Dancehall Hate In City Park?

By: PAUL SCHINDLER
Source: Gay City News
08/09/2007

Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendlyAn August 25 reggae festival planned on city Parks Department property at Randall's Island is raising hackles among activists who point out that at least two of the nine headliners have made themselves notorious with song lyrics calling for the murder of gay men.

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Among the music stars receiving top billing at the Reggae CariFest are Buju Banton and Bounty Killa, both of whom have been key targets of the three-year-old Stop Murder Music campaign, a joint project of the militant British gay rights group OutRage!, the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), and the British Black Gay Men's Advisory Group (BGMAG).

Banton - the stage name of 35-year-old Jamaican dancehall music star Mark Anthony Myrie - is infamous for his anti-gay songs, one example of which is "Boom Bye Bye, " which features sounds of gunfire "in a batty-boy's head" - "batty-boy" being Jamaican patois for "faggot" - and says of any "batty-boy," "burn him up bad like an old tire wheel."

Bounty Killa was born Rodney Basil Price in Jamaica, also 35 years ago. Among his lyrics are: "Bun a fire pon a puff and mister fagoty" ("Burn a fire on puffs and faggots"); "Poop man fi drown an dat a yawd man philosophy" ("Shit men [gay men] must be drowned and that's a yardy man [Jamaican] philosophy"); and "Mi ready fi go wipe out this fag wid pure laser beam" ("I'm ready to wipe out this faggot with a pure laser beam").

Though Stop Murder Music activists say that their efforts have led to cancellation of hundreds of concerts and sponsorship deals costing homophobic reggae artists more than $5 million each year, the offending performers, Banton and Bounty among them, continue to find receptive venues.

When longtime New York activist Mark Milano last week noticed a subway poster for the Randall's Island event listing the two among those performing, he immediately sounded a call for action. At its meeting on August 2, the Queer Justice League, an activist group founded in the wake of Larry Kramer's spring speech marking the 20th anniversary of ACT UP, voted to take steps to ensure that Banton and Bounty do not perform on city property.

Since that time, Milano has touched numerous bases in his sprint to block the hate-lyric artists - speaking with both Live Nation, a major Los Angeles live music producer that stepped up to lease the park space, and the Brooklyn-based promoter Team Legendary, which is staging the festival, as well as reaching out for the help of two leading local gay and lesbian elected officials, State Senator Tom Duane and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, both Chelsea Democrats, and of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD.

After several days of intensive discussions among all of these parties, Team Legendary's Alfonso Brooks has made a verbal commitment to press both Banton and Bounty to comply with a key demand not only of Milano and the Queer Justice League here in New York, but also of the international Stop Murder Music campaign - that they sign and publicly state their willingness to abide by the Reggae Compassionate Act (RCA), a document by which other artists have pledged to refrain from making homophobic statements in public, releasing new homophobic songs, or authorizing the re-release of previously-recorded hate-gays music.

According to both Milano and Colin Casey in Duane's office, Brooks voiced confidence that the two artists would sign on to the agreement. But in a telephone interview on the evening of August 8, he conceded that he had not yet been able to discuss the matter with Banton and his management and had heard resistance from Bounty.

"They don't think I should be concerned," Brooks said of preliminary reaction from Bounty's camp. The promoter explained that his contract with artists includes a strict code of conduct on matters ranging from alcohol use to any offensive language aimed at specific communities. Bounty's representative told Brooks that the performer has always abided by that code in the past, and would refrain from performing hate songs at Randall's Island.

Beyond that, Brooks explained, "they are trying to say they have their own life."

In both a telephone interview and an e-mail to Gay City News, Brooks
emphasized that his festival is one aimed at promoting "love, respect, and equality," and he noted that in a similar event in 2005 he made clear to Banton that he could not perform "Boom Bye Bye," a condition the artist accepted. Brooks added, "I don't see anything wrong with the [RCA] agreement. I think all artists should sign it."

Still, when pressed whether he would jettison the two from the concert line-up if they refused to cooperate on the RCA pledge, Brooks wavered.
"This second, right now, I don't have an answer to that," he responded. He noted that the artists have already been paid, and could point to their signed contracts which carry no requirement about any pledge restricting the songs they perform elsewhere.

"These artists have their fans and if there is any political way to get my money back, I'd like to find it," Brooks said, also alluding to problems he might face from his audience if Banton and Bounty are no-shows.

For Milano, Brooks' indecision is unacceptable.

"For the concert promoter or the city to allow the appearance in a public park of performers who have adamantly refused to sign the RCA solely because they've agreed not to sing these songs at this location is unacceptable to gay and lesbian activists and to the Queer Justice League," he told Gay City News.

Asked what steps the League planned next, Milano said, "If we don't not have a definitive answer about them either signing or being dropped from the bill in the next few days, we will begin organizing protests and we will be at the concert protesting."

He also made clear that he plans to hold the city accountable as well.

"We will apply pressure wherever we can," he said, "and we do believe the Parks Department has it in their power to prevent viciously homophobic and violent performers from appearing in city parks."

The Parks Department's position on the appearance of anti-gay artists is unclear. Cristina DeLuca, a Parks spokeswoman, confirmed that the department had contracted with Live Nation for use of the Randall Island facility. Asked whether Parks had a policy on use of its property by groups advocating violence - a neo-Nazi organization, for example - DeLuca said she would research the question and get a response back to Gay City News, but that did not happen.

However, according to Brooks, later the same day, a conference call took place among Parks officials, Team Legendary, and Live Nation, though the outcome is unclear.

Asked whether Duane, who personally called Brooks to express his unhappiness about Banton and Bounty appearing, would in turn press the Parks Department to step in if Team Legendary did not win agreement from the artists to sign the RCA, Casey said, "That is clearly the next step," even as he expressed hope that will not be necessary.

Quinn issued a written statement saying, "The homophobic messages contained in several songs performed by the Bounty Killa and Buju Banton are deplorable and unacceptable. I am pleased that the group has agreed not to perform those songs at Randall's Island... This is just one step in the right direction, and I further urge these artists to sign the Reggae Compassionate Act and agree to not perform lyrics that promote violence or hate at any performance, anywhere."

The speaker's office did not reply to a follow up e-mail asking whether pressure could appropriately be put on the Parks Department.

In his August 8 telephone interview with Gay City News, Brooks said he had just spent an hour on the phone with GLAAD, though calls seeking comment from that organization, placed before and after the promoter spoke to its representative, were not returned.

One puzzling omission in the activists' efforts is the apparent lack of outreach to LGBT people of color organizations. Contacted on August 8, neither Tokes Osubu, executive director of Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD), nor Clarence Patton, an African American who leads the city Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP), had heard about the concert flap.

According to Peter Tatchell, leader of Britain's Outrage! and a key player in the Stop Murder Music campaign, Bounty has steadfastly refused to sign the Reggae Compassionate Act.

Banton has a more perplexing story with regard to the campaign. As Doug Ireland reported in Gay City News late last month, Stop Murder Music has a signed agreement from Banton, yet within days of the artist making the pledge, Radio Jamaica was quoting his manager, Donovan Germaine, as denying he had done so.

This week, Tatchell told Gay City News that he has learned from several Jamaican journalists that Banton himself is now denying that he ever signed the RCA, which the British activist said "renders the agreement null and void."

The public postures Banton and Bounty have stubbornly hung onto regarding their anti-gay hate music do not bode well for Brooks' hopes for an amicable solution.