is the prevalence of knee-jerk liberalism toward jamaican (especially dancehall) homophobia almost as problematic as the homophobia itself?

lukey it might not be a coincidence that Sean Paul is one of the least homophobic DJs around tho, the killing of the chi-chi man still ain't exactly showing up in international summer jam hits.

i remember it causing quite a stir at the time - reportage on The Word etc., culminating in that Mark Lamarr/Shabba Ranks face-off.

i am inclined to think YES, it is ALMOST as problematic (not ALMOST) - see also hip-hop/gangsta/thug chic and subsequent homophobia cat-calling.

What about the voices in the community? Does Cecile get any respect? I can't even think of a female Hip-Hop artist that has endorsed homosexuality, so that girl must have some guts...

But, surely you've got to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

But then, what do you do about all the other music which you like whose proceeds go directly or indirectly to nasty people? I'd have to get rid of half my record collection. You get to the point where you're saying something stupid like 'well if they explicitly say that they'd like to kill gay people then we won't buy the records, but if the money goes to someone in the states who funds christian fundamentalist pressure groups, well then there's nothing we can do'

it's all a bit like trying not to eat anything made by nestle. very worthy and correct, but you always trip up eventually.

sadly, that's my point: it doesn't. self-righteous outrage from someone who doesn't have a clue will always come across as exactly that, not to mention really condescending. (not having a go personally, but i really don't agree)

ce'cile is pretty popular but that's because she's a woman and there is a dearth of good female deejays. it was always going to bve a woman who eventually made some mention of homophobia, never a man. also the fact that ce'cile is from a wealthy family, very, very smart and not dependent on dancehall makes it a lot easier for her to take these risks.

I agree that self-righteous outrage isn't the way to go, sure; but whenever discussions about social/moral issues in music come up, there's always gonna be a contigent of people who go "hey, sure, I don't agree with the viewpoint, but the music's nice, and I'm not gonna turn into a despicable human being by listening to it, so why worry?". I find this position even more destructive than self-righteous fervour, which isn't to say that I find self-righteousness *acceptable*. I'm just saying that not adressing the issue at all is even *less* likely to change anything than adressing it in a stupid way.

Does Cecile (and Sean Paul too, right?) coming from wealthy families establish any class tension, tho? I mean, if they view homosexuality as part of the opression, can being approving or indifferent to it be seen as a "sell-out" of sorts, a passage to the other side?

Question fer lido: the example you mentioned has to do mainly w/ material wealth tho, doesn't it? While homophobia is diferent, it's not something material, you can't really go "hey, not hating gays is just too expensive, I can't afford that". So the question becomes, can intelectual poverty only be fought by destroying material poverty? On some level I'd agree with that, but I've always thought that it's a battle to be fought on both fronts.

its just that, even the excusing is the same. isn't there something disquieting about the populations of a rich country criticizing/excusing the behaviour of people in a 3rd world country, while living in a system that directly benefits from this inequality in the first place. ie, why should anyone listen to questions of right and wrong, from such a source?

x-post

But I think the "paternalistic" side of the argument, or indeed any questions of perception in Jamaica, are a bit of a red herring. Who in Jamaica is going to care what Peter Tatchell or Gary Younge said in London, or even notice that anything has been said? The point is they are speaking to an audience HERE, and that audience is probably more impressionable - whether that impression will be made by Guardian journalists is a moot point, but at least it kickstarts a debate.

Is this the left-liberal equivalent of the Sun or the Mail attacking the government for allowing radical Islamic clerics to speak in London?

(of course, this is a facetious comment, but it might well actually highlight the point i'm making - THAT THIS KIND OF PRESSURE DOES NOT WORK!) it's different here, because many people, even at the lowest socio-economic levels actually have the luxury of time to think and sort out these problems, prejudice is always stronger in impoverished areas and jamaica is well ripe for it as i have mentioned so many times before. that's hy i predominantly agree with gareth. at the moment, though, it seems like newspaper coverage of jamaica is so formulaic and ill-considered as to be next to useless.
Jamicans -> homophobes -> must be stopped.
of course we all KNOW this is a bad thing, but i doesn't help anyone. it's just a bit dumb and offers nothing constructive.

burnley not quite in the same league - you like films enrq,
watch life and debt if you can i it'll quickly put a stop to this argument.

it's talking specifically about the murder of brian williamson, buju being wanted for a homophobic attack (specifically jamaican problems) then drags up peter tatchell!!!

Wow, that last paragraph looks like such a fantastic show of condescension, but its not really meant to be.

For starters, I would only toss in that irony is our friend, here. Homophobic artists have a gay audience, and these particular third-worlders are very much participating in the first-world commercial pop industry.

Without resorting to hysteria would be nice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1120799,00.html

That's one way of avoiding the backlash he's talking about (or imagining): Interviewing Jamaican performers who aren't bigots.

The point is: Any internationalism worth its salt treats people from other countries as equals enough to disagree with them. Any moral person worth his salt will want to persuade other people to act morally. There are effective and ineffective ways of doing this...

Well, obviously, and I agree. My point is more that if the guardian is going to take the moral high ground on jamaican dancehall's homophobia, where is it when it comes to issues related to largely European-derived forms of music?

I certainly don't think it's wrong to criticize homophobia in any context but i think it's funny that some conservative above accused liberals of NOT talking about homophobia bcuz they are afraid of being seen as racist whereas in reality, it is black jamaicans who are much more likely to be accused of moral societal problems when those problems are prevalant throughout the world.

xpost also sterling otm

the part i don't follow you on dave is whether or not cancelling a concert in london is going to have any effect on an artists' popularity or credibility in jamaica. i hardly think the international attitude towards dancehall artists affects their standing in jamaica (does vybz kartel have a large int'l following? outside, say, london? the way elephant man does? does anybody in the US care what the french or british or japanese think of toby keith?)

and i do worry about homophobia in southern california, it's just that i think that it's much more relevant for me to worry about why just about everybody dismisses microhouse and detroit techno and daft punk and basement jaxx and clubbing in general out of hand (and the nasty homophobic and racist subtexts there) than worry about why people listen to rap and dancehall uncritically (maybe because it's no less nasty than most rock is?? and it's always playing out of car radios and in the background of commercials and on mtv and so on like rock is??)

listen to a couple of sizzla/capleton/spragga benz records

no, wait…

The other music I heard a lot of, oddly enough, was Cat Stevens. He's popular there.

Crazy place, Jamaica. Not only is every other person trying to sell you coke, weed, and prostitutes, the hotel my brother and I were staying at asked us if we were queer, because it wasn't their policy to rent rooms to same sex couples.

The word that comes to my mind when I think of Jamaica is "tragic," because it's so beautiful but so ruined by 500+ years of exploitation, violence, and murder.

Dave, what I guess I mean is how is rastafari practiced by dancehall types? The more common view of it (at least, to me) is (probably horribly) stereotypical dope-smokin', Bob Marley peace-and-justice to the poor, non flashiness (but keep your woman at home or at least she only gets to sing back-up). How does this reconcile with the materialism and flash of dancehall? Almost every recent dancehall video I've seen is almost indistinguishable from a hip-hop video: flashy SUVs with big rims, sexy backup dancers, basketball jerseys, champagne, etc. How did "justice for the poor man" become "SUV for the poor man?" (That's not a value judgement, just noticing a difference.)

1. No White God
2. Explain to the Almighty
3. I Wonder
4. Love Is Always There
5. No Other Like Jah
6. Praise Ye Jah
7. Do You Ever?
8. Like Mountain
9. Dem Ah Wonder
10. Kings of the Earth
11. Holding Firm
12. Mek Dem Secure
13. Dem Ah Gaze
14. One Away
15. Give Dem Ah Ride

Ha, I was just thinking about D. Boon.

It reminds me of this excerpt from Per Nilsen's Dance Music Sex Romance - Prince: The First Decade:

Prince met Bob Marley backstage at the Roxy Theater after the concert. The meeting was arranged by Don Taylor, who was toying with the idea of having Prince and Marley record a track together. "What the result of this might have been, however, I will never know," Taylor later said. "When we called on Prince he met us in this skimpy leopard g-string undergarment, which immediately aroused Bob's Jamaican macho feelings and so our stay was as brief as Prince's g-string and Bob's discomfort was shown all over his face."

In recent months there have been a few stories in the press about the homophobic lyrical content of songs by a handful of Jamaican artists, most notably Buju Banton, Elephant Man and Beenie Man.

In light of these stories Beenie Man, a Virgin Records recording artist, has released the following statement....

STATEMENT FROM RECORDING ARTIST BEENIE MAN

"It has come to my attention that certain lyrics and recordings I have made in the past may have caused distress and outrage among people whose identities and lifestyles are different from my own. While my lyrics are very personal, I do not write them with the intent of purposefully hurting or maligning others, and I offer my sincerest apologies to those who might have been offended, threatened or hurt by my songs. As a human being, I renounce violence towards other human beings in every way, and pledge henceforth to uphold these values as I move forward in my career as an artist."

When "Who Am I" became a huge hit for Beenie Man, Bounty Killer raised a stink about the song's lyrics, seemingly just wordplay about a BMW: "Zim zimma, who got the keys to my bimma / Who am I, the girls dem sugar /How can I make love to a fella/ In a rush, pass mi da keys to my truck." At issue was the ambiguous line "How can I make love to a fella." It all came down to punctuation -- did "in a rush" modify "make love to a fella" or the request for the keys? No big deal anywhere but in Jamaica, where homosexuality is illegal and performers often record and perform songs with homophobic lyrics.

"That was started by player haters tryin' to be haters," Beenie says now. "How can I make love to a fella in a rush? I don't make love to fellas, whether in a rush or take time or outside or nuttin'. You know, I'm 'de girls dem sugar,' that's what I do."

Several years later, it was Beenie Man's turn to take the low road when Bounty Killer appeared on No Doubt's "Hey Baby." In the song's video, drummer Adrian Young appears naked, anathema for hard-core dancehall fans. Bounty Killer "gave me a hard time -- for nuttin' . . . for nuttin' whatsoever," says Beenie Man. "For all the years this man be cussing me, calling me all different type of names, callin' me a gay, everyt'ing in the world that he think would hurt me. And then -- boom! Here you come with a naked man in your video. That's crazy, yunno. The hard-core bad boy Bounty Killer with a naked man in his video. That's funny."
Americans unfamiliar with the island's institutionalized and often virulent homophobia may be puzzled by this kind of back-and-forth, but in Jamaica, it makes headlines.

"I think Jamaica is not a world dat open to the rest of the world, it's enclosed. It's not like me that go out in the world and know that, okay, gay people are born to be gay. . . . This is their ways; you cannot change it. There's nothing they can do to help themselves, yunno. Just like a man love woman, you got man love man," he says.

"But Jamaica is a spiritual country, like I explain it to you how my grandfather explain it to me. My grandfather said, 'If a man make love to a man, the life that we know cease to exist because man cannot have kids. And if a woman make love to a woman, a woman cannot get a woman pregnant, so life as we know cease to exist. There'd be no life."

Perhaps this emphasis on the creation of life is an outgrowth of the extreme poverty endured by so many Jamaicans. "So many people are dying, too," says Beenie. "I think that's a big part of it."

especially when we know that beenie is so elogquent with the written word:
"It has come to my attention that certain lyrics and recordings I have made in the past may have caused distress and outrage among people whose identities and lifestyles are different from my own."

Ha!

Speechless.

I was going to be at Heaven that night, too.

I got a rather angry letter written to me at the paper I wirte for...it was extremely upsetting to me and I felt terrible. Anyhow, here's the letter and my reponse:

.Once more, the Mirror proves that its progressive credentials are nothing but trendy posturing. In her Aug. 12 review of Beenie Man's latest offering [Back to Basics, Discs], your reggae critic waxes lyrical about the Jamaican's "eloquent… ghetto suffering," but fails to make any mention of the suffering incited by his lyrics - and inflicted on some of those who hear them - on Jamaica's queer population.

In what might be one of the most overtly homophobic societies on the planet, queer people face not only legal censure, but also frequent violent harassment and murder, to such an extent that asylum applications by gay Jamaican men in the U.S., Canada and Britain have become commonplace. Judging by his lyrics, Beenie Man must be ecstatic.

I am not arguing that a critic put her object's politics before its artistic appeal, rather that the job carries responsibility as well as authority. By recommending to readers that they buy Beenie Man's output, she encourages the bankrolling of bigotry, persecution and killing, and the smallest mention of this in her review might just show a little sensitivity to the plight of queer Jamaicans, as well as to those elsewhere who haven't forgotten them in our zeal to fetishize the displaced barbarity of a culture less cozy and two-faced than our own. Queer Shame on you!

» Adrian T.A. Varney

[Reply: Although I am relieved to see the renewed attention being given to the appalling homophobia that I am aware exists in Jamaican music and society, this is an extremely complex issue that cannot be properly addressed in a short article - much less in a 100-word album review. When Shabba Ranks and Buju Banton faced a boycott of their music and concert cancellations 10 years ago due to their virulent homophobia, I hoped that this would be a positive development. But boycotts and bans only helped to drive dancehall off the international radar. Attacks - both verbal and physical - on queer Jamaicans continued unabated. In order to first understand and then address this issue, we need to see dancehall as a powerful cultural form that speaks about the horrible violence, poverty, oppression and homophobic attitudes that exist in Jamaica. Rather than either fetishizing or outlawing the displaced barbarity of Jamaican performers I would hope that my role as a critic of this music should be to encourage people to listen and thereby attempt to understand the people and the society through which it is created. Dancehall is exceptional in that it gives an international voice to some of the world's poorest, most oppressed peoples. It is important that we continue to listen - even if, occasionally, we are distressed by what we hear.]