Poet and LGBT activist Staceyann Chinn along with Rashaad Robinson of GLAAD and over a dozen activists showed up at the annual Reggae CariFest in New York City over the weekemd to protest the anti-gay lyrics of Buju Banton and Bounty Killer among others. Several news networks covered the protest as can be seen in the youtube clip above.
Gay rights activists have taken on anti-gay reggae artists and their lyrics before and have been successful at cancelling numerous appearances causing the artists serious amounts of cash. If these hateful artists don't understand english they definitely understand the loss of money, hit em where it hurts.
Here is an excerpt of the lyrics from Buju Banton's Boom Bye Bye:
Boom bye bye
Inna batty bwoy head
Rude bwoy no promote no nasty man
Dem haffi dead
Boom bye bye
Inna batty bwoy head
Rude bwoy no promote no nasty man
Dem haffi dead
(Two man) Hitch up on an rub up on
An lay down inna bed
Hug up on another
Anna feel up leg
Send fi di matic an
Di Uzi instead
Shoot dem no come if we shot dem--
Don't want Jackie
Give dem Paul instead
Dem don't want di sweetness
Between di leg
Gal bend down backway
An accept di peg
An if it really hot
You know she still naw gon fled
A some man
Still don't want di
Panty raid
Pure batty business dem love
I suppose if I had the time to sit down and smoke a half dozen blunts I might even understand the lyrics right?
ReplyDeleteJamaica is dirt poor outside the shiny razor ribbon around the tourist resorts. The boys are gonna sing what sells.
Its not even artistic license. It's survivalism.
I dont know how I feel about this still I mean homophobia's wrong yes definitely and I myself speak out against homophobia in reggae in one of my works but should a whole concert been protested because of two artists
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