Tanya Stephens gives confident lecture at UWI

A confident looking Tanya Stephens stood behind the podium at the University of the West Indies' Assembly Hall yesterday speaking in a lecture on the topic 'Music, the Power to Shape Societies'.

Her delivery was just as confident as she clearly brought across her points to the audience.

She touched on several fitting issues, among them, the social responsibility of entertainers, lyrics which objectify women, and the issue at hand, the power which music holds to shape societies. Where the latter was concerned, Stephens gave some excellent examples of how this was easily done, but did not accept responsibility for the negative impact that music has been said to have on society.

Stephens, however, did not place all the blame on music, saying, "... while music didn't create the problems, it is helping to propagate them."

She spoke of marketing strategies used by some artistes and how it helps them and at the same time influence how members of society and avid music lovers accept 'brand names'. The endorsement of liquors such as Cristal, Moet and Hennessy by entertainers is one such example she noted before going on to point out the clothing fad of Gucci, Louis Vuitton and more recently Clarks.

She also spoke of the lyrical content of female artistes which objectify women saying that they were sending the wrong messages to a 14-year-old girl who is trying to find her identity.

Dancehall vs homophobia

She did not bar herself from her missiles, however, as she admitted to having content which did the same, but none recently.

'Dancehall vs homophobia' was another of her topic which was welcomed with applause as Stephens pointed out that oftentimes artistes who wear the 'humanitarian' and 'cultural' cap were the ones who blatantly hit out against homophobia and in doing so influenced the masses.

She said that the first time she performed Do You Still Care?, a song which addresses racism and anti-homosexuality, was before a group of journalists in New York, many of who were from Jamaica.

"I was warned that when I released the track I would have to move from Jamaica," she laughed.

She later turned the lecture into a conversation as she answered questions from members of the audience before performing Do You Still Care?, These Streets, It's A Pity and Cherry Brandy at the request of the audience.

Here is her song questioning prejudice towards persons recorded live some years ago

Dr. Carolyn Cooper, the main facilitator/organizer of this event, has indicated that Stephens’ lecture marks the revival of the public forums on ‘Women in Reggae’ that were previously hosted by the Reggae Studies Unit at UWI (to mark International Women’s Month). The first forum was held almost a decade ago, in March 2002. Artistes Judy Mowatt, Cherry Natural, Lady G, Lady Saw, Angie Angel, Queen Ifrica, Pam Hall, Sabrina Williams, Jana Bent, Shirley McLean, Italee, Crissy D, Ce’Cile and Nadine Sutherland have all spoken at/participated in previous UWI Women in Reggae forums.