Amid a simmering row over his recent show here, Jamaican reggae singer, Rodney ’Bounty Killer’ Price has been banned from entering this country again and his protégé David Brooks called Movado has been blacklisted owing to security concerns, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee announced yesterday.
The minister also disclosed that entertainment company Wildfire Produ-tions had been sanctioned for its part in hosting Price who bashed gays and glorified guns with his lyrics at a show two Sundays ago at the National Park. Rohee did not disclose what sanction had been imposed on the company headed by businessman, Jonathan Beepat.
Bounty Killer has sparked a lot of controversy following his recent performance at the National Park where despite pleas from his manager and officials of Wildfire Productions, he belted out a number of anti-gay lyrics promoted the use guns. Rohee told reporters at a press conference yesterday that the action was taken last week.
Rohee said his ministry had exercised a lot of patience with entertainment organisers over the types of show they hold here. He said that not too long ago authorities had sat down with some of the organisers to draft a set of conditions by which shows would be guided. Unfortunately, he said, these conditions had not being upheld and as such, his ministry was blacklisting Price from entering Guyana.
“Bounty Killer will not enter this jurisdiction [nor will] Movado,” Rohee said.
Asked why Movado was being banned, Rohee said he was a security risk. He did not go into details. Movado was scheduled to headline a weekend show in Linden featuring dancehall queen Lady Saw.
Both Bounty Killer and Movado have been banned from performing in other Caribbean jurisdictions and in Europe over their controversial lyrics.
Bounty Killer’s performance here two Sundays was marred by a faulty music system, the pelting of glass bottles at the stage and sporadic gunfire. Dubbed the “Ignition Concert”, hosted by Wildfire Promotions and featuring a number of top Jamaican artistes, the show was well attended but constant audio mishaps and an abrupt end to the show enraged patrons. Bounty Killer was the closing act at the concert. Gunshots rang out in the arena when the show came to a premature end.
In a statement issued last week Thursday on the show, Wildfire Productions disassociated itself from any calls for violence made by the artistes or the DJ during the event. The company said it was committed to bringing great entertainment to Guyana, as entertainment was its business and not the promotion of violence. “We can assure the general public that we do not believe in promoting violence of any kind and we strongly [condemn] it. We apologize if anyone was offended by any statements made by the artists or DJs hired to entertain at our Ignition Concert,” the statement said.
Stabroek News had reported on gunfire at the show, the vicious campaign against gays and the promotion of gun violence by Bounty Killer and a call by the DJ for “bad men from Buxton and Agricola to represent as the Five Star General (Bounty Killer) was about to ignite the concert”. Wildfire said that after three outages, Bounty Killer was instructed to leave and frustration led to bottles being hurled at the stage in protest at his premature departure.
Beepat had told this newspaper the day after the concert that his camp had spoken with Bounty Killer four times, about what he had planned for the local show and the issue of his violent messages had come up.
He said positive assurances were given then. “But he had no regard for this when he took the stage… he even ignored warnings from his manager,” Beepat said. Beepat said he felt Bounty Killer was in demand owing to his absence and decided to bring him.
Before his arrival, the Society Against Sexual Orientation Dis-crimination (SASOD) had said that Bounty Killer had a history of glorifying violence in his music, specifically calling for the killing of homosexuals and unlike other artistes who have signed the Reggae Compas-sionate Act and have desisted from performing these songs, the Jamaican remained adamant and proud of his calls to violence.
Post-concert, several persons and groups had also condemned Bounty Killer’s performance here. One letter writer to this newspaper Andrew Grant wrote on April 23 that both the singer and the DJ had no respect for Guyana and Guyanese by inciting lyrics and comments that could cause hate crimes and further criminal activities in a very sensitive environment (Guyana) that had experienced two massacres. Grant said that the utterance of “batty man fi dead” was an explicit hate message that incites murder of gay persons based on one’s personal intolerance, prejudices and hate. “In addition, the utterance of the DJ calling ‘bad men from Buxton and Agricola to represent’ the Five Star General [Bounty Killer] who was about to perform further reinforced the stigma that these villages produce and harbour criminal elements. The messages by these personalities were very irresponsible,” Grant charged.
Grant noted that music, like words, had a very powerful impact on the human mind and the authorities needed to ensure that public venues were not used as an outlet to propagate hate, prejudices and criminality.
