Baby Skello, another go

Jun 18, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths… 

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – There are lessons from Baby Skello developments that keep coming, leaving me standing on edge. The artist is now in jail. If for offensive lyrics, then what next? A line or para interpreted to be seditious by those who enjoy exclusive rights to such conclusions? Like some that come in this space and this pen? Or, what is deemed hostile and possesses many elements that inflame, upturn, and incite? Once the first steps are taken on that Baby Skello road, there may be no limit to where such leads. I hope that the vaunted and also tormented Ethnic Relations Commission is listening- also the Guyana Broadcasting Authority, Guyana Press Association, the all-but-useless-to-Guyanese attorney general’s chambers, and a Guyana Police Force that is not worth the effort expended. The checks and bulwarks of the State all point in one direction. Its long arms reaching, groping for suitable victims. And never more so than when a cherished constituency of the PPP government is involved, insulted.

Insulting it was, and I take offence at those degrading lyrics. I do so to honour the beliefs of ancestors. The Hindu community is rightly incensed, and I commend it for standing up, speaking out. Lesson number one. Lesson number two is that the Baby Skello matter has now proceeded too far, with what has gone beyond reasonable censure. It’s what I interpret to be the worst political pandering.

There was the ERC jumping out of the blocks with energy and authority. Then, the Guyana Police leapt like some guided missile to do bidding. Now, there is the magistracy dipping its toes into the unthinkable. Jail time is the consequence for rhyme time. Cooling his heels in a cell will help Baby Skello rediscover his senses, know better than to mess with powerful folks. Lesson number three comes in the form of overreaction and overkill. And an environment now increasingly moving towards the lethal temperature of being over-frozen. With the cold claws of the PPP Government reaching out to raise hell across the faces of those who cross its path. Or that of its people.

I have some difficulty with what has been meted out to Baby Skello so far, but it is not insurmountable. My bigger problem is how his situation serves as the standard, a chilling precedent? If for a song today, then why not for other etchings that flow tomorrow from pen to paper to people? Etchings in any form. Such as this one. When the mere speaking about what has become the fate of Baby Skello makes people like me a marked man, then the probabilities of what could happen are open-ended. Isn’t that so, General Nandlall? For emphasis, speaking out against his condition, whether rightly so or wrongly so, but not siding with him, Mr. AG.

Give or take, some five hundred years have passed since Copernicus came out with his blend of lyrics, which was followed by the trial of Galileo. Theocracy as taught by the Church, and held holy by it. I write as a Christian believer, follower. But I differ, with more following below. Does that make me a heretic or a lunatic? There is a more enlightened world in Guyana (supposedly) in this millennium, with democracy’s ideals sung from every rooftop.

Freedom of thought is one, freedom of speech is another. Freedom to share with fellows, a third. Look at the vilifications and crimes those have brought down on my head, compliments of the Jagdeo-led PPP Government. I have a question for General Nandlall: Are those still about the nobility of democracy, sir? And now there is Baby Skello. Forget about leeway for the lyricist. The best recommendation of a society is when it can rise above the vomit, slime, and sleaze that are sometimes thrown at it. I have no admiration for what Baby Skello put out in the public domain. He should have known the reception to foreign lyrics about police targeting, gender bashing, and the like. He didn’t, or didn’t care. So, now he is made into an example, one with which I differ. I recall Voltaire: ‘I disagree with what is said, written, but count on me to object to the last breath.’

Now this hurls me into more familiar territory -the Christian community. It would have pleased to hear, to read, to absorb similar outrage when Vybz Kartel degraded Jesus. I compliment the Hindus for their rage over Lakshmi. I pity the Christian religious groups, leaders who feared Caesar more than they respected God. For some, profane prominence trumped the profound. The lure of lucre conquering living the life of Christ, for him. Since they could have been so, the PPP Government and Vybz were coddled, condoned, even cherished. Now that is understanding and forgiveness in action. I’d say democracy, too.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Baby Skello, GHK Lall, Offensive lyrics

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