What does Vybz Kartel's release from prison mean for dancehall music?

One of dancehall music's greatest names, Vybz Kartel, was recently released from prison. While the news has been celebrated by many fans worldwide, some are wondering what his return will mean for both his career and for the genre at large.

Danae Peart is a culture critic based in Toronto. Dalton Higgins is a publicist, author and veteran music journalist. Walshy Fire is a DJ and record producer, best known for his work as part of Major Lazer. Today on Commotion, Peart, Higgins and Fire join guest host Rad Simonpillai to talk about Vybz Kartel's music, cultural influence and his controversial legal situation.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Rad: Walshy, before we get into the case and Vybz Kartel's release, I want to talk about him as an artist. This is someone you got to work with personally as a part of Major Lazer. You've been in the dancehall scene for a long time as a DJ. Talk to me about what Vybz Kartel represents to you as a musician and as a representative of dancehall?

Walshy: Vybz Kartel is a part of the bigger puzzle. There's so many artists that have paved the way for Vybz Kartel. He carried the torch, and when he was incarcerated he was missed. He's a big piece of that lineage, and is a big part of why a lot of people aren't really into dancehall right now globally — because he was incarcerated. He was a very impactful and very important person, bringing the old style and old network to the young artists. I'm sure the industry missed him. I had a great time working with him, and I really appreciate every song that we've done together.

Rad: Amazing. Dalton, we found out that last week Vybz Kartel was released after serving 13 years in prison. Can you lay out the case for us and how we got here?

Dalton: Vybz Kartel was jailed back in 2014 for the murder of one of his close accomplices, Clive "Lizard" Williams, in Jamaica. He's always maintained his innocence. The case essentially centered around Williams not returning some of Vybz Kartel's unlicensed firearms. Then, he was attacked, and he's essentially never been seen alive again. The house where this attack happened was burned down days later. Clive Williams's body has never been found. There's some pretty gruesome, gratuitous ideas around violence — like, a text message was allegedly found on Vybz Kartel's phone that alluded to him and his crew chopping Williams's remains up.

Vybz Kartel's defense team have been appealing his conviction for years, and it's only recently in March that the conviction was overturned by U.K. judges. The case itself was a bit of a comedy of errors; in the end, it was tossed out due to juror misconduct. The original trial back in 2014 dragged on for like 65 days, and it stands as the longest trial in Jamaica's history. Now we're here.

Rad: Danae, please jump in and talk to me about the reaction in Jamaica to all of this.

Danae: I made sure to watch every vlogger I could find when that verdict came down, and the subsequent hours, and it was euphoria for the most part. I have different interpretations of what Vybz really means in and outside of the Jamaican context, but I was happy to see Jamaicans at home and abroad were in sync in terms of watching this news and reacting to it. Obviously, in his area where he's from, it was euphoria again when he got home. So it was definitely excitement.

I think Vybz Kartel is very interesting as a character, in terms of explaining Jamaican dancehall culture and explaining Jamaicans. And so there are two layers that come across to me. One is he's iconic. Dancehall artists have missed him. He changed the trajectory of dancehall if we're to be honest, in terms of the speed with which he writes and produces content and also how you can commodify dancehall in a way. He was really good at that, and people missed that impact. And then there's the polarizing Vybz Kartel, the socio-political conversation about what he represents when he comes out now. Is he going to go in a political direction? Is he going to garner extra iconic status with the masses and move them in a certain direction? So there's that conversation as well when you see these reactions because man on the street was like, "This is our hero. He represents poor people who have been disenfranchised by the system. He's the free guy that we can now hold up and be elated about." And then there are others of us who are like, so what does this mean? How does he leverage this?

Rad: Dalton, I'm conflicted because we're celebrating the release based on a technicality, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of consideration towards the graveness of the crime and maybe consideration for the victim's family and how they're feeling when seeing people basically parading in the streets and celebrating this release. How are you feeling about it? 

Dalton: It's complex.… For years, people have been wanting him to be freed, and so people are now celebrating his prison release in the streets and in the clubs. But I also wonder how the victim's family, friends, children feel about all of this, because at the end of the day someone died a pretty gruesome death — this idea of the house burned down, the body hasn't been found, there was no proper burial of the victim because his body was allegedly chopped up into "mincemeat" and burned to ashes, you know? No one really thinks about the victims, and I'm guessing that they are probably being retraumatized in the worst way possible.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ryan Chung.