on the other side of the world and representing Jamaica and our music in a stand up positive way leaving patrons and the promoters pleased regardless of technical difficulties that were no fault of mine. See their press report countless positive accounts of the night YET… The story that happened to find its way on the slave ship and venture across land and sea all the way to JAMAICA is one that is trying to paint a negative picture or highlight a misfortune. Not funny?
We didn’t send home the positive but neither did we the negative. But it was searched for and put on blast though. Its obvious that putting down our own is much more interesting and appealing than building up our own. Im not attacking this reporter, maybe he/she hates Konshens or artistes or celebs or maybe he/she is just a hard nosed straight business person that is doing their job and reporting what sells. Who knows. This particular story is not that big a deal. The point is that the issue…
We are slaves to this mentality as fans and as the celebrities being paraded. We are so fascinated with negativity that we are beginning to lose interest in positivity!! You don’t think so?… Check it for yourself. Check the front page of the papers for the past months in JA count the headlines that weren’t about somebody’s misfortune or blunder. Last positive I remember was the athletes showing up at the last games and OMI Sterling contract, all things that make us all look good as a people but how quickly did we forget about all that??
I’m here in Europe and somebody rescued a dog on a train line and I’ve been seeing it over and over and over… Might I add that the latest unrest on earth is happening in Europe right now too. Do the maths. I once requested some media coverage from a popular media house/program, when they showed up the host said.. “So who u having an issue with now” I said no one… He said your publicist said you have an issue that’s why we are here!! Ok what else can we report about lol. He knows that some nice information wont be hot news but if Im upset with somebody and have some negative energy to start something its gonna be hot news!! We need to empower ourselves as fans if we are really fans… Demand,respect and support positivity!!
And as artistes and celebs we need to understand what we are getting into, most people don’t see us as regular human beings with regular human issues and emotions….Im sure if the average person could see the REAL LIFE (not the reality TV version) of some of the biggest stars they would NEVER trade their regular life. As artistes we need to look at the times we are in carefully… Amy Winehouse, Whitney,and now God forbid maybe Lamar Odom… Maybe they were just crackheads to some, but maybe it was really the great pressure that we will never know about unless we live it 1st hand. …
Its sad, there is a great talent somewhere in Jamaica right now desperate to be heard and contemplating drastic and dangerous measures to be seen so he can be heard. Or a struggling artiste watching the way the media parades the negative side of Vybz Kartel or Movado or Bounty Killa and think that its the main ingredient in their success and not talent and hard work nonstop…Contemplating to create his own negativity to step up. Sounds like fiction?? Imagine what the story would be like if I had the guy that hit me with the bottle killed instead of going in a different direction to set an example…Would be a much easier move and I actually lost respect for such an action.
We are so enslaved mentally that we not only expect negativity but we crave and respect it. As FANS and CELEBRITIES and as a PEOPLE we need to empower our MINDS and come out of slave mode. The early slave masters could not have achieved slavery if he did not gain control of the minds of influential individuals. Think about it.
~Konshens
Well said my yute!
