Queer Kid of Color

Still Dancing to Beenie Man by Steven Emmanuel originally published in The Advocate.

Two years ago my church was prepping up for their annual international festival: the biggest fundraiser of the year. This event attracted all different cultures, influences, and ethnicities. It was a day to celebrate our ethnic diversity. The youth group of the church was asked to choreograph a dance. Instantly we knew what song to do: the hottest track of the year, the song everyone knew the lyrics to even if they didn’t quite know what they meant. That song was none other than “Chi Chi Man”. To this day I can remember the dance…the smooth rhythm as it drummed in my head, the sound of the beat ringing in my ears, and the grind of the music running through my body. It wasn’t until a few months ago when Keith Boykin initiated a campaign to ban anti-gay reggae artists to perform their music at Life Beat concerts that I truly became aware of what the song “Chi Chi Man” meant. It was a disgusting song filled with perversity and sickness, the kind of homophobia that called for the burning of homosexuals and the stomping of gays. I was angered to have once loved such a song, and I felt betrayed that beyond the thick accent and heavy beat and cryptic dialect that a message of hate had been projected to me. Yet, many LGBT people did not feel the same way.

These days it’s hard to find a gay or lesbian person who will stop listening to a hot club track or a hit song because it contains anti-gay lyrics. Reggae, a style notorious for its gay-hating singer/songwriters, is one of the growing interests of gay music fans. “I have Beenie Man’s songs on my IPOD because they’re hot. Even though I know they’re homophobic, I kinda put that aside and just listen to the beat and dance,” says reggae fan Ronald Martinez, 18. Martinez has no problem with the song “Chi Chi Man” that contains lyrics such as, “From dem a drink inna chi chi man bar/ Blaze di fire mek we dun dem!” These lyrics, though upbeat and almost celebratory within the song’s context, encourage the burning of the ‘chi chi’, or the gay man.

“I think for most LGBT people who listen to anti-gay reggae/dancehall artists they feel its just about the beat or the sound,” states Clay Cane, 29, a writer and blogger for claycane.blogspot.com. Cane was a part of Keith Boykin’s protest and cancellation of Beenie Man’s Life Beat event, “However, I have been in a gay club and a Buju Banton or Beenie Man song is played and there seems to be a division in the club of people who are asking, ‘why are they playing this?’ And others who are dancing and loving it.”

The split in gay culture between gays and lesbians who accept homophobic music despite the lyrics and those who seek to ban it is quickly becoming a hot topic amongst LGBT circles. Many people, like Samantha Gellar, 24, a writer and LGBT anti-censorship activist, don’t think fighting the music is the way to go. “I’d say that the gay communities support or lack of support for anti-gay music is immaterial, while these artists are a nuisance, they reach a small audience and do not have any sort of political pull. Their homophobic lyrics are minor in comparison to the rest of what they say within the music, and they aren’t easily understood. By canceling these shows and striking out against the artists, we gays are bringing more media to the issue and forwarding those gay lyrics to a larger audience as well as condoning censorship in America. These are both dangerous actions.”

However many other gays and lesbians believe that anti-gay lyrics are worth the time and energy spent opposing them. A recent campaign initiated in Los Angeles by Jasmyne Cannick was able to, with the support of many individuals, cancel five of Buju Banton’s shows across the nation. Said Cannick in an interview with the LA Times, “I fully understand the right of artists to express themselves, but I cannot sit in silence when blatantly homophobic recording artists come to Los Angeles to perform.” Cannick did not always seek to silence Banton, but felt the cancellations were a necessary step when Banton failed to personally apologize for his lyrics. “The end goal was never to have concerts cancelled,” Cannick stated on her website www.jasmyncannick.com, “If Buju Banton is so apologetic, then get up on stage in front of your adoring fans and just say it. Why does that seem to so hard for him to do? Why does Buju Banton continue to hide behind spokespersons and press releases? If you’re really sorry about advocating the murder of gays, then just say it. The cancellation of his concerts was always a last option.”

Buju Banton’s response to the cancellations was a short statement of “fuck them”, you know them-the homosexuals. But was the recent cancellations of these shows an effective move? Many cancelled concerts have been rescheduled or moved to different venues. The artists still make their profits, just on other stages.

Which leads to the question: is the cease and desist order a useful one? Or is allowing gay-hating lyrics to play in gay clubs a treacherous move towards a self-hating culture that supports these people rather than combating them? “If we don’t say anything then this could just pass by and no one would feel like it is wrong,” says Cane, “I’ve been to Jamaica, and I cannot begin to describe some of the internal hell [their gays] are enduring. They told me they appreciate how people are speaking against these artists because when it finally does get back to Jamaica there is that little gay boy or girl who hears that people are saying, ‘This is wrong!’ and maybe for a moment they don’t hate themselves. If we as the media said nothing — those nameless, faceless and silent people would never have those moments.”

Yet others find the censorship of music to be against the very heart of entertainment. “When you look at any other form of entertainment,” states Ginna Wallace, another gay reggae fan, “There’s always something inappropriate. Comedians are always making obscene jokes, rappers are forever demeaning women and someone is always offending someone else. That’s the nature of _expression, it takes risks and often it upsets as much as it entertains. I’ll laugh at any inappropriate joke, or listen to music that has bad words as long as the art behind it is good. We don’t see Wagner concerts being cancelled because he was a Nazi, why should these artists have their music shut down because of perverted political views?”

It’s a tall order to demand all gays to set aside their favorite songs for political issues an ocean away. “I don’t believe that not listening to the song will stop the burning of gays and lesbians,” states, Martinez , “It won’t do anything. These songs might be anti gay, but I’m not and I do not feel offended. Not listening to music with hot beats that are anti gay isn’t going to make any difference.”

But for people like Keith Boykin, the choice to listen to anti gay lyrics is more than just music, it cuts down to the roots of morality. “It’s a free country,” says Boykin, “people can listen to whatever they want to listen to. The real issue is about integrity. If you’re listening to music that condemns you, that’s a little troubling.”

Whether it’s an issue of integrity, taste, or political enlightenment, the gay community will eventually have to deal with the anti gay lyrics in popular music. “The question is, are we going to give these anti gay lyrics more power, by making them into the big bad words we think they are,” states Gellar, “or are we going to strip them of interest through ignoring the statements of hate or accepting some of these words as our own.”

All I know is if I am ever asked to perform again for a festival of enlightenment and acceptance, I will know what my song is saying before I step out on the stage and dance to it.