Toronto Concert Scraps Musician Labeled ’Homophobic’
Elephant Man won’t be performing on Saturday, Aug. 1, at the Caribana festival in Toronto. The Jamaican dancehall musician is known for lyrics that advocate for the torture and murder of gay men and lesbians.
His inclusion in the event, to be held at Circa nightclub, incited a wave of protests. Now, local TV station 24 reports, he was removed. "Circa stands for peace, love and equality," a Circa spokesperson wrote on the club’s Twitter account. "Elephant Man has been removed from the Celebrity Ball. Have a safe Caribana!"
Elephant Man is known for songs like "A Nuh Fi Wi Fault," in which he sings, "When yuh hear a Sodomite get raped/but a fi wi fault/it’s wrong/two women gonna hock up inna bed/that’s two Sodomites dat fi dead./When you hear a lesbian getting raped/ It’s not our fault ... Two women in bed/ That’s two Sodomites who should be dead."
The editor of local gay magazine Fab, Matt Thomas, spearheaded the campaign after getting a Facebook invitation to the event. "Within a few hours, I had a couple hundred responses," he told CP24.com. "All these people [were] asking what to do and who to contact. I was expecting this to take at least a couple of days, but a few hours later the person who I was in contact with at Circa said ’Listen -- there was a meeting and he’s gone.’"
Local blogger Rob Salerno, however, warns that at least one other homophobic rapper will be in Canada’s largest city.
"But wait, there’s more," he writes. "Matt wants you to know that another artist, Maino, is performing at a Caribana party in Richmond Hill, and he’s just as homophobic."
Salerno also complains that some of the people objecting to the rappers are expressing their anger in xenophobic or racist terms, "writing as if homophobia is an exclusively Jamaican phenomenon that doesn’t exist in Canada."
It is true, however, that several human rights groups have labeled Jamaica the most homophobic nation in the Western Hemisphere--by far. EDGE recently posted a story about a man severely beaten because of his sexuality, a far from uncommon occurrence.
The police, courts and government all collude in embracing and encouraging such acts, according to another article.
And it’s not just the comment-o-sphere that’s up to this. Stop Murder Music Canada has been fighting homophobic Jamaican musicians performing in the dominion since 2007.
Justin Stayshyn was one of the callers who called Circa to complain. He told 24 that the booker on the phone sounded overwhelmed with the number of calls protesting the decision to book Elephant Man.
"She came on really angry with me right away, when I said I was calling... to express concerns about someone who promotes violent murder of homosexuals," said Stayshyn. "I think she was taking it personally because she actually found it abhorrent and didn’t know how to respond."
In 2003 British LBGT group OutRage! called for the arrest and prosecution of several dancehall stars including Elephant Man for violation of hate crimes statutes. In 2004 he was dropped from the MOBO awards.
