Homophobic performer set for Luton gig
A Jamaican dancehall artist notorious for his anti-gay lyrics is to perform this weekend in Luton.
Promoters of the gig have said they have made Beenie Man sign a contract promising he will not perform any homophobic songs.
Mr Man is appearing with a BBC Radio 1 DJ, Chris Goldfinger, at Club 53 in the town on Bank Holiday Monday.
Robert Agey, the club’s bar manager, told Luton Today that he did not condone the singer’s gay hate lyrics:
“It does cause us concern, but nothing like that will be mentioned when he is here. It’s part of his contract with us and he knows that.
“We don’t condone discrimination. We know what we are doing. We have measures in place and everything is under control.”
A gig by Mr Man in Bedford earlier this week was cancelled.
David Allison of OutRage! has been critical of the artist’s work.
“Beenie Man is an unreconstructed homophobe. He has never expressed a word of regret for his lyrics advocating the murder of gays and lesbians.
“Indeed, he has proudly boasted that he will not apologise and has continued to perform songs urging the killing of queers,” he said.
At his party’s conference last October Tory leader David Cameron criticised companies like Virgin who make money from promoting artists like Beenie Man.
“Record companies that profit from violent and homophobic lyrics are … morally wrong and socially unacceptable” he told delegates.
Last year Mr Man told The Independent that the true meaning of his lyrics have been misinterpreted due to cultural differences.
He claimed that in Jamaica the word ‘gay’ is synonymous with rape, and that unlike the consensual homosexual relationships found in England, the only ‘gay’ relationships that exist in Jamaica are young men who are forced into gay sex by poverty.
He claimed that 95% of the young men attending his ‘Beenie Man Foundation for Troubled Youth’ had been sexually molested by older men.
Mr Man went on to assert that as a Rastafarian and believer in the Bible, he hates no-one, but admitted that the thought of two men together disgusts him.
