SOMEBODY SHOULD STOP BLAKK RASTA!

It is no news that radio presenter and musician, Blakk Rasta and fellow musician, Wanlov The Kubolor have had a long standing feud which has resulted in the trading of words between the two for a while now. It is also no news that Blakk Rasta slapped Wanlov The Kubolor at the premises of the Multimedia Group in Accra last Friday. The incident has been buzzing hot over the last few days and has attracted a lot of discussions on some of the entertainment shows on different radio stations as well as on some websites and social media forums on the internet. The two of them spoke about it on Peace FM’s Entertainment Review programme last Saturday. My concern here is not to discuss the matter or the merits thereof (as that falls to the abused person and the police to deal with) but rather to tell somebody, whoever it is, who is in charge that, it was about time he/she brought Blakk Rasta to order. Blakk Rasta has been hosting the lunchtime programme on Hitz FM known as Taxi Driver since moving to the station from Happy FM for some time now. It is a show on which he plays reggae music alongside social commentary. The show gives Blakk Rasta the freedom and liberty to criticise anybody who needs to be criticised for what they did wrongly or even didn’t do and he has managed to keep a lot of people on their toes because they know they could appear wrongly on his show. As the industry people will know, Hitz FM is not among the most listened to stations either within the Multimedia Group or on the wider scale among stations operating in the nation’s capital. The Ipsos monthly diaries show it hoovers around 9th, 10th and 11th positions on monthly basis. It must be pointed out also that Blakk Rasta’s show is the most listened to on the channel and the likely driver of the general listenership and the concomitant modest position the station enjoys. Which means that but for Blakk Rasta the station would probably be further down the ‘food chain’ than it is now. So he is the star boy of the station, the jewel in their crown and the apple of their eye, but that should not give him the fiat and the garage to do whatever he wants and get away with it. Somebody has to let Blakk Rasta know that there are limits to everything. Not too long ago, the news leaked out that Blakk Rasta had a small misunderstanding with his work colleague, DJ Awana and before anybody could say ‘shogologobangoshie’ he had slapped the latter in the studios of Hitz FM. That action led the management of the station to give him a mild punishment when they sent him on a two week suspension and asked him to apologise to DJ Awana. Perhaps that punishment was not severe enough and maybe the reason he thinks he could do it to another person. Granted, Wanlov may not be the nicest guy in town and he can really get under your skin with some of his comments and actions (you have to follow him on Twitter or be his friend on Facebook to get the proper meaning of this) but this is not the jungle and we don’t go about like Tarzan slapping people we disagree with. I have said that Blakk Rasta criticises people on his shows from top government officials through security chiefs to the lowest person. He is within his rights to do so. I have been writing a column on radio and television presenters for 13 years and as part of that I have criticised many people, programmes and stations and in the process, I have stepped on many toes. Imagine all the people our criticisms are targeted at feel offended and decide to give us slaps, would Blakk Rasta and I have survived it till now? It is good to have issues with what people do or say about us, but in civilised societies, those issues are spoken about and dealt with without any resort to slaps. Slapping two people including a work colleague in such a short time is nothing to be condoned and Blakk Rasta should be told so in no uncertain terms. Indeed, somebody has to be able to stop the reggae artiste and presenter from slapping another person. Who knows, that next person to be slapped could be yours truly for having the audacity to ask that Blakk Rasta should be stopped from enjoying his stay in this gangster’s paradise he is trying to occupy!