Dear Editor,

Dancehall artiste Valiant’s latest hit song, Mad Out, is creating a storm on the airwaves. The song is a big hit, but mentally ill people like myself feel mocked, disrespected, and demeaned.

I see nothing valiant in the song. Music is a powerful influence on people’s thinking, attitude, and behaviour. The content of Valiant’s song is very insensitive towards the struggles people with mental illness endure.

Firstly, the language used in the song is pejorative. For example, the opening stanza says, “Move out my way, me a mad smaddy, a mad mi a mad out!” To sing so loosely about someone’s health challenge is a hit below the belt for me.

The video is even more heart-rending as it gives the impression that taking injections as a mentally ill person is a bad thing that should be avoided and the mentally ill should be feared. The attire of the individuals depicted as “mad smaddy” devalues the seriousness of a diagnosis of mental illness and comes across as pure mockery.

I don’t want to give the impression that dancehall music and artistes like Valiant are solely responsible for the stigma, negative labels, and perception surrounding mental illness. However, it can’t be denied that music is a powerful influence on socialisation and personal values. Therefore, artistes like Valiant have strong influence on many people’s minds.

We have seen repeatedly how some of these artistes and their songs have immensely impacted young people by influencing their dressing, speaking, and general attitude towards various subjects. It is an undisputed fact that music influences attitude, values, and behaviour. I am disappointed that a talented artiste like Valiant could not find more sensitive and appropriate language to address the community of the mentally ill in his song. Mastery of one’s craft is more than producing content to satisfy public appetite, it is also about guiding the public’s appetite through uplifting and enlightening content.

If Valiant had used insensitive or negative language in his song towards the homosexual community, he would likely have his overseas tours cancelled as well as his US, Canada, and UK visas. If artistes can discipline themselves and show respect that borders on reverence towards the language used to address the homosexual community, what gives them the right to use pejoratives to address the community of the mentally ill? We must reject this contempt, insensitivity, and disrespect.

I don’t want to suggest that we stifle creativity and free speech in art, but there needs to be standards set in the content of our music, whereby respect and understanding can strive.

As a mentally ill person, I am deeply disappointed with the release of Mad Out. Valiant should be called out for the pejoratives and negative labels as well as the insensitivity towards us as a demographic. He is young and talented, but he needs guidance. He needs to understand the power and influence of his craft and act responsibly for the collective good of the society, which includes the mentally ill.

I hold no malice or ill will towards Valiant, I am disappointed in him, but I am not bitter. The true veterans in the music industry need to mentor him. I would humbly suggest that he releases a counteraction to Mad Out that gives greater respect and sensitivity towards the community of the mentally ill. Those of us who know better must speak up and speak out. Ignorance and wrongful actions triumph when wise and empathetic people say and do nothing.

In the words of poet William Yeats in his poem The Second Coming, which was made popular in Jamaica by the late Wilmot “Motty” Perkins: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere. The ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Valiant’s song has already amassed a fan base of over four million views. The word is always love!

Andre’ A O Wellington

Mental health patient and advocate

andrewellington344@yahoo.com