Entertainer Who Advocates That Gays Should be Murdered Comes to San Jose
By Troy May from OUT NOW
VooDoo lounge in San Jose welcomes reggae singer who has been banned across the United States for his songs that call for gay people to be murdered. Buju Banton, a notorious anti-gay reggae singer from Jamaica, has lyrics in his songs that advocate to "pour acid" on gays then shoot them in the head. When Banton announced his U.S. tour, gay communities across the country jumped into action to get the concerts canceled.
The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center convinced Sunset Entertainment Group this week to cancel Banton’s concerts in Hollywood. Other cities where the gay community was able to get his concerts canceled include Orlando, Tampa, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, Columbus, San Francisco and Detroit. Now he is scheduled to sing at the VooDoo Lounge in downtown San Jose onOct. 13th, one day after the anniversary of Matthew Sheppard’s murder for simply being gay.
Banton was recently videotaped saying, "there is no end to the war between me and faggots."
"What else is upsetting is that the gay community has to stand up against this guy," said Thomas Soule, spokesman for the LA. Gay & Lesbian Center. "If he was advocating the murder for another minority, people would be protesting in the streets against this guy."
Through his music, Banton promotes a culture of violence against gay people. In his most notorious song "Boom, Bye Bye," Banton sings that "faggots get up and run" when he comes, that "they have to die," and that he will shoot them in the head or "burn them up bad." Banton’s music has helped foster such an anti-gay culture in his home country of Jamaica — where several prominent gay activists have been murdered — that Time magazine recently asked: "Is Jamaica the most homophobic place on Earth?"
Officials from the L.A. Center called the venue owners to convince them to cancel Banton’s performances, but they made excuses saying they don’t know the details about all the singers and bands that are scheduled, said Soule. No action was taken to cancel the concerts until press release was sent out and reporters from the L.A. Times and N.Y. Times called the venues.
OutNow called VooDoo Lounge for comment multiple times, but kept getting the recording announcing Banton’s performance next week. We then sent emails to everyone listed on the website and still no response. Eventually we reached a woman called Lora Lipman (408.250.1407), the events coordinator for VooDoo Lounge. Lipman said she was aware of the controversy surrounding Banton, but didn’t want to answer questions until she spoke with the owners. She took our number and said she’d call back by the end of Thursday, Oct. 8, but we never heard from her.
StreetLight Records in San Jose sales tickets for VooDoo Lounge events, but they were not listed for Banton’s concert. We called StreetLight and the guy that answered the phone said they aren’t selling tickets for Banton because of the controversy, but he didn’t want to answer questions or give his name. Soule said the L.A. community was prepared to protest the venue where he was scheduled to play, but they were able to convince the venue to cancel the concert and spare everyone the pain of Banton’s message.
Cities across the country have stood up and refused to allow someone to preach and advocate hate in their community. Will our community allow him to spread his message to murder gays in San Jose?
NL- I had to do some thinking about this one. I try to be open minded and believe that free speech is one of the main reasons America is a great country. Buju Banton can have whatever opinion of gays that he wants, call them fags, say he hates them, but he crosses the line when he says murder them. So I guess even Freedom of Speech has it’s limits. And if I was in San Jose I would protest his appearance at the VooDoo Lounge. Even though I am not in the area I can still e-mail them and/or call them with my opinion and so can you. Here is their contact info-
The VooDoo Lounge is happy to answer any questions you may have about music or special events. Tickets for most events available at ticketweb.com
VooDoo Lounge
14 South Second Street
San Jose, CA 95113
408.286.8636 phone
408.286.8641 fax
Matt Crudo
General Manager
distortedforlife@yahoo.com
homophobia and hatred of gays is huge in Jamaica, lots of reggae singers feel that way. Shabba Ranks said gays should meet crucifixation. It’s not the prevalent theme in Buju’s music though.
Reggae started to suck when Reggae singers switched ganga for coke. That is the result.
Don’t you guys see that giving these people publicity helps them more?
I thought the concervatives and their wars against Elvis, The Beatles, Eminem, rap music, and heavy-metal would’ve taught you that.
Ignore it and it goes away.
Just got an email from Matthew Crudo
It reads:
“This event has been canceled. Give it a few hours to update on our site, the request has been made.”
-Matthew Crudo
The Voodoo Lounge
San Jose, Ca. 95113
This was in response to my email after reading about this on your site.
It is with great dismay that I read that you are welcoming this man into your club.
Freedom of Speech is one thing, but if you had a white rapper calling performers ” the n-word”, you would have an African-American riot on your hands.
Only in the PRC. People’s Republic of California. 😉
But I agree. BB’s comments were despicable.
This kind of corresponds with what sammyglick and I are debating on another thread….Maybe sammy will notice that this is another Very Left of center organization calling for the suppression of free speech, no matter how offensive that speech might be.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.
Pres4life,
Doesnt it suck to see the lefties engaged in the very same behaviour that they rail agianst the ‘right’ for. Get used to it. Political correctness, coming to a town near you, very soon. Get out your checkbooks, socialism aint cheap. And if you disagree, we will have groups to shut down your performance, just like this.
You can’t compare this to racism. Homosexuality is dictated by actions and it is those actions homophobes have an issue with.
It’s comparable to racism because even if a homosexual person is celibate, they are still a homosexual by orientation which they cannot change, just as one cannot change their race.
But Donny Long gets a pass all day long.
You guys are so late with this. This all happened 17 years ago. Let it go, you all forgave Eminem.
Bill, see my comment on the other page.
Making a joke about negroes/jews/homos may be in poor taste, but people gotta let that shit go. Actually advocating the murder of a group of people and being totally serious about it is grounds for having a show canceled. Yeah , i don’t give a shit if this guy makes records or even if he says dumb shit like this, but if some skinhead band was moving the kind of units buju was and was saying “kill the jews/nigs NOW”, there would be protests out the ass…
Point taken Max.
most of his music is not hate music… a lot of people like Buju Banton, he’s been around for a minute
Your sexual orientation can change over time, your race cannot. Wanda Sykes was married to a man for almost a decade, one day figured out she was a dyke, and then married a woman. One does not have that luxury when it comes to race.
It is not the same thing also, because race has been used to perpetrate hundreds of years of slavery and genocide on people, based on their race, whether it was Native American or African-American, gay people have been discriminated against sure, but only after they decide to ACT on their homosexual preferences. If they don’t ever want anybody to know, nobody has to.
And yes general, it is frustrating to see people on the left doing the same thing that didn’t work for the Republicans for a gazillion years. I’d forgot Buju Banton even existed before this article. I predict a sales spike in the near future, if this goes national.
—–Your sexual orientation can change over time, your race cannot. Wanda Sykes was married to a man for almost a decade, one day figured out she was a dyke, and then married a woman.
Thanks for the fine illustration of how little you know about sexual orientation. Sykes was always a dyke, it just took her a while to figure that out.
—–gay people have been discriminated against sure, but only after they decide to ACT on their homosexual preferences. If they don’t ever want anybody to know, nobody has to.
Right, because all homosexual men are masculine and all lesbians are feminine, nobody could ever tell.