Spragga Benz contradicts state in “Vaccinated”

If you have not yet heard Spragga Benz’s 2022 song “Vaccinated” you should take a listen, whether you believe in the gospel of the jook or believe that those who take one of the available COVID-19 vaccines will get jook in another sense of the Jamaican terminology. It was posted to YouTube on 8 January and you can take a listen here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vuGgj7Nq34). It is as likely to be played on radio as a ‘best of’ unedited dancehall dash out tunes. “Vaccinated” is against COVID-19 vaccines in no uncertain terms, but it comes from the viewpoint of fake news (the media gets a salvo of brimstone) and mistrust of the state (a flame is dashed on the Minister, although a portfolio is not specified).

Whether or not you are pro, anti or neutral vax (and hence appalled by, bussing blank to or could not care less about Spragga’s “Vaccinated”), the context in which the song has been created and disseminated should not pass without comment. In a three-and-a-half-minute song, the deejay has countered 20 months of state messaging on multiple traditional and social media platforms about the handling of the most widespread pandemic that anyone who is now alive would have experienced. He has done it in Jamaican Creole, the language which most Jamaicans speak on a regular basis, on a platform which anyone can access at any time for free (especially if they have one of those phone plans which give free YouTube gigabytes). And, one which the state cannot shut down, as would have easily done with a sound system.

The last is significant, as it points to the control of physical space, which can be exercised by restricting access (from rental to granting permits, among other methods), or regulations on content or literally policing the event. That worked quite well when here was, for example, the thought of holding a memorial dance for those who became known as the Braeton Seven, after they were killed during a police operation in Portmore, St Catherine, in March 2001. The virtual communication space is beyond the control of the state or those who, due to licensing requirements, must act within the parameters established by the state.

Of course, it is also the state which guarantees Spragga Benz and others who are, similarly, joking a finger at being vaccinated against COVID-19 the freedom of speech to do so. And, ironically, the melody and chorus of “Vaccinated” are based in part on Baby Wayne’s early 1990s hit “Mama”, which uses the example of one man’s jail cell wails to warn all against breaking the law. In “Mama”, Baby Wayne deejays: “Bout dem haunted/Kill man an get wanted/Yu tink mi response fi dem an no lawya business/Yu haunted/Kill man an get wanted/Mi no response fi yu a courthouse business/Mama/Hear murdera a cry/A pure teardrops an water come out a him eye…”

Using the same melody, Spragga deejays: “Vaccinated An still go ketch COVID/Well mi sorry fi dem an dem doctor business/Vaccinated/ An still go ketch COVID/Wi sorry fi dem an hospital business/Fia, pon a corrupted leader/Tek de money an go sell di country future/Fia, pon a corrupt Minister/Cause dem no care bout yu /ealth dem jus a follow order/Fia, pon de media/Whe a spread false report to boost de numba/Fia, pon a corrupted doctor…”

There is at least one instance where a deejay and the state were in agreement on government policy. In the latter part of the 1980s, Ninja Man (who, ironically, is now serving a life sentence) used the Ministry of Health’s responsible reproductive patterns tagline “two is better than too many” in the song “Protection”, which he did with singer Courtney Melody. Backed by an image of a stereotypical nuclear family, mother, father and two children, I suspect it failed as the campaign went against cultural norms. I suspect that the nuclear family was never a major social phenomenon in Jamaica or has long imploded (and that is even without factoring in the ‘outside children’ on the father’s side or the ‘jackets’ on the mothers). 

Both “Protection” and “Vaccinated” are a part of communication utilizing dancehall, which is a powerful social behaviour tool in Jamaica, one which has been underutilized in handling the COVID-19 Pandemic, although there is an effort to do so. As Omicron leaps from person to persona and hospitals, hitting yellow and red levels of bed availability, it is a tool that needs to be considered. Not only are the draconian measures against the entertainers who have stated their views on COVID-19 which contradict those of the state (Buju Banton comes readily to mind) difficult to implement, but any attempt to do so would result in mayhem. Engagement is the order of the COVID-19 day.

Mel Cooke covered Jamaican entertainment as a print journalist for almost two decades, overlapping with his MPhil research on dancehall and experiential marketing with the Institute of Caribbean Studies, UWI, Mona, where he is now working on a PhD while lecturing in the Bachelor of Arts, Communication Arts and Technology (BACAT) programme at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech, Ja.).