I grew up in a house­hold where pro­fan­i­ty was un­heard of and I could not even call God’s name in vain. Even re­cent­ly, when I stubbed my toe and screamed out an in­ap­pro­pri­ate word, my wife rep­ri­mand­ed me. But it seems swear­ing is an in­creas­ing trend world­wide. It has in­vad­ed our movies, songs, and cul­ture.

The Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly re­strict­ed Ja­maican dance­hall star Adid­ja “Vy­bz Kar­tel” Palmer’s plans to vis­it school­child­ren.

While his in­tent to in­flu­ence chil­dren to stay away from a life of crime is com­mend­able, it is re­gret­table that he is known for graph­ic lyrics that can of­fend some par­ents/guardians.

While some of his new­er songs are filled with love and re­spect for God, one can­not es­cape those with high­ly sex­u­alised lyrics that his­tor­i­cal­ly of­fend­ed many. In Sep­tem­ber 2011, the Na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work of Guyana banned Kar­tel from the air­waves.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “While Kar­tel has per­son­al rights, there are no ab­solute free­doms, and we must fac­tor in the rights of the com­mu­ni­ty…then yes, ex­press your­self but not at the risk of our chil­dren. And that is one of the re­stric­tions, I said no, I would not let him talk to our chil­dren and do TV shows. So, it’s bal­anc­ing, not an ab­solute right, there is no ab­solute free­dom.”

A sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment was once ex­pressed by for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who spoke out about re­strict­ing “in pub­lic spaces and on pub­lic air­waves, cer­tain kinds of taste­less, so-called genre,” those songs glo­ri­fy­ing neg­a­tiv­i­ty in the form of vi­o­lence and the den­i­gra­tion of women.

Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge re­port­ed that Kar­tel’s con­tro­ver­sial song “Good Like Je­sus” com­pares a woman’s gen­i­talia to Je­sus and had sparked mul­ti­ple com­plaints from re­li­gious groups and in­di­vid­u­als and would not be per­mit­ted for per­for­mance in T&T. Guyana’s Eth­nic Re­la­tions Com­mis­sion con­demned the song as “blas­phe­mous and deeply of­fen­sive.”

Re­li­gion and cul­ture have clashed be­fore. In March 1966, John Lennon of the Bea­t­les said, “The Bea­t­les are more pop­u­lar than Je­sus.” Many ob­ject­ed, say­ing this was blas­phe­mous and dis­re­spect­ful and they faced protests, record burn­ing, and can­cel­la­tions of tours.

De­spite this, years lat­er, these con­tro­ver­sial in­flu­encers had their songs Let It Be, My Sweet Lord and The In­ner Light per­formed in church­es and re­li­gious events.

Some of their songs, like Lucy in the Sky with Di­a­monds, speak to their LSD use. It was said they smoked mar­i­jua­na at Buck­ing­ham Palace. Mar­i­jua­na in­flu­enced their mu­sic and Got to Get You in­to my Life and With a Lit­tle Help From my Friends were as­so­ci­at­ed with this. Lennon and George Har­ri­son were ar­rest­ed for mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion. In 1967, they called for the le­gal­i­sa­tion of cannabis and the free­ing of those im­pris­oned for pos­ses­sion. They spoke out against war. They were young men search­ing for iden­ti­ty, their songs re­flect­ing their jour­neys.

Re­cent­ly, Kar­tel pro­duced a mas­ter­piece an­them God is the Great­est. This is a clean up­lift­ing song. Is Kar­tel un­der­go­ing a tran­si­tion? Spend­ing 13 years in jail could have changed his out­look on life. He was freed of mur­der in 2024 by the Privy Coun­cil.

He men­tions that while in prison he was ill with Hy­pothy­roidism, and his moth­er gave him courage to go on. He prayed and promised God he would praise Him every day if he were ever re­leased and so far, every in­ter­view he does he gives praise. Is there a new Kar­tel who could one day serve as an ex­em­plar to all?

Psy­chol­o­gy teach­es us that change is a deeply hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence—born of strug­gle, re­flec­tion and hope.

Kar­tel even found love in prison. In 2015, he start­ed cor­re­spond­ing with a UK woman on In­sta­gram. In 2022, he told her to vis­it Ja­maica; she stayed and vis­it­ed him in prison, and they are now en­gaged.

His re­cent part­ner­ship with An­gos­tu­ra to launch his sig­na­ture rum STR8 VY­BZ re­flects his busi­ness acu­men. As far back as 2008, he launched Dag­gerin Con­dom and the rum and in­vest­ed in re­al es­tate in Ja­maica and the US.

On May 14, he re­leased the love song They’re Out­ta Love, We Aren’t. I love this song. It shows a tug with a de­cent oth­er half in the process of change. Imag­ine a ‘gang­ster bad man’ now singing love songs. I am lov­ing this ver­sion of him.

To­mor­row, I cel­e­brate 32 years of mar­riage. Every year my wife Sherene and I es­cape to spend our spe­cial time to­geth­er and every year I have found a love song and ded­i­cat­ed it to her. This year I chose this lat­est Kar­tel song, the words “You bright­en my life” are ded­i­cat­ed to my wife.