Krista Henry, Staff Reporter

Mr Vegas

While fresh blood comes into the dancehall industry every once in a while there are those who hang on to the business, going with the flow rather than creating new energy in the music.

In the dancehall industry there are artistes who have a musical lifespan of over 10 to sometimes 20 years who are trying their best to keep fresh. These artistes have well established their names in the industry and new artistes have to compete with them to become popular.

While these established acts have their fans, there are those who believe they have lost some of their creativity.

Latisha, an avid music lover told the STAR, "There are some artistes like Bounty Killer and his generation who just need to stop making music, cause his songs beginning to sound di same. Yet cause dem have a name people always feel obliged to play their music, but I don't think they are contributing to di music much anymore."

Some believe that despite competition, new artistes also have a sure place in the business.

Dancehall artiste Mr Vegas says "If its older artistes every time it can get monotonous, people get tired of you. A new sound needs to come and freshen up the business."

Pulling their weight

According to Matthew Gray from Coppershot, he believes that the older artistes are not pulling their weight in the industry. He told the STAR, "we haven't been hearing much stuff from a lot of the older artistes, they have had a quiet year in 2007 and some have been quiet for a lot longer, but from them, we have been seeing a lot of the same type of music, a lot of gun tunes or skin out tunes."

He continued "you have artistes who just follow the same pattern out there but the fact of the matter is that good tunes will speak for themselves and good artistes will get the break this year as long as they are consistent. Older artistes I think they might need to go back to doing what they did to buss - which was doing different material.

Instead of being lost wid the crowd they need to step it up and stand out," Gray said.

While younger artistes might get one or new tunes out at a time it usually takes years of dedication for them to completely break through. According to Vegas its never easy for new blood to buss in the business.

"It very hard especially in Jamaica. Its harder now than back in the days cause you have to be up against established artistes. Now its changed where you have so many persons on a riddim and established persons get chosen first and producers are making a one a way riddim for certain artistes," Vegas said.

While it is difficult to break through, Gray believes that last year it was the young acts who brought new ideas and topics to the dancehall arena.

"A good example is Serani and Bugle who went outside of the bad man thing and the upbeat dance things, doing some good songs with good topics," he said. For Gray artistes such as Lutan Fyah, Black Rhino are artistes who have developed a fresh new sound different from other deejays.

( L - R ) Bugle, Serani - file photos