Irish rock band, The Script famous for their Celtic soul repertoire penned the lyrics, “Take that rage, put it on a page, take the page to the stage, blow the roof off the place.” Very inspiring words for gifted singers with anger management issues looking for opportunities to change their lives.
The BRITs known to most as the BRIT Awards the event that showcases the British Phonographic Industry’s awards for popular music has formally announced repeat knife crime convict J Hus as one of the performers at the prestigious annual event on Tuesday 8th February 2022.
In the old days (1970s, 80s and even 90s) the focus of high profile events was to provide quality entertainment to an appreciative audience from a crop of hard working, socially adjusted law abiding citizens such as British reggae group ASWAD famous for the hit, Don’t Turn Around and several others.
ASWAD. Photo courtesy wikipedia.org
It would appear values have changed for the worse as people in receipt of ASBOs (Anti-Social behaviour order) and criminal records are allowed to grace the once hallowed stages with the likes of Tom Jones, Justin Timberlake, and our very own Diana Ross. That is unacceptable and a travesty for those who sacrificed, grafted and ‘towed’ the proverbial line to meet the non-universal standards of the ‘role model’ for our impressionable Generation Z or zoomers (youngsters born after millennials.
Well yes it’s true J Hus has been confirmed as one of the performers at tomorrow’s O2 Arena THE BRITS. Regarded in legal circles as a recidivist (repeat offender) J Hus has a string of convictions largely around knife possession as recently as 2018.
No doubt the man is talented but shouldn’t being barred from performing at such influential events serve as a deterrent to non-conformists criminals bent on bending and breaking rules with no regard for authority? What message are we sending to our children about the values and virtues of hard work, discipline, respect for one another and the most elusive of them all, brotherly love? Carrying a knife can in no way be symbolic of any of the above values and should there for by definition disqualify the offender from participating in such grand affairs.
I applaud his achievements nonetheless; his pioneering of the popular genre afroswing which made him popular when he dropped, Dem Boy Paigon in 2015. Two years later following an intensity of focus J Hus delivered his most successful single, Did You See which peaked at number 9 on the UK Single Chart earning him the coveted Platinum certification in 2017.
J Hus began moving in influential circles and learnt the value of collaboration and teamed up with fellow British singer Ella Mai, Jamaican singer Koffee, and Nigerian singer Burna Boy to produce Big Conspiracy which became his first number 1 album on the UK Albums chart.
There is no doubt in my mind that J Hus will deliver a fabulous performance to rapturous applause and he may even come away with an award for his contribution to some aspect of pop music but my concern, as always, is what sort of example is he setting for my 18 year old daughter who already has a somewhat skewed view of the world seen through the prism of influencers and ultimately through no fault of hers. It’s people like J Hus in spite of his brilliance, connections and success confuse regular kids who follow the path set by their parents, opinion leaders and authority figures. What ever happened to the old adage made popular by motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, ‘It’s Your attitude, not your aptitude that will determine your altitude’? Or has that too been cast away as a relic of a forgotten time, suffering the wrath of modernisation and the need to keep things fresh?
The BRITS need to take a long hard look at itself with a view to being the last bastion of all-round excellence and unquestionable standards within the British music industry, if not for its own survival for our children’s sake as I’m a firm believer that some values are timeless.
D Fitz-Roberts is a multi-talented writer on socio-economic issues having worked in journalism across the Caribbean (Grenada, Guyana and BVI) in the 90s. He has worked in London with Black Britain Online, New Nation Newspaper and Caribbean Times. An academic with a passion for research on distributed ledger technologies in emerging economies he is keen to see the Caribbean embrace bitcoin and blockchain technologies to keep pace with the west. He writes periodically for mainstream publications and is the founder of CaribDirect.com. He is also the author of Caribbean children's book LifeSucks! available on Amazon.
