Hill and Gully riddim revives Jamaica slackness debate from mento to dancehall

Prince Buster’s “Wreck A Pum Pum” dropped in 1969. So did the Soul Sisters’ “Wreck a Buddy,” the same year. Nearly sixty years later, those tracks still sit on YouTube for anyone who wants to hear what Jamaican pop once sounded like on record.

That timeline matters now. Across Jamaica and overseas communities, talk has sharpened around a batch of recent cuts riding the revived Hill and Gully riddim. Masicka’s “Slip and Slide,” Govana’s “Itsy Bitsy,” Elephant Man’s “Hold Him Gyal,” Valiant’s “Woii,” and Aidonia’s “Pit A Pat” draw fire for blunt sexual wording. Nigy Boy’s “Wah Mi Money,” often praised as a cleaner standout, sits in the same conversation. Against that backdrop, Donna Hope, who teaches at The University of the West Indies, Mona, urges listeners to treat the uproar as a question of cultural memory, not simple morality.

Media veteran Fae Ellington has taken a harder line in published remarks. She blasted what she called the lyrical direction of many Stephen McGregor productions, warning that mainstream Jamaican music now normalises explicit sex talk at the expense of craft. Hope agrees the worry is human, but warns it can erase a messier past.

In a Facebook note that spread widely, Hope recalled an exam she sets for students: “Using examples from at least two musical genres, critically analyse how ‘slackness’ operates as a form of cultural expression and social commentary within Jamaican popular music.” For her, the prompt is not classroom trivia. It maps how slackness grew inside the island’s sound.

“Selective amnesia and subjectively placed moral outrage notwithstanding,” Hope wrote, “Our popular music, in particular Mento, Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae and Dancehall, have all had this explicit and very vocal conversation with the female sex organ, female underwear, sex, things in the bedroom etc. – all labelled as ‘slackness’.” She argues that what critics label decline may be continuity with older genres.

Hope reminded readers that mento, often hailed as an early authentic Jamaican form, faced official scorn decades ago. “Mento, in particular, was the first genre of Jamaican music from which songs were taken to the House of Representatives to be banned and chastised in the 1950s because of its careless and slack lyrics,” she wrote. Each year, she said, students react with surprise when she plays hits from earlier eras. She closed with dry irony: “One era’s ‘creativity’ apparently outweighs that of another. CarryOn.”

Former Cabinet minister Aloun Ndombet Assamba joined the thread after Hope’s post. She said she spent an evening sampling Hill and Gully versions. “I spent some time last night listening to some of the various versions of the lyrics on the Hill and Gully rhythm. There are all kinds of words that have been put on the rhythm. Some lewd, some positive, some hilarious, some Christian.” She pointed to a track urging fathers to support their children. For Assamba, the riddim shows Jamaica’s range: “I think that is what makes us such a melting pot of creativity. One thing for sure, it has us talking!”

Music researcher James Danino echoed that view from abroad. He recalled lecturing on women in Jamaican music at a reggae and dub festival in France. “Contrarily to popular belief, ‘slack’ lyrics were not something that happened with the advent of what is now called ‘dancehall music’,” Danino wrote. He again named Prince Buster’s “Wreck A Pum Pum” and the Soul Sisters’ “Wreck a Buddy” as proof that raunchy lines predate today’s dancehall tag. “Women have been also singing these songs since they began,” he noted.

Irie Jam Radio host Chris Dub Master tried to hold both threads. “The fact that you have people of an older generation, such as Fae Ellington, speaking out against the lewd lyrics being sung over a rhythm such as Hill and Gully, it’s an opportunity to have a conversation about where the culture is going and that there is somewhat of a disconnect between generations,” he said. He credited Hope’s history lesson yet stressed how songs are used today. “I don’t think anybody is arguing the fact that there’s a lot of sexually explicit music in the culture,” he told Caribbean National Weekly. “I think what some of the older Jamaican citizens have a problem with is that something that is a grounded, rooted Jamaican traditional folk song and then you’re taking that music and flipping it completely in a different direction.”

For Dub Master, the fight is less about banning records than guarding tradition. “It has opened up a new conversation,” he said. “I don’t think it should be something that we argue about so much but it should be taken as an opportunity – a teaching moment.” He linked the music row to wider cultural drift. “I’ve seen in recent years where… school-aged children have a problem recognizing Bob Marley,” he said. “So, we’re losing touch somewhere along the line.”

That stance sits between Hope’s archival reading and Ellington’s standards complaint. The Hill and Gully flare-up therefore asks whether Jamaica faces new moral rot in music, or an old pattern dressed in fresh outrage—and who decides which era’s creativity counts as acceptable.