http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/06/DDGQHLIDD51.DTL&type=printable
Reggae Star as Lightning Rod
Anti-gay lyrics of Buju Banton's youth remain an issue for activists
- Eric K. Arnold, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, October 6, 2006
'Why dem try to make I unhappy, really and truly, I don't know," the gruff yet sinuous voice of Buju Banton chides. The words, from Banton's 1997 hit "Hills and Valleys," are warmly received by the capacity crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder on the basement-level dance floor of Berkeley's Shattuck Down Low lounge. The song, reveling in the down-to-earth vibe that has made Banton one of the premiere roots revivalists in the reggae genre, sends a message of spiritual liberation through the power of God: "only Jah frees the people, through hills and valleys, too."
[Listen/download MP3s of Buju Banton's music: "Nothing" | "Fast Lane"]
From a reggae lover's perspective, the scene in the club is idyllic. Beautiful people are everywhere you look, dressed casually yet stylishly; many sport red, gold and green accoutrements. Drinks flow freely, and the pungent smell of high-grade marijuana occasionally wafts through the air, to the chagrin of club security. The band is well-oiled; a crisp rhythm section maintains the drum and bass-heavy reggae "riddims," while tastefully succinct guitar runs fill in the sound's edges. The dreadlocked Banton holds the stage with considerable charisma and presence, segueing easily from slow, rootsy numbers to fast and frantic dancehall rave-ups
But if the crowd in attendance felt deeply satisfied by the show, it may have meant even more to Banton just to be able to sing in front of them. On one of the few times he spoke to the audience, Banton hinted at the behind-the-scenes machinations that nearly prevented the show from taking place. "We've had to overcome a lot of potential difficulties," he said.
Banton recently embarked on a U.S. tour in support of his new album, "Too Bad." The album stands as one of the best in the artist's long career, but the tour has been far from problem-free; several concerts, including scheduled stops in Oakland and San Francisco, have been canceled or rescheduled after protests by gay activists, and Banton's future concerts may be in jeopardy as well.
At the center of the storm is "Boom Bye Bye," a song released in 1992, before Banton's ascension to international stardom. The song continues to be controversial because its lyrics ("rude boy nah promote no nasty man, dem ah fi dead") were reportedly written in response to a widely publicized case of an older man charged with raping young boys in Jamaica. Though written nearly 15 years ago, those words have followed Banton throughout his entire adult life, tarnishing what would be an otherwise stellar career.
Along with fellow reggae artists Sizzla, Capleton, Beenie Man, Vybez Cartel, and T.O.K., Banton was targeted by British gay activist organization OutRage in 2002, as part of its "Stop Murder Music" campaign, which listed both past and current examples of homophobia in reggae, and sought an economic boycott strategy by launching vigorous protest campaigns against those artists.
The campaign quickly drew support from various local queer-rights groups (including San Francisco's Community United Against Violence). Having successfully forced the cancellation of several concerts on both sides of the Atlantic (including a scheduled 2004 San Francisco appearance by Beenie Man and a 2005 Reggae in the Park show by Capleton), OutRage called off its crusade after a landmark agreement was brokered between the queer community, Jamaican government officials and reggae industry executives.
As part of the agreement, several artists, including Banton, reportedly agreed not to perform songs with homophobic lyrical content. But at a Miami festival earlier this year, Banton not only performed a snippet of "Boom Bye Bye," but was filmed in the process. The 45-second video was posted on YouTube, where it came to the attention of queer bloggers Jasmyne Cannick and Keith Boykin. Armed with what seemed to be a smoking gun illustrating Banton's apparent reluctance to abide by the terms of the agreement, they went on the offensive.
"Buju Banton didn't create homophobia, but he's helped to exacerbate it," Boykin explains.
"I know this is a song he did a really long time ago, but its effects live on," said Cannick, who began a huge protest campaign on her Web site using pre-written chain letters with the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of club owners and public officials around the country in cities where Banton had been scheduled to perform.
Banton's Sept. 30 performance at the San Francisco club Mezzanine was canceled after Supervisor Bevan Dufty called club owner Patrick McNerney, a personal friend, to inform him of the protests. Dufty later told the Bay Area Reporter, "Mezzanine clearly values its relationship with the gay community," while McNerney was quoted as saying, "we are very pro-gay personally and professionally. ... We would rather (close the club on a Saturday) than jeopardize our beliefs."
A hastily arranged backup venue, the Sound Factory, also fell through, because of pressure from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and city officials. A third venue, Oakland's Historic Sweet's Ballroom, was also nixed, following a closed-door meeting with city officials, venue staff and promoter Angel Magik. Oakland City council members Nancy Nadel and Pat Kernighan informed Angel Magik's Mike Hegazy and Jonathan Mack that the concert could not take place without a special events permit -- required by the Oakland Police Department for events of a controversial nature that may need extra additional law enforcement presence -- even though the promoters say they were willing to spend an additional $3,000 for increased security. In an e-mail, Nadel denied there was an official ban on Banton, but said she was concerned because "there are several LGBT venues near this concert venue and we must be sure that no possible fanatic followers might try to harm them."
In response, Hegazy and Mack circulated a statement denouncing violence and hate crimes and declaring, "this is not just about Buju Banton, this is about the future of our music." The statement went on to note Angel Magik's previous history of working with the LBGT community (including promoting the GirlTALK festival in Berkeley and "Reggae Gold," a monthly party held at San Francisco's well known gay nightclub, the End Up). The statement also mentioned Banton's work in establishing Operation Willy, an AIDS and safe sex education program in Jamaica, as well as numerous examples of Banton's song lyrics with positive messages. "Buju is an inspirational role model to people from the Caribbean and within the reggae community," according to the statement from Hegazy and Mack.
Mack characterizes Nadel's statement as "gross misrepresentation. It's distasteful that a city official would imply that. She's basically degrading the West Indian community, the Caribbean community and the reggae community." Mack says he's unaware of any incidents of anti-gay violence at a Banton show, adding, "I feel let down by a city that's supposed to be open to diversity."
In an e-mail, Nadel replied, "My job, no matter how unpopular, is to assure that my constituents are safe. The venue operators did not have the appropriate permit for the event to assure that. ... Making a judgment about whether this concert would be safe based on violence or lack thereof after other reggae concerts is irrelevant."
Meanwhile, a Sept. 29 Los Angeles Times article quoted Banton's label manager, Tracii McGregor, as saying that the Miami performance of "Boom Bye Bye" had been taken out of context by queer activists. McGregor described it as "a song fragment ... followed by a freestyle commentary on Banton's public life as protest target." Cannick responded by posting pictures of murdered gays and lesbians on her Web site. "Buju Banton is not a victim," she insisted.
Born in the ghettos of Jamaica 33 years ago as Mark Anthony Myrie, Banton began his career voicing sex-driven dancehall songs like "Stamina Daddy" before embracing conscious themes with tunes like "Love Me Browning" and "Massa God World." After breaking Bob Marley's record for No. 1 songs in his home country, he was signed to a U.S. major label (Mercury) and dubbed the "Voice of Jamaica" on the 1993 album of the same name. That album spawned the hit "Deportees (Things Change)," a song that addressed the thorny issue of immigration long before 9/11.
Banton converted to Rastafarianism (a radical sect of Christianity that blends biblical fundamentalism with Marcus Garvey-ite Afrocentricity and believes that the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie represented the second coming of Jesus Christ) in 1994, about the same time he released the anti-violence song "Murderer," which has been credited with initiating reggae's ongoing roots revival. Over the next decade, Banton continued to develop spiritual themes on albums such as "Til Shiloh" (hailed by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest reggae albums of the decade) and "Inna Heights," frequently commenting on society with pointed political critiques and message-laden pleas. He's also said he was "wrong" for recording "Boom Bye Bye" and has since refrained from making anti-gay statements on his records.
In a phone interview conducted two weeks before the current controversy erupted, Banton explained his viewpoint. "Reggae music artists speak to what's happening around them. I am a person who sees the world as a place where people like me have been silenced every day. We have been blacklisted and called terrorists by the people who are in power. The spirit we have, with reggae music, there's no question, America don't want to see the next Bob Marley."
Denying he is a hate monger, Banton says he sees himself as someone who's equally concerned about 14-year-olds receiving the death penalty in South Carolina as he is about the plight of the Palestinian people. "I am truly saddened sometimes at these atrocities that take place. My very heart cries."
Regarding his critics, he says, "They want to silence Buju Banton every time the clock ticks. There's an economic agenda, of course." He feels he's been singled out "because I'm not trying to go to a big record company and try to get some money so I can drive a fancy car here in America or wear flashy jewelry. I'm a rebel, mon!"
Banton notes that he owns his own label (Gargamel Music) and therefore isn't controlled by the U.S. music industry.
"I don't come to sing for American award, I just come (for) reward, to uplift the people," he says. "You guys in America, you think you are so smart. You enter our industry and you just pick and choose who you want. ... All America thinks they are getting the best things from Jamaica. Well, you are dead wrong. You never choose anybody black, you have never chosen anybody who is really what the people want, the people's favorite, to represent the music on the international scene. Why? Because it's not the popular face that America likes to see on top of reggae music."
While Banton says he respects reggae artists who have attained crossover success like Sean Paul and Damian "Junior Gong" Marley, he feels that foreign influence has had a toxic effect on the genre overall. "When America touch an artist from Jamaica, it's like him disintegrate. I don't know what kind of magic is that."
"Too Bad" represents somewhat of an anomaly among music industry trends in that it makes no concessions to crossover appeal. Most of Banton's dancehall peers have polished their sound with a glossy, ultra-contemporary sheen, but "Too Bad" boasts a decidedly retro flavor. There are no high-profile collaborations with American rappers or R&B stars, no hip-hop remixes -- and, it should be noted, no misogynistic or anti-gay lyrics.
Cannick admits she hasn't mentioned Banton's socially conscious material in her blog articles, but says she didn't feel it was relevant to the issue she was trying to bring to light. "The other music doesn't talk about shooting batty boys (Jamaican patois for gay men) in the head."
Banton, however, says he thinks the ongoing flap over one song out of his entire catalog amounts to a double standard, and he charges queer activists with spreading slander and disinformation about him. "The gay organizations that fight against me are trying to dehumanize me, trying to make it out like I'm an animal. Because they want the world to embrace gayness. How could it be that they say they are being abused when they are the ones abusing I?," he wonders.
Yet to out-identified people of Caribbean descent such as New York poet, author and performance artist Stacyann Chin, the specter of violence hanging over the gay and lesbian community of color is all too real. Chin, who came out as a lesbian while living in Jamaica, relates that she was forced to emigrate to the United States to escape discrimination. "There is a remarkable amount of homophobia in Jamaica," she says, yet she's reticent to characterize the subject as a simple, black-and-white issue because there are many factors at play, not the least of which is economics. "If you have money, you can buy your space," she says, while gays and lesbians without financial means are subject to the mercy of their environment.
Jamaica is the third-most violent country in the world, according to the United Nations; rape and murder are common, and Amnesty International has issued recent alerts on sexual violence and police-involved shootings in addition to reports of violence against gays and lesbians. Violence is often used as a metaphor in reggae lyrics, even if actual intentions are benign: "To kill a sound bwoi" is to outperform a sound system competitor. As Chin explains, "more than a culture of violence, there's a culture of confrontation" in Jamaica. Along with rampant poverty, sexism and misogyny, she says one of Jamaica's biggest problems is that "there are a large number of people who have no education around homophobia or HIV."
Chin, who is in her 30s, notes she danced to Banton's music when she was a teenager; perhaps surprisingly, she says she agrees with him on many issues, such as his stance on poverty. She says that the campaign against homophobia in reggae has helped to empower otherwise invisible gays and lesbians of Caribbean descent, although it hasn't yet resulted in any significant legislation undertaken by the Jamaican government (under a colonial-era law, homosexuality is still illegal in Jamaica).
"The law is not the source of homophobia in Jamaica," says Boykin, who adds, "the whole issue has to be dealt with, with respect to the people and culture of the Caribbean." Some have accused the gay community of racism for targeting black artists, but Boykin, who is black, says dryly, "the gay community is as racist as the black community is homophobic."
Asked if the Jamaican LGBT community could find a way to empower itself without attacking dancehall artists, Chin says, "I think the protests have begun a conversation. In light of all this attention, we need to now ask ourselves, as Jamaican LGBT activists, what are we asking of these artists?"
Other pro-queer bloggers have said they see no need to engage in meaningful dialogue with reggae artists; McGregor says she's received a considerable amount of hate mail. Hegazy and Mack say they offered to give the LBGT community table space and the opportunity to make an announcement before Banton went on stage -- an unprecedented gesture for the reggae community -- but both McNerney and Oakland city officials refused. Nadel, who says she's offered to hold a community forum on this issue in the future, says she was unaware of any invitation to LGBT groups; the promoters say they not only verbally informed Kernighan of their offer but copied Nadel in an e-mail they sent out proposing just that.
Still, at least some members of the queer community would like to see an honest discussion take place between all parties involved. "How much more effective would it be if we could get Buju Banton to speak to some of these issues rather than shutting him up?" Chin wonders. "If Buju could just call a press conference and say, 'I'm sorry,' I'd be satisfied," Cannick says. Boykin states his issue is with "murder music," not with reggae, and says he'd be happy to have Banton appear as a guest on his BET talk show.
Back at the Down Low, the warm, bubbly vibe seems surreal, given all the pointed rhetoric surrounding the canceled shows. There are no protesters outside and no sign of anti-gay fanatics anywhere as Banton leads the crowd through the poignant acoustic number "Untold Stories," a song often compared to Marley's "Redemption Song." In a pleasing baritone voice, he sings, "I could go on and on, the full has never been told" -- a statement that could also apply to the "Boom Bye Bye" controversy and his entire career.
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