( l - r ) Carolyn Cooper, Vybz Kartel

Deejay Vybz Kartel is eyeing his guest lecture at the University of the West Indies (UWI) tonight as a good step for not only himself but dancehall music.

The deejay will be creating waves today when he speaks on 'Pretty as a Colouring Book: My Life and My Art', at the Undercroft of the Senate Building on the UWI campus. The deejay was invited to lecture by Professor Carolyn Cooper who teaches a course on 'Reggae Poetry' in the Department of Literatures in English. The announcement of Kartel's lecture raised a number of eyebrows on various social networking sites, but the deejay is looking at the opportunity as a positive one.

He told THE STAR recently, "I think it is not only a good step for me, but a great step for dancehall. It shows that at least few of us dancehall artistes have the mental capacity to speak on the music as true ambassadors on a tertiary level and not all of us are 'duppy bat' and 'butu' like."

not surprised

According to Kartel, he is honoured to be lecturing at the university and is not surprised by the invitation. "I was not surprised. On the contrary, it was as if I was expecting her invitation. I knew that was gonna be the end product of our back and forth emails," he said. The deejay boasted that he has finished preparing for the lecture when THE STAR spoke with him earlier in the week.

He added, "the topic is about me, my life my art. And I am not preparing, I'm prepared. My life, so the title of the lecture speaks for itself. I'll be throwing questions out from time to time during the lecture, and might probably answer a dozen questions after."

In a release sent to THE STAR, Cooper explained that in her course, the students' first assignment they are given the freedom to select a song by any reggae/dancehall lyricist they like and analyse its literary qualities. Each year, some students select a song by Vybz Kartel, the self-styled 'teacha'. Even though he's not one of the prescribed lyricists on the course, Prof Cooper considered it appropriate to invite Kartel to speak to her class. Given the popularity of the artiste, Cooper decided to widen the audience and open up the lecture to the broader university community and the general public.

The release added that Vybz Kartel's lecture provides an excellent opportunity for the UWI to demonstrate its leadership role in engaging public debate on issues of colour, class and gender as manifested in Jamaican popular music. Kartel, who thrives on controversy, is guaranteed to give a provocative talk, for example in defence of skin bleaching which, he claims, creates a canvas for showing up his tattoos.

LIME recently announced that they will be providing exclusive live mobile television coverage of the lecture.