COMMENT: FROM JAMAICA, WITH HATE

Last year, Bounty Killer – one of the hearty proponents of Jamaican Murder Music – performed some of his homicidal hoedowns at the Stratford Rex, with the full blessing of the London Met Police Force. This July, Buju Banton (he of ‘Boom Bye Bye’ fame) did the same at the Hammersmith Apollo. His management have been issuing hasty statements for nigh on five years now that he doesn’t include these songs in his set anymore, despite there being recorded evidence that he has. He also issued an ‘apology’ at one point which he later retracted, and his current US tour is going, shall we say, not quite so well, given that most major venues have cancelled his gigs (huzzah!)

Banton apparently met with a San Francisco gay group last week, a gathering described by one of the attending city supervisors as ‘cathartic’. The promoter of Banton’s Frisco show said that the singer had listened to the concerns but made no promises. He also added that he thought the singer was being unfairly targeted. Well excuse me while I stitch my sides back together…

Naturally, few promoters (those with a conscience anyway) would have extended this kind of warm-wine-in-placcy-cups welcome to, say, a white nationalist band, of which there are plenty. But if not, why not? It’s firmly acknowledged that it’s a bad thing to give a platform to performers bent on sharing their sheer irrational hatred of their fellow man and women simply because they’re a different colour to them, so why is it taking so long to sink in that it’s equally heinous to extend that same hatred towards gay men and lesbians?

Weirdly enough, those of an (allegedly) liberal position have proven to be our enemies in this nasty little battle. Of course, there are sensible liberals who oppose this shameful idiocy, but you wouldn’t be too hard pressed to find those who consider themselves left-leaning and yet attempt to defend the freedom granted to virulently homophobic Jamaican Dancehall singers such as Banton and Bounty Killer (and Beenie Man, Sizzla, Vybz Kartel, Capleton, T.O.K, and Elephant Man).

‘Censorship!’ they cry, like smart-alec twelve-year-olds whose parents have switched off the telly because SAW is on. But what’s liberalism without empathy? Surely being liberal means having the ability to feel empathy for your fellow men and women: to put yourself in their shoes?  Well, put yourself in the shoes of Steve Harvey, a gay rights activist who was kidnapped from his home in Kingston and shot dead, execution style. Or Nokia Cowen, who drowned in Kingston harbour after trying to escape a mob of vicious homophobes who chanted ‘Boom Bye Bye’ as they chased him through the city. Or Jamaica’s Trade Ambassador, Peter King, whose throat was slashed. Or the lesbian couple, who were murdered, mutilated, and had their bodies dumped in a septic pit behind the home they shared. Or John Terry, the British Consul, who was murdered in his own house this summer by some feeble excuse for a human being who left a note behind calling Terry a ‘Batty Boy’. Or the tragic man last year who was beaten in the street on suspicion of his being gay, only for the locals to film it on their camera phones rather than rush to his aid. Now do you think we should ‘defend’ these ‘artists’, whose music and lyrics both encourage and confirm the hatred of gay people in Jamaica? Grant them the free speech that they so deserve? Thought not.

Surreally, this ‘free speech’ viewpoint was openly embraced by some gayers at one point. Some moronic DJ, whose name escapes me, oddly enough, said that it was his ‘revenge’ to play ‘Boom Bye Bye’.  Gay rapper Q Boy said that he didn’t believe we should ban this circle-jerk of ‘musicans’ from performing because ‘artists should never be censored’. Maybe, if you’re the rubbish sort of liberal, you even think it’s ‘racist’ to criticise and muffle these morons. It’s certainly a favourite catcall for the anti-Tatchell mob. ‘He’s a racist, that Tatchell! A Nazi infact!’ Of course he is, what with all the anti-apartheid work he did in the ‘80s, all the anti-racism causes he’s supported, and the way he stands side by side with the non-white gay men and lesbians suffering in silence in the West Indies, Africa, and the Middle East. Total racist.

It’s also a case of political correctness – generally a good thing – being hijacked by kneejerk liberals and twisted and mangled until it’s drained of all meaning, e.g. any attempt to muffle the practices of the non-white is racist, is imperialism, is imposing the majority opinion etc etc etc. It isn’t rocket science: a civilised society should not allow a singer or a group who preaches hate and incitement to murder – that’s MURDER – perform in public. And no, that wouldn’t mean that PC Plod would then be in charge of your iPod, as some people have tried to suggest – the records of Beenie Man et al are not banned and can be purchased in independent record shops.  The singers are not forbidden to enter the country either, unlike Louis Farrakhan of Nation of Islam fame, who despite his heinous views, has never suggested anyone go out and kill. This is what they call Pretzel Logic.

And then there are those at MOBO who, along with other voices in the music industry have suggested Tatchell’s righteous ire was in some way stamping on the opportunities of black youth, music being one of the few routes out of poverty and dead-end lives for them, along with sport. What, so only the dreams and opportunities of black heterosexual youth matter do they? What about black gay youth? Or do they not deserve the same opportunities? Sure they do, and one of those opportunities may well be the chance of having their black elders not supporting music which condemns them.

I’m actually a fan of Jamaican music – old Jamaican music. And much like gangsta rap has, in my opinion, robbed black American music of its magic, aggressive, homophobic, sexist and violent Dancehall has done the same for Jamaican music – no more the exuberance of Ska, the solid skank of Rocksteady, the sexiness of dub, or the swooning of Lovers’ Rock.

Just the clanging sound of hate, drowning out the screams.