Don Angelo has been following the ‘Equal Rights’ firestorm that has erupted in Jamaica’s dancehall industry and has remained silent.
Well, not anymore. Angelo, the father of Ishawna, said producers are sometimes to be blamed for the songs being released as many times artistes are just doing what they are told to do.
“Record producers are the ones who are calling the shots. When Shawna went back to Jamaica and took up music full-time, she recorded some good songs that sounded sweet like Beyonce, but nobody paid her any attention. Is not until she started singing songs like Equal Rights that she started getting any ratings. A lot of time is the producers who control what song are released. If anything is the producers who have to take the blame. Anything to make their label stay on top they will do,” the father said.
The New York-based Angelo, an original raga muffin dancehall reggae singer, said that sexual topics in the dancehall is nothing new.
“Years ago DJ General Echo sang about bathroom sex and man and woman danced to it without a problem. Cecile, Lady Saw and Gage also sang some of those type of songs and nobody say much if anything. At the end of the day what Shawna [Ishawna] is doing is just entertainment … Its not that serious and the ladies support her anyway,” he reasoned.
Her own views
Ishawna’s song, Equal Rights, which calls for oral sex pleasures to be reciprocited, has been a hot button issue in dancehall. Angelo did not say whether he endorsed the message but was quick to indicate that she is an adult and is entitled to her views.
“She can do whatever she wants to do but I support her whichever direction she goes,” he said. “Shawna (as he calls her) is my pride an joy. She is smart, respectable, lovable with lots of manners and I love her a lot,” Angelo said.
Angelo told THE STAR that Ishawna has had a long standing love affair with music.
“Shawna’s mom use to take her to dance from she was pregnant. The first song she ever performed when we lived in Seaview Gardens was a Nijaman song. She was just three years old and people would pay her to perform,” recalled Don Angelo, who is himself is an artiste.
The New York-based Angelo is an original raga muffin dancehall reggae singer. He is a protege of the late singjay Sugar Minott. He recently scored a number one single title Rich Life on Clinton Lindsay’s Foundation Radio Network Top 30 Music Chart in New York.
When asked if he would consider doing a collaboration with his now famous daughter, Angelo said: “That can happen at anytime but it is not something I am preeing right now. When the time is right it will happen.”
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