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Dancehall's Vicious Side: Antigay Attitudes
September 6, 2004
By KELEFA SANNEH
When the reggae star Beenie Man came to the Hammerstein
Ballroom on Friday, he received his usual welcome. There
was a frenetic introduction. There was an exuberant crowd
of thousands, waving whatever he told them to wave: hands,
flags, cellphones. And out front there were about a dozen
pickets, hoisting signs and chanting: "No more murder
music! No more murder music!"
Over the past month, Beenie Man has found himself at the
center of a growing controversy over antigay lyrics in
dancehall reggae, the rapid-fire genre descended from
reggae. Beenie Man, one of the genre's best and most
popular performers, is known for his witty, lascivious
boasts (his new album, "King of the Dancehall," includes a
great track called "Grindacologist") and for collaborations
with mainstream stars like Janet Jackson and the Neptunes.
But his oeuvre also includes a fistful of tracks that
denounce gay men (known pejoratively as "chi-chi men'' or
as "batty boys," after a slang term for buttocks) and
women. And now the British gay-rights organization Outrage,
prompted by a Jamaican group called J-Flag (the Jamaican
Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays), has begun a
campaign against antigay lyrics in dancehall reggae.
Beenie Man concerts have been canceled throughout Europe,
Outrage is demanding that Scotland Yard investigate him
for, in the organization's words, "inciting murder," and he
was dropped from an MTV-sponsored performance in Miami. A
contrite statement was put out by Virgin Records, Beenie
Man's label, then swiftly disavowed by his manager.
(Outrage has also singled out Buju Banton, Vybz Kartel,
Elephant Man, T.O.K., Bounty Killer, Capleton and Sizzla.)
Beenie Man has certainly drawn focus because of his
popularity, but there's no denying that he has given
Outrage a wide range of quotes from which to choose. In
"That's Right," the infectious chorus begins, "We burn
chi-chi man and then we burn sodomite and everybody bawl
out, say, 'Dat right!' ''
And in "Han Up Deh," Beenie Man cracks some jokes ("Man a
save yuh from drowning is a lifeguard/ Man a watch a man
batty, him a batty-guard"), then delivers an antigay party
chant, asking listeners to raise their hands if they agree:
"Hang chi-chi gal wid a long piece a rope/ Mek me see di
han' a go up, mek me see di han' a go up."
Virgin Records declined to make Beenie Man available for an
interview, and a spokeswoman responded to queries with an
official statement: "The lyrics in question are from songs
released over four years ago, on an independent label not
affiliated with Virgin Records. We do not condone
violence."
Well, not quite. It's true that these songs were released
on independent labels (all reggae stars pump out a steady
stream of underground singles alongside their official
album releases), but "four years ago"? The most charitable
explanation is that executives at Virgin Records simply
haven't been following the career of their own recording
artist. Right now, Beenie Man has an underground hit with
"Weh Yuh No Fi Do," on which he announces "batty man fi
dead," and"Han Up Deh" was an underground hit last year.
Lyrics like these are nothing new in dancehall reggae. A
decade ago, Buju Banton drew protests for his song "Boom
Bye Bye," a blood-curdling (and - if we're being honest -
brilliant) song with a low, lurching beat and a murderous
chorus: "Boom bye bye in a batty-boy head/ Rude boy no
promote no nasty man, dem haffi dead."
This new round of protests was inspired by events in
Jamaica, where gay residents say they fear discrimination
and assault, as well as prosecution, under the island's
1864 anti-"buggery" law. On June 9, the island's leading
gay-rights advocate, Brian Williamson, was stabbed to death
in his home. Inspector Victor Henry, a spokesman for the
Jamaican police, said the crime was a robbery gone awry,
but even if it wasn't a hate crime (J-Flag, the
organization Mr. Williamson founded, remains skeptical of
the police finding), the killing nevertheless drew
attention to the issue of antigay violence.
Then came the claim that on the morning of June 24, six men
were pulled out of a house and beaten because they were
believed to be gay; the men allege that one of the
assailants was Buju Banton himself. Inspector Henry
confirmed that "someone made a report" that the singer was
"among a group of men" involved in an attack, but he said
so far "these are only allegations." He added that he
expected the police to "clear up" the issue as soon as the
singer returned from his tour.
A spokeswoman for the singer flatly denied the charges: "It
didn't happen - it's totally fabricated," she said. J-Flag
arranged for one man who said he was attacked (who wished
to remain anonymous) to describe the incident by telephone.
He said he and five others were dragged out of the house by
about a dozen people, adding that once the assault began,
"Nearly 100 people come down when they heard, and everybody
was saying, 'Yes, beat out the batty boy!' ''
Beenie Man, on the other hand, has been accused only of
rhetorical violence, which is a much more slippery charge.
Despite reggae's reputation for sweetness, the genre's
history is intertwined with a history of ferocious (and
sometimes violent) competition between rival sound systems
and crews. This competition kept the music fresh and weird
(to attract fans, you needed something new, something
different, something great), and the conflicts were often
echoed in the lyrics - singers routinely promised to
"murder" the competition with tunes.
Even as they portray themselves as swaggering "bad men,"
reggae stars also present themselves as forces for good:
folk heroes, social activists, prophets. (Buju Banton, for
example, sometimes calls himself, "the voice of Jamaica.")
To be really successful, you have to do both at once, which
is one reason vocalists find antigay rhetoric so useful. It
gives them a way to gesture to religious and cultural
injunctions against homosexuality (in interviews, the stars
often cite Scripture) while also reminding listeners of
their "bad man" bona fides. With antigay lyrics, vocalists
manage to seem simultaneously righteous and wicked.
A prominent reggae music executive, speaking anonymously
for fear his comments might hurt the artists he works with,
said that antigay lyrics were also strategic. "It's not
that the artists wake up and say gay people are taking over
the country and we need to stamp them out," he said.
"They're doing it because they're saying: 'I don't have a
hit, what can I do that the public can't deny? Let me do
another record, find another way to say, "Burn batty boy,
stab batty boy." ' '' He said D.J.'s and listeners
responded to songs like this because "they can't afford not
to."
"People could say you didn't respond, you could be gay," he
continued. "It's really childish."
This isn't only a matter of reggae rhetoric, though; it's
also a matter of the globalized music industry. Reggae
stars, who have figured out that there's more money to be
made abroad than at home, are now vulnerable to pressure
from nervous companies around the world. Buju Banton
recently played a Puma-sponsored Olympics party in Athens,
but only after being briefed on the company's "zero
tolerance policy towards homophobia and other forms of
prejudice," a Puma spokesman said.
Not surprisingly, this state of affairs has bred no small
amount of resentment among stars and listeners alike, who
see something neocolonial in the way Britons are
criticizing Jamaican music. After Vybz Kartel, arguably
reggae's hottest current star, visited BBC Radio to make an
apology last week, the Jamaican tabloid X-News tried to
humiliate him by running a photo of the vocalist in a white
coat and top hat next to the headline, "Vybz Kartel BOWS to
Gay Pressure." It's not hard to figure out why others on
Outrage's list might prefer to keep quiet.
Mr. Allison, Outrage's spokesman, said the group wanted
stars to stop "advocating violence against gay people." The
problem is that violent rhetoric is precisely the way many
dancehall acts voice their disapproval of all sorts of
things: homosexuality, the competition, cunnilingus (a
dancehall proscription that probably merits its own essay),
women who borrow one another's clothes.
Frustratingly, gay Jamaicans have been largely absent from
this discussion. A J-Flag spokeswoman who would identify
herself only as Karlene seemed cautiously optimistic about
the current wave of protests. "We hope it won't cause a
negative backlash," she said. "But we don't want to stop
what we're doing, either. We can't allow the fear to drive
us to stop."
At the very least, the protests have clearly got the stars'
attention. At Friday's concert, antigay lyrics were
conspicuously absent, despite sets from the Outrage targets
Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel and T.O.K. (although Jabba and
Bobby Konders, the hosts of Hot 97's weekly reggae show,
did sate the crowd's appetite with a short set of antigay
records). Performers often unleash a barrage of antigay
invective when they're in danger of losing the audience, so
on this night, everyone had to rely more heavily on another
standby: sex talk.
Fittingly enough, Beenie Man put on the night's best show,
finding ways to let his predicament work to his advantage.
"We are not violent people, we just fight for our rights,"
he said, striding across the stage in a white and pink
suit, adding, "They can't stop dancehall." And by the time
he ended his set, with a sped-up but sweet sing-along to
Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," it was getting easier to
see how so many fans and critics could pin their hopes and
grudges upon a brilliant performer with a funny name and a
voice heard around the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/arts/music/06bean.html?ex=1095465621&ei=1&en=2767703099b59b3d
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
