Music

Women Are Fighting to Win the Heart of Vybz Kartel


The women on Teacha’s Pet sure do love to flirt

Remember that time we hung out with Vybz Kartel in Jamaica? Remember what a friendly guy he was? Well, now he’s in the news again. Sadly, this time it’s not for anything as trivial as his music being banned from Guyana for “bringing nothing positive” to the entertainment world, nor for bleaching his own skin, and not even for the happy confluence of New York radio station Irie Jam FM refusing to play his music during Black History Month in protest of his reverse tanning.

Videos by VICE

This time it’s for the slightly more serious crime of maybe murdering a club promoter. But, what’s surely more of a surprise to everyone is that he’s the star of his own reality TV dating show in Jamaica called Teacha’s Pet. It’s an imaginative rip-off of the VH1 series, For the Love of Ray J, where women act like sexually insane criminals to win the heart of the guy who was in Kim Kardashian’s sex tape; the only difference being that Teacha’s Pet features one of the most frightening musicians known to exist.

The show is almost an exciting enough prospect to warrant the extortionate $6 per episode fee you’ll have to pay if you want to watch the incomprehensible mayhem unfold in shitty quality on the Teacha’s Pet homepage. But before you do, don’t forget to check out a website called “YouTube” where you can watch most things (including this) for free. If you feel like spending two hours of your life (the series is only two episodes old) watching Jamaican women screaming at each other in tight clothes while an anaemic Vybz does his best to place some structural narrative over proceedings, you won’t be disappointed.

Of course, given that his arrest coincides quite nicely with the launch of the 13-week TV series, it could be an elaborate PR stunt. Either way, he probably won’t be singing songs about Clarks shoes any time soon.