Beenie Man: Undisputed indeed!

It is impossible to dispute Beenie Man’s self-proclaimed ‘King of the Dancehall’ title when the Jamaican stood alone for nearly two hours appeasing and pleasing the largely jaded Guyanese crowd that turned up at the National Park two Saturdays ago, expecting a packed show which turned out to be a one-man performance.

As if weary of the familiar line-up of local performers at such shows, the mammoth crowd appeared non-responsive to the likes of Fojo, X2 and Shelly G though the latter two artistes had some support worth mentioning. In Shelly G’s case, a sexed up on-stage act with a local man who wanted to touch her all over as her song says, helped pull in some support. And Adrian Dutchin and Jomo – X2 – know how to connect with an audience, even if half of the people seemed disinterested.

Perhaps it was because everyone went to see Beenie Man and simply refused to follow what was happening on stage before he made a hyped entrance around 12:45 am. If only the promoters had had a premonition, the ads could simply have said, “The Dancehall King – live at the National Park in a solo two-hour show”. It is unlikely the turnout would have been any different. Women, in particular, seemed every interested in the Jamaican.

More than half of the patrons at the year-end show were female, some so richly dressed the dancehall king could have easily found his queen. Throughout his entire performance the women screamed, positioned themselves and even jumped onstage to get his attention. But he wasted no time in making it known that he is not ready to rule with a queen with at his side just yet.

Future Fambo, the other Jamaican who came with Beenie Man for the event, spent a disappointing seven minutes onstage bowing out after the crowd ignored whatever it was he was doing. His songs, some of which have made it big back in his native country, failed to move anyone. Fambo realized this and left saying he was making way for Beenie Man. Maybe some time in the future Guyanese will respond to him differently.

With the weight of an entire promotion, dubbed the ‘Guinness Christmas Jam’, riding on his crown – owing to the bombed out performances that preceded his – Beenie Man delivered as expected yet again; proving that his claim to the dancehall king title is not arrogance but a fact — one that anyone present at the National Park last Saturday would find hard to dispute.

Long before he was seen on stage, the Jamaican was heard. From backstage, he belted out one of his better known tunes then made a grand entrance elaborately attired in a three-piece, white tailored pants suit and matching cloak. There was no official drum roll, but the thunderous roar that erupted was enough to announce that the king had arrived.

For about five minutes most of what rolled off the Jamaican’s lips was inaudible because of the roar, but Beenie’s subjects soon realized they were in the presence of dancehall royalty and the atmosphere quickly simmered to an electric yet controlled one. And as if appreciative of the respect, he dished out song after song after song beginning with his dated hits.

Dancehall classics such as “Who Am I”, “Romie”, “World Gone Mad”, “Modelling”, Be My Lady” and a host of others off his six albums prior to the 2006 release of ‘Undisputed’ rang out in the park and the crowd ate them up.

Beenie Man’s legion of fans sang along with him and recognizing this very early he gave them a chance to sing a few songs with him barely assisting.

As with most Jamaican singers who perform here the dancehall king gave a lesson on how to please a woman in bed and though it was hard to rate his tutoring above the others, he struck a note the women. Countless screams of “Beenie Man do it with me”, rang out during the demonstration.

Throughout his nearly two-hour long performance, Beenie Man entertained with his music and infectious dance moves. He had the crowd moving to old styles and new dancehall ones challenging persons to keep up — something many were unable to do.

Drenched in sweat, stripped down to half of the clothing he was wearing when he first appeared on stage and well into his performance, the Jamaican kept churning out the hits in the wee hours of the morning as the crowd soaked up everything he was sharing. At one time, someone asked whether he was ever going to finish because at that point the Jamaican had offloaded quite a bit of his sizeable collection of hits but still had some more to go.

“Beenie Man come home with me tonight”, a female gyrating to music shouted as his performance neared a close. Persons were already filing out of the National Park but the crowd was so thickly gathered, persons were still shoulder to shoulder. The dancehall king waited until the majority of persons had exited the park to take a final bow and disappear into the night.

And so Beenie Man did indeed close out the year in style; it was a long but could have been as easy task for the dancehall king as he would have fed off the energy generated by his legion of local fans. Beenie Man gave a performance above or on par with any other on local soil in 2007. To have asked for anything more from him would have been unreasonable. (ianaseales@yahoo.com)