Veteran dancehall artiste Baby Cham is joining a growing list of Jamaican musicians hitting back against Prime Minister Andrew Holness for casting blame on the genre as the main influencer feeding the island’s crime and violence crisis.

Cham, unlike other dancehall acts, however, went a step further in his Instagram post, arguing that if the responsibility truly rests on the culture’s shoulders, then Holness and the rest of Jamaica’s political elites should let musicians govern.

“Therefore, it begs to ask the question ‘Is audio communication more effective than video communication?’ [and] if yes, then it is with great honour that I will lobby for myself and my fellow artistes to take over the government of Jamaica—so we can finally, through our music, bring some order and restoration to the country,” Cham said.

The nearly three-minute response was well received by fellow Jamaican artistes, as Cham addressed the recent Holness-fuelled controversy on Sunday (April 4).

Cham, as a product of the ‘ghetto’ himself, said for years, the root causes of crime have been identified and discussed at length.

“Becoming an artiste was solely to provide entertainment to the world through my music. Never would I once imagine that I would take on the responsibilities of a country’s governing body or parenthood for an entire nation,” he began.

“From where I stand, as someone from the inner-city, and a public figure, I have observed where poverty, poor leadership, illiteracy, and lack of opportunity for the Jamaican youth are the top four contributors for the country’s high crime rate. Not the music,” Cham continued.

The Ghetto Story deejay contended that it cannot be arbitrary blame cast on dancehall whenever a spike in crime besieges the island, as he has not heard the same vim spewed at US-based streaming giants Netflix.

“Let us take it a bit further… Are we going to slam or blame Netflix for violent content in the same breath? Are we going to remove data from everyone’s smartphones and their homes? Come on,” he remarked.

At least from where the 42-year-old Kingston native sat, Holness’ comments were as much unsubstantiated as they were opportunistic.

“Mr Prime Minister did your conclusion arrive from studies done, or, did it arrive from guilt of mismanagement over the years?” the deejay asked.

“People who are already prone to violence and have violent behaviour will always [be triggered] by anything that mimics that. It is easy to conclude that visual and audio [stimulus] is what cause[s] the person to become violent. Not because the conclusion is an easy way out, means we should use it to mask the real issues at hand, which [are] poverty, poor leadership from both government and parenting, illiteracy and lack of communication and opportunities for the youths,” he added.

Going simply by Cham these days, the dancehall artiste repeated the caption of his Instagram TV post, that the genre and its musicians are a reflection of wider society and its failings, rather than the national influencer Holness attributed it to be.

“An artiste is a mirror of society, whatever society reflects we tend to [show] back with music, melodies and words. If you take away the art from the artiste then you take away the artistry and then, you’ll have no artistes,” he said.

“Please, listen to what the people of the country [are] really saying and do the right job. Do the right work,” Cham argued.

Holness continues to face mounting criticism from Jamaican social media users and the wider dancehall community for comments made in Parliament that seemingly slammed musicians as contributors to the island’s violence epidemic.

• See related article: Twitter in uproar after Holness blames dancehall for ‘culture of violence’