Gentle Peoples -

Is Reggae a religion? Now Politics and Religion is de two most controversial topics in de world,... everybody have dey opinion an dat is dat... "doh tell meh nuttin bout ya tief'in Head of Party or ya magic savior." So fuh dat reason dis little talk is just ah, "what if?" So we eh makin' no opinions, just some observations.

So while listenin to meh iPod, ah hear a few chunes: Sanchez sing a song bout "oh I lift my hands to the father," Sizzla sing "Praise ye Jah" and even Bounty Killa, de War Lord sing, "De lord is my light and salvation", and except for de little Reggae/Dancehall riddims, it song kinda church-ish to me at times.

So ah went and check out wha webster had to say bout religion. The dictionary say "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects." Now de music is the sermon dat we listening to whole day/night, which mus make de artists an dem de preachers. So what it is that they preaching that we "generally agree upon?" As people of de Caribee, we like we reggae bad bad, so we mek a likkle list. We might even call it de Reggae 10 Commandments once we do de Buju ting and "Organize, Centralize and Come as One" and have we own Faith.

1. Thou shall have a clean heart, pure conscience and a firm meditation
2. Thou shall respect thy mother
3. Thou shall respect the mother of life, de Black woman.
4. Thou shall not bleach thy skin
5. Thou shall not engage in or support homosexual activity
6. Thou shall not play number 2 with man, woman or self
7. Thou shall love and respect thy neighbor
8. Thou shall defend thy self and love ones with weapon of choice (gun, knife, bottle)
9. Thou shall not bow (to de system or under de covers)
10.Thou shall not smoke/sniff crack, only smoke high grade

And for Rastafarians or real 'Reggae Heads', #1 usually means honoring Emperor Haile Selassie de I as de King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Now you probably doh agree or have more to add to de list, and we encourage you to forward on your opinions, and even share dem on de TJJ Forum dat on de way. Again, we jus talkin' hypothetical... AGAIN we eh makin' no opinions, just some observations. And everybody know that Caribbean people are fun loving laid back limers.

So why de topic?

Well, if you not aware, in recent years, major international markets have been shutting their doors on Reggae artists; namely America and Europe. It have a community ah people that all over de place that go by "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender" or LGBT. These LGBT groups have decided that Reggae artists and by extension their fan base are intrinsically prone to violence especially against people of non conservative sexual orientation.

The result is, for example, if Beenie man have a show in Germany, de LGBT may make a call to the club owner and ask that they do not support "gay bashing" performances... thus de show get cancelled. It goes even further to say that if there's a Reggae concert, you have big sponsors like soda, beer, and car companies that take away their funds from the show because they don't want to be known for supporting artist that promote hate and violence, thus losing the LGBT market share.

Buju Banton is currently on his US tour "Too Bad." It is Buju first release on "his own" Gargamel label (www.gargamelmusic.com). But he is encountering issues spreading the "Reggae Religion" since de LGBT not on Buju since his 1992 release of "Boom Bye Bye" by de den 16 year old. Yuh could pretty much say that he start de little feud. Anyways, to show the power of the LGBT, especially in an election year, in Oakland, California, de Vice-Mayor Nancy Nadel send out a note saying the performance was being denied because "…the concert didn't have a special events permit. When an artiste is controversial and promotes violence, promoters are required to apply for a special events permit to assure we have police on site and we cannot get that police coverage at this late date due to a shortage of officers. There are several LGBT venues near this concert venue and we must be sure that no possible fanatic followers might try to harm them."

A little thrown off, I decided to do a little google'n to see what really going on. What I come up while searching for "Buju Banton cancelled San Francisco" was one setta sites where LGBT people rounding up de posse to go outside de venues and protest! So it seem to me that the problem is that these people going outside de show to wave signs, boo and jeer at Buju fans, and de city officials need to make sure dat none ah dem ent catch a Guinness bottle to head.

So to quote a line from Seinfeld whenever the talk of homosexuality came up, they would say "... not that there's anything wrong with that!" And we are not saying there is anything right or wrong with anything, but the questions that arise from these recent events would be:

Are Caribbean people or Reggae lovers violent or hateful?

Are reggae songs promoting violence or are they figures of speech?

Are LGBT groups being unfair by fighting for freedoms to live their lifestyles openly without giving Reggae artists/fans the same freedoms or are Reggae artists/fans being unfair by focusing on the lifestyle choices of the LGBT groups?

According to the laws in a lot of places things like gay marriages, sodomy, abortions, profanity are still illegal, should they be changed?

We don't know the answers, we just know that we love Buju, and when he comes back to our neck of the woods we hope we can go and see him perform.

Jungle Juice International promotes One World, One Love... that is why we takin this ting Global.

Dr. Ram Dass,
Trini Jungle Juice Team

TJJ tells it as it is, no opinions, no justifications, always jus reporting free from 'fear' or 'favoritism'.

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