Richie Spice’s Gideon Boots is kicking up a storm. And it all has to do with radio, specifically reggae radio Irie FM.
Known worldwide as a standard bearer for culture, the dreadlocked Richie Spice recently released his latest CD, Gideon Boots on the VP Records label. However, prior to the release, as is the norm, a few singles were distributed to radio to generate airplay, among them the CD’s title song, Gideon Boots.
Radio showed the song love, especially the roots programme on Irie. After all, it’s Richie Spice and this is one artiste who can be counted on to deliver clean, air-play-worthy tracks. Right?
Anyway, the Irie disc jock who has been playing this single for weeks, maybe months, then gets her copy of the CD, Gideon Boots. She plays her favourite track for her listeners, this time, using the CD rather than the single. It’s Richie Spice and he’s clean, and furthermore she has been wearing out Gideon Boots for weeks. But lo and behold! at the very end of the song comes a shocker, to put it mildly. Richie Spice is heard on the CD version of the song saying, “B*&% c@#%, it finish already.”
We cannot begin to imagine the gamut of emotions that that particular disc jockey must have experienced in those few seconds. Where did that expletive come from? It wasn’t on the advance single, there was no advisory alert on the CD and Richie Spice doesn’t ever use indecent language.
“Nobody expects any expletive on any Richie Spice song,” his personal assistant Ornaldo ‘Junior’ Thompson agrees. “And that’s the only song . the only song that has an expletive and it’s at the end,” he points out in defence.
But why?
According to Thompson, “It was just a vibe. When he finished singing the song he made the exclamation and the engineer captured it. I guess because it sounded natural and musical, he left it on the track. When the raw footage was being submitted to the company it was on it and because our badwords have no meaning on the overseas market, the company just left it at the end of the track.”
Thompson, acknowledging that something should have been put in place to prevent this sort of thing from occurring, says he has noted that the station has not been playing any Richie Spice songs since the incident. “But we have not been informed officially or anything. We just heard that this is the reason,” he said.
Irie FM, however, posted the following release on their website last week. “Effective immediately, artistes who include explicit lyrics or indecent language in previously clean pre-released singles on CDs or other released music, will be facing a media black-out by the company.
“In a press release the company notes that disc jockeys and presenters are being put in embarrassing and awkward situations, where clean pre-releases being played by them for as long as up to six months, are released on CDs and albums with indecent language and/or explicit lyrics added.
“The company points out that in such situations the presenter or DJ is usually broadsided on air, since they know the song well, they may have been playing it for many months and accepted the released version in good faith.
“The company cites a recent incident in which one presenter was caught unaware after a song which she had been playing for over two months was included on the artiste’s newly released album, with indecent language added that violates the Children’s Code for Programming and the Television and Sound Broadcasting Regulations, 1996.
“The new regulations which will see artistes being removed from all IRIE FM playlists takes effect today.”
Source: JamaicaObserver
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