From left, Bounty Killer and Banton
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I HAVE been reading and monitoring with interest this whole attack on dancehall artistes and their culture over the past couple of months by the media triggered by Outrage!. I went to the Outrage! website and in the clippings section approximately 15 of the first 20 articles were about Jamaican anti-homosexual artistes and it begs the question what or who was Outrage! before they found this meal ticket? Why are there links to music and articles related to the artistes in question for sale on the Outrage! website? Can we spell hypocrisy and exploitation?
Dancehall had been doing quite fine before the mainstream success of certain artistes and so-called sponsorship of certain companies. This was very apparent when Bounty Killer could afford to walk away from his relationship with a mega group such as No Doubt. The mere fact that these people have targeted these dancehall artistes is just another case of people who have contributed nothing to Jamaica or its music trying to exploit the culture of Jamaica for their personal gain under the false pretence that "oh Jamaican music anti-homosexual music is responsible for the death of homosexuals."
Check the fact in any democratic country and I know for a fact that in Jamaica 98 per cent, if not all crimes against homosexuals, are homosexual on homosexual crimes. The whole trigger for the current movement against Jamaican artistes at this time was a lie. It was reported that the head of J Flag was murdered because of his sexuality, when it was in fact a homosexual on homosexual crime. The second lie was that The DJ Buju Banton was involved in the beating of a homosexual person and then it was paired with a song he recorded over 12 years ago as a teenager. These lies are actually posted on the Outrage! web site and they have not retracted them.
POCKET CHANGE
To have companies like Puma dictate to Jamaican artistes what they can and cannot do is an insult as they feel they are actually helping the artiste with the pocket change that they have thrown down in Jamaica. We have a culture that was doing great without them and they have been the ones to benefit tremendously from Jamaica's culture. The simple fact is that Outrage! was nothing before it created the anti-dancehall bandwagon, Puma was a forgotten brand before Jamaica.
I certainly do not support the killing of anyone because of their sexuality, but I am a firm believer in freedom of speech and will never back from supporting my Jamaican culture even when it says 'Boom bye bye' because to imply that a music will get people killed, is to imply that there will be peace after listening to Bob Marley, who incidentally burned a lot a verbal fire on the system and even talked of bombing a church. Why don't we call that hate music?
I am, etc.,
S. ESCOFFERY
toyacastle@hotmail.com
Brooklyn, New York
