Reggae artist Julian Marley currently has the second most downloaded reggae album in America, but the album released this week, has yet to tick onto the Billboard charts. |
He, however, fears that radio would not play the lead single, which speaks about ganja as a sacrament, due to increased policing of the airwaves.
The song is tagged on iTunes as explicit, even though there are no "four lettered words" except "herb" in the song. He thinks a similar response could occur locally.
The bleeping of songs are no longer allowed since February, when the Broadcast Commission (BC) issued directives aimed at curtailing on-air explicit lyrics. BC directives speak to guns and sexually explicit lyrics but not ganja.
Following the BC directives, president of Greensleeves records Olivier Chastan argued that the BC' restrictions could impact on artiste creativity; self-editing in order to secure airplay. He says that artistic freedom enables creativity.