Xtra.com Interviews Beenieman

Famed dancehall star Beenieman who also has murder music songs in his repertoire was in Canada recently for an awards event for Mary J. Blige, the exact name is OneXOne’s Charity gala at Kool Haus on Sep 12, 2009. The interviewer Kyle Mooney writes of his exchange with the artist on the red carpet.

He asked him about the gay issues in Jamaica but his answers to me seem "soft" seeing that he is in another territory where rights are balanced and vigilance is much more pronounced than here in Jamaica.

The interviewer nervously began the exchange I guess fearing a rebuff on the 'gay issue' but soon settled as he answered the questions.

“The problem is all that homophobic stuff was like 15 years ago,” he begins. “People grow up. You grow up in Jamaica, you know Mamma and Poppa, Grandma and Grandpa. Your brother has his girlfriend, your sister has her boyfriend and that’s what you know. Everything else is new to you.”

“One time I never knew what gay was,” he says. “I used to think that ‘gay’ meant ‘happy’. Until you come to America and Canada and see a man with a man, you don’t realize that affection is there.”

It’s a solid excuse for ignorance I guess, but it does little to explain the ferocious hatred that bleeds from tracks like Han Up Deh in which he calls for lesbians to be hanged: “Hang chi chi gal wid a long piece a rope.” Then there’s “Mi Nah Wallah” in which he expresses a desire to slice open the throats of gay men.

Why be so violently opposed to something you know so little about? “Just like all Jamaican artists DJ about violence, that is what we see every day,” he says. “What you learn is what you see.”

Read the entire article here please on Xtra named Bumping into Beenie Man
IN PERSON / Xtra chats with famed dancehall musician

What unu think?

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