Concern about overly sexualised songs, dance in Crop Over culture

The spokesperson/coordinator of the Group of Concerned Parents, Barbados, is concerned about sexualised lyrics and dancing during Crop Over, as she commented on a viral video of a dancer being dropped on stage by a soca artiste at an event last weekend.

Though wishing the young woman a speedy recovery, Paula-Anne Moore said the incident should be recognised as the culmination of rising overly sexualised lyrics and themes that have infiltrated the Crop Over season in recent years.

“The increased overt aggressive sexualisation of our culture… is a national societal challenge which starts with adults and children mimicking what they see. What are we willing to accept as societal standards? The chickens are now coming home to roost after maybe 20 years of the acceleration of the degrading of standards and values which we have allowed as a collective society.

“The very graphic sexualisation of our soca dancing is awful and of relatively recent vintage, especially for someone such as myself who has jumped Kadooment Day for many years – from the time I was 13. I wonder if this sexualisation is now something ‘uniquely Bajan’, and not in a good way,” lamented Moore, well known for being outspoken in matters of education.

Moore’s comments were triggered by a viral video from the Powda fete, in which artiste King Mario was gyrating with a female dancer before lifting her and seemingly dropping her on the stage. He subsequently issued an apology, claiming that the dancer had fallen as he tried to lift her into another position, and not that he had deliberately body slammed her as many were saying.

Moore expressed concern that songs for Crop Over were no longer centred on “wukking up” and having a good time, and that an aggressive form of feteing had become the norm.

“As someone who used to go to T&T Carnival regularly until fairly recently, the way Trinis and other islanders wine to soca is very different to many Bajans. Indeed, on the road often one could tell who was a Bajan by the wuk up type displayed,” she said. “And we wonder why our children are having sex, getting STIs and enduring very early pregnancies? Plus becoming victims of the inevitable sexual abuse that might be sometimes introduced as dancing.”

Moore added: “What do adults perpetrate in front of children, even toddlers? Putting toddlers to wuk up on [each other] as it’s ‘cute’; watching porn in front of children – and even worse. And all often associated with ‘bashment’ behaviour as ‘we culture’. And we wonder ‘how de yute get so’.” (SB)