King B-Fine fine with homosexuality

Towards the end of last year, King B-Fine's Jah No Dead generated a rage-whorl in the Australian queer community. The run-out of the track called for killing of chi-chi men; when cornered, B-Fine claimed that he was using the term to mean bad people generally, and not gay men:

“Greetings in the name of Jah Rastafari, I would like to make myself clear; in this new video clip, at the end of the video I sing burn down (Chi Chi Man) and I want to make myself clear in that what I mean is to burn down all the bad people, (child molesters, gangsters, rapist, people who destroy the life of another), please everyone am sorry if what you understand was wrong, but I have nothing against same sex, please don’t get me wrong. I believe that everyone is equal. One love.”

Not everyone was convinced by this - it seemed as unlikely as any of Morrissey's desperate attempts to explain how he was being misunderstood, but since then Fine has appeared pretty genuine in his attempts to prove that, even if he meant killing gays at the time, he's over that now:



He's convinced Peter Tatchell that his recanting is genuine. And if you can convice Peter Tatchell, you're either lying incredibly well or genuine.

Guyana a little more like Brighton now

The Jamaican dance hall artist Bounty Killer has been banned from Guyana. Although known for promoting the killing of gay men, he'd been doing that before he played Georgetown; it was more the gunfire which broke out during his set that made the government decide they could do without him. Movado has also been banned, presumably because they had the book out anyway.

Bye bye Boom Bye Bye?

Richard Smith pops a Guardian Music Blog onto the internet cautioning against making incitement to hatred on grounds of sexuality a crime:

It's also the legal equivalent of your mum saying she's going to go down your school to have a word with the bullies; all very nice and well-meaning, but totally counterproductive. A quick read of Eric D Nuzum's history of music censorship, Parental Advisory, should remind you how anyone who tries to ban a record ends up giving their target a cachet of rebel cool quicker than you can say "Relax, don't do it".

Really, Richard? You think that a law making this sort of hatred illegal would have the same effect as Mike Read banning Frankie Goes To Hollywood? You can't see a difference between banning a record because it's about sex, and banning a record because it calls for the murder of people because they're gay?

The broader point - that there's already a crime of incitement and the new proposal is making a well-meaning but ultimately confused attempt to criminalise some aspects of free speech - was also made by Christopher Biggins on Today earlier in the week. Discrimination and direct incitement are matters for the law to be involved in; I don't think Buju Banton should be given a platform to spout his bile from, but this should be a matter of morality and debate, and not one of legislation.

Buju signs piece of paper

Buju Banton has made at least some gay rights campaigners happy by signing a pledge to stop peforming tracks which call for the murder of homosexuals.

Not everyone's delighted, though:

Vincent Nap, a British-based reggae artist, said there was a problem of homophobia in dancehall music, but attacking artists' commercial interests would not solve the issue. "If they keep attacking us, we will fight back," he said. "If they try to stop our music we are going to have to defend ourselves."

Presumably Nap didn't mean to make his comments sound quite so menacing, although when you're defending the right of people to sing about shooting gay men, it's probably hard not to sound a little aggressive.

Others suggest that this might be the least meaningful piece of paper since Munich:

Mark Richards, known as DJ Kemist from reggae label Xtremix records, said: "I can see why he's done it. He doesn't want to jeopardise his whole career over just a few songs. But it doesn't mean it's going to change any of his opinions."

Which is the problem - you want Banton to not perform hateful incitements to crime because it's wrong, not because he's signed some pledge to allow him to do tours of the UK.

It's hard to see why a man who performed a song about pouring acid on gay men last year would necessarily treat a career-salvaging contract with representatives of a gay pressure group as a binding agreement, anyway. What happens if he breaks his word?

Dancehall: Caring or pragmatic?

Jaimie Hodgson has filed an interesting response to the pledges certain stars are making to try and clear up the image of dancehall as promoting the murder of gay men and women. He's not conviced by the claims, having spoken to some of the genre's biggest names while shooting a documentary:

Sizzla was the first deejay I interviewed during my Jamaican excursion. Without any provocation, within five minutes of the interview commencing, he attempted an explanation of his views on homosexuality as a Bobo Ashanti (orthodox) Rastafarian. He explained that his religion believes the bible orders that homosexuals should be put to death. And that by preaching violence against gays in his songs, he was in fact just celebrating God's word and upholding the values he lived by. It would be, in that case, ungodly not to condemn gays to death.

It's curious, of course, that Sizzla takes such a strong line on Leviticus being interpreted literally, and yet is able to skirt the interpretation when it comes to signing up to to a pledge to try and get a toehold back in overseas markets. Either you're mired in Biblical literalism, or you're not, and it's remarkable that suddenly Sizlla has found room to allow this to become a flexible stance.