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Underground > Radio & Music >

'Reggae artists commit hate crime offences' say Scotland Yard

17:42 / 12.11.03

Scotland Yard say that a number of reggae artists may be committing hate crimes in the way homosexuality is handled in their songs.

The diversity unit at Scotland Yard suggest that there is a case to answer with regard to offences and are recommending that the CPS look at putting a case together - and have suggested a wide range of people who should be taken in as a result.

Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll of the Diversity Directorate at New Scotland Yard has told OutRage!: “The transcript of the CD, in my opinion, does show offences”.

The three singers under investigation are Elephant Man, Bounty Killer and Beenie Man. Their songs variously urge the shooting, burning and drowning of gay people. All three singers are Jamaican but their records are widely distributed in the UK and other countries.

Driscoll is now seeking the agreement of the Crown Prosecution Service to take action against not only the singers and their record companies, but also against high street record stores HMV and Virgin, BBC Radio 1Xtra, and the BBC and Amazon websites. He says they are distributing and promoting CDs inciting homophobic violence and murder.

That is a major case if it goes ahead. I must admit I've not heard any of these songs myself, but there is a lot to talk about round this.

Thoughts?

21:00 / 12.11.03

Describing Bounty Killer as reggae seems a bit of a stretch. He's basically like Jamaica's answer to gangsta rap, I think (I'm less familiar with the gangsta rap than I am with him). Gangsta dancehall, maybe.

I wonder, though, if they're planning on trying this with some of Bounty Killah's American thug confreres later on....

21:16 / 12.11.03

It does seem that extreme homophobia is a pretty common subject in reggae records for whatever reason..

John Peel plays tracks by all of the singers listed above, and he's apt to say things like "I'd like to play you more from this LP, but I'm afraid a lot of the lyrics are concerned with attacking gay people.. I do wish they wouldn't do that kind of thing, because the tunes are great, but obviously that kind of hatred ruins your whole enjoyment of them.." etc.

I'm sorry to discover that Beenie Man goes in for this sort of thing. I think he's great, but I'm afraid I've got no idea what he's going on about most of the time, so I suppose he could be saying all manner of nasty things..

Sadly I think it's undeniable that massive amounts of homophobia is present.. as the stuff quoted above makes clear, it's of a pretty straight-up "i hate gay people and I'm going to kill them" kind of thing rather than, say, the vaguer cultural/language based prejudice associated with American hip-hop.

To me a more pressing issue might be - since when was expressing homophobic (or presumably racist or mysogynistic) opinions actually illegal? And assuming that is the case, isn't it likely to get various extreme political organisations and speakers into a spot of bother? Rather a higher priority than reggae singers I would have thought..

No star here laces

07:03 / 13.11.03

Well, I own a fair amount of this stuff including infamous stuff like "Boom bye bye" and "chi chi man".

I think the coolest response I've ever seen is a club flyer my friend sent me to a club night called "Pac man". Subtitled "a chi chi man sound - homosexuals playing hip hop and dancehall".

You can't blame dancehall artists from making these sorts of records when they come from a country where homosexuality is a prosecutable offence and anti-gay attitudes are utterly culturally endemic. Yes, it's horrible that jamaica is like that, but if you've got jamaicans making music for jamaicans, these attitudes are always going to be part and parcel of it.

Maybe Scotland Yard should prosecute them, I don't really have an opinion on that, but I think it's silly to dismiss dancehall as a genre simply because this is a part of the culture. To be honest, it's not like you can tell what most dancehall artists are on about most of the time anyway. The patois on Elephant Man's "log on" (which I think is one of the key tracks in this case) is so thick that I can only comprehend about one word in ten (and i listen to a fair amount of jamaican-influenced music like garage).

All the chi chi men should just re-appropriate...

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:12 / 13.11.03

It should also be pointed out that if anyone is in a dubious position to talk about hate crimes, it's Scotland fucking Yard, who no doubt have their own agenda in making this announcement...

08:05 / 13.11.03

This is very odd. They're almost addressing the issue as if it's something that's only happened this week for the first time, as if homophobic lyrics in dancehall haven't been present for at least 2 decades. Not saying it's a good thing, and agree with Jefe about it being intrinsic to JA culture, but it's like suddenly prosecuting a bunch of country singers for promoting negative images about marriage.

08:13 / 13.11.03

When I first read the topic title I thought it was going to be about Bad Brains. They started out punk, but HR eventually started doing more reggae stuff, and was slowly going insane and making homophobic statements.

The Beenie Man thing's strange. I could've sworn there was some controversy years ago in the rap magazines about Beenie possibly being gay, and Beenie neither confirming it or denying it.

Can someone be charged with a hate crime for singing? Or writing? Wouldn't that be hard to prove? "Kill all the White Men", "Rock N Roll Nigger", will there be a special branch of Scotland Yard to listen to these songs so they can determine which is hate crime, which is satire, which is meant to examine race? Strange.

09:06 / 13.11.03

Yeah, that's the thing I suppose.. actually bringing about legal proceedings for this sort of thing seems like opening an entire supermarket full of cans of worms..

(to coin a really stupid phrase)

10:52 / 13.11.03

It is absolutely idotic in terms of both consistency (ie. where are all the other prosecutions from Skrewdriver through to a million hip hop artists whose names I can't be bothered to remember at the moment), and the hope it will achieve anything, but it might be interesting if they do proceed, because it'll draw attention to homophobia there, and you might get some decent discussion about sexual politcs on the island. Not that this will change anything but I'd find it interesting to see.

I can't 100% remeber the book it was in, I think it was "Have Gun Will Travel: The Story of Death Row Records" by Ronin Ro, accusations and rumours of homosexuality seemed to haunt the book and the artists concerned, the weird shadow of all this aggressively asserted masculinity. It'd be interesting to hear if the same thing is true in Jamaica. Having written that, I wonder if all the exhortations to violence against the batty man dem stem in part from Jamaican artists consciousness of their UK/Western audience? The UK is the biggest audience for reggae after all,and often reflects UK trends, and the artists concerened are certainly aware of the difference in sexual politcs here.

11:02 / 13.11.03

Maybe not though it does seem like a current issue there. Pressure is coming from the UK for liberalisation, though.

See here for an account of a guy who was granted asylum because his homosexuality made Jamaica to dangerous for him.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:57 / 13.11.03

Flyboy It should also be pointed out that if anyone is in a dubious position to talk about hate crimes, it's Scotland fucking Yard, who no doubt have their own agenda in making this announcement...

Quite right, who can forget Sir John Steven's infamous tracks "Pepper Spray the Black Bastard" or "Baton Charge the Darkies"? And as for Flying Squad Versus Asian Dub Foundation, what a mistake that was...

It would be nice to think they can be prosecuted but as Riz says it makes things difficult in so many ways. None of the mentioned artists is really big in the UK are they? Probably better known amongst the gay community for their homophobia than the community at large. I think in this case it's better to boycott their music rather than try for criminal proceedings. That sort of thing is better for people for whom hate is their raison d'etre, such as the BNP.

15:45 / 13.11.03

Re: the 'is it illegal' thing - I think 'incitement to violence' is a crime. Anyone able to confirm that?

17:40 / 13.11.03

Hmmm. I think that's the case, but I've learnt my lesson about mentioning the law recently on the board, so I'll leave that.

I agree with much of what's been said with regards to the law seemingly cracking down on just one section of music - there are hundreds of other possible avenues to follow. Death metal and its offshoots, for instance, say some deeply dodgy things indeed.

And, of course, I agree with the general feeling that the sentiments on these records are deeply dodgy too.

What got me as much as anything was the scope of the proposed investigation; not only the artists and record companies, but also the BBC's radio stations and website, Amazon, HMV and Virgin. (And what about smaller, specialist stores?) That would be a massive crackdown...

I have a feeling the CPS will come back and say this is unprosecutable (if that's a word), probably because the net is cast so wide. But if it does go ahead in the way suggested, it could set one hell of a precedent.

No star here laces

06:52 / 14.11.03

Ah yes, bad brains, notable credible reggae artists...

RE: knowledge of uk - Buju Banton has a strict "won't talk about Boom Bye Bye" policy in interviews here...

I don't think the UK is the reason for all the shoot the battymen stuff. Sean Paul is the most obviously internationally minded of the dancehall stars and he steers well clear of that on his records. I think those tunes are done strictly for the jamaican market and just happen to cross over.

I think it's generally fucking obnoxious of the Yard to single out music from yard in this way. It's exactly the same as the picking on So Solid from a year or so ago. The police have the perception that black UK culture = criminal culture and therefore crack down especially hard on any artists affiliated with that scene in preference to anybody white, who clearly must be okay.

And, as you say, to try to include record shops in the prosecution is just plainly ludicrous.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:33 / 14.11.03

< rot > It's odd how Outrage only seem to get in the news when they go after black guys, did they really do/say nothing during the recent Anglican Church hilarity?
< /rot >

Goodness Gracious Meme

10:20 / 14.11.03

Yeah, I was thinking of the Sean Paul example...

Hmm. Tricky this one.

There is, IMnonlegalO, incitement going on in various genres(the Buju/Beenie Man stuff I've heard strikes me pretty clearly in this way, and if you're going to market yourself internationlly you have to be prepared to deal with other culture's norms and how that might condition repsonse. cf that infamous Mark Lamarr interview), but I'm dubious as to why its always black ones that become front page news as they're criminalised.

I'm dubious basically that this is about a sudden desire by Scotland Yard to 'get onside' as regards homophobia.

(and Flowers, I agree, funny how the Outrage campaign against this stuff gets mainstream coverage of the sort that Outrage can usually whistle for. The pink press were/are full of coverage of queer pressure groups responses to the Anglican church situation, but the mainstream?)

Goodness Gracious Meme

10:24 / 14.11.03

Will try and dig out refs, but the campaigning is also coming from Black British/Jamaican queer activists... Just because something is part of a distinct culture, doesn't mean it's untouchable/immutable, what if you come from a dancehall culture but are queer? *Not* alot of fun, you're entitled to want to campaign/change norms, aren't you?

Ie I think there's a case for campaigning/highlighting this stuff but the Scotland Yard announcement seems pretty ludicrous to me..

11:25 / 14.11.03

'Laces:
You can't blame dancehall artists from making these sorts of records when they come from a country where homosexuality is a prosecutable offence and anti-gay attitudes are utterly culturally endemic. Yes, it's horrible that jamaica is like that, but if you've got jamaicans making music for jamaicans, these attitudes are always going to be part and parcel of it.

Hmm... the whole "should artists effectively committing hate crimes in their music be prosecuted?" argument is a little difficult; is it possible on any level to justify homophobic/racist/whatever lyrics by their "artistic value"?

However, I would like to mention that I find the idea that such matters should be considered more acceptable/excusable due to being produced in an environment where such prejudices are more culturally endemic rather suspect. Was racism less offensive fifty years ago, when it was more widespread? And different types of bigotry: probably the majority of this country are still transphobic, but does that make such discrimination any less despicable than homophobia or racism?

Whether making offensive statements in music can be argued to be more "justified" than if they were made in a political speech is perhaps slightly different, but I don't see why bigots of any kind should be considered more acceptable just because they're surrounded by other bigots. More understandable, perhaps, but no more excusable.

13:59 / 14.11.03

yes i don't really care what attitudes to gay folk are like in jamaica, they're making money selling in britain under british laws where as far as most of us are aware inciting hate crime is a crime. don't want that nasty shit on the shelves.

16:52 / 14.11.03

Hmmm. Anyone here got a good grasp of Rastafarianism? I found this essay, which seems to argue that Buju Banton was right to make the comments he did in Boom Bye Bye because he was reflecting his culture:

Buju Banton’s lyrics are justified and defended by his homophobic culture. Some critics claim that it is part of his culture and he is just signing what is true to him. They claim that it is ignorance on the part of the North American listeners who are unwilling or unable to understand the singer’s cultural standpoint. In his refusal to apologize to GLAAD, Banton stated that he shouldn’t have to apologize for something that is part of his religion, Rastafarianism, and if his audience says they want Boom Bye Bye, they get Boom Bye Bye.

Interestingly, Boy George argued somewhere that Boom Bye Bye was a 'great gay song.' Slightly wrongly - I think he confused what was said in the song with what Shabba Ranks said on the Word - he argued that Banton had said gays should be crucified.

He then said, and I paraphrase a little, that 'It was great he said that, because then there was an outcry and they crucified him instead, and now he renounced what he said and is making these deeply conscious albums.' He suggested that the anger directed at Banton had made him think about what it is to be gay. Now Boy George isn't the world's greatest philosopher, but I thought that was an interesting view of things...

And he pops up in this piece, which I think must have been comissioned when all of this current furore seemed to start last year, with Peter Tatchell threatening to boycott the MOBO awards.

Tatchell would be better off taking the stance of Boy George, one of several gay men and women attending the Mobo awards. Boy George understands that it's not about reggae, not about Jamaicans and not about black people.

Most of all, it's about the government that presides over the hatred. Not so long ago, here in London, police officers went posing as gay men in bars to arrest any man who solicited them. Back in those days, white British TV comedians would refer to gay men as "poofs", "queers" and "bum bandits" - and "queer-bashing" was rampant, if not acceptable. But the government changed its stance.

Until a Jamaican government has the bottle to do the same, there isn't going to be much love for gay guys on the island. Until a Jamaican government stops imprisoning homosexuals and scraps all anti-gay laws, men and women will continue to be murdered for their sexual orientation. Tatchell should be addressing his campaign to the Jamaican high commission. Anything that might hurt the tourist industry will make the government acutely aware that gay persecution is a major problem in the country.

17:05 / 14.11.03

J-Flag - Jamaican forum for gays, all-sexuals and lesbians website

And they link to this - it's by the bloke who did the terminally crap Metrosexuality, but there are audio links and a net diary;

In Roots of Homophobia, ...Rikki Beadle-Blair travels to Jamaica where homosexuality remains a crime punishable by ten years hard labour and homophobic murders go largely unpunished.

17:20 / 14.11.03

Hmmm. Anyone here got a good grasp of Rastafarianism?

An OK grasp, for an outsider. It's a cross between Pan-Africanism and Judaism, sort of.

Here: I wrote this (with links) a while ago.

The dreadlocks and dietary restrictions are all from Leviticus, the book of the law that also refers to homosexuality as an abomination.

18:00 / 14.11.03

Cheers, Grant. Leviticus, eh? Explains a lot...