buju banton « Letters from Grenada

buju banton

Back in December, when I heard that Buju Banton had been arrested on federal drugs charges (intent to distribute more than five kilos of cocaine) I thought to myself, Self? This is precisely the kind of incident I’d love to blog about, except I plain just don’t know enough. You see, Buju Banton is one of the biggest things to come out of Jamaica since sugar, but he’s also one of the most controversial. He’s perhaps most well-known – especially outside of the Caribbean – for his dancehall track Boom Boom Bye, in which explicitly talks about violence against gays. Specifically shooting them in the head and lighting them on fire. In spite of this, he remains one of the most popular musicians in his genre, period. He’s an incendiary and complicated topic I wasn’t about to touch.

Which is why I was so thrilled when my friend Afrobella mentioned she was writing about him. She was born in Trinidad, but has lived in the U.S. for a long time, and she’s got a brilliant touch for dealing thoughtfully yet honestly yet non-offensively with tough subjects. I was certain she’d post an amazing blog, and I was not disappointed.

She wrote:

Because Buju is such a dominant artist, many who don’t know more about Jamaican music have then gone on to make vast assumptions about reggae and dancehall artists, assuming that they all feel that same hatred in their hearts. And they don’t. I interviewed Tanya Stephens some years ago, and she spoke out against the homophobia in her musical genre: “I find it to be — I know this will not be received with any warm embrace — but I find it to be a little bit double standard and hypocritical, especially when I hear Rastafarians professing or helping to spread unacceptance of any group of people. I am very disappointed. I remember as a young child, Bob Marley songs couldn’t be played in my house, because he was a dutty Rasta. Rastafarians used to be shunned for their beliefs. It is very upsetting to me to see that these same people have gained acceptance and are among the most popular, and they are now rejecting somebody else. It is just so amusing. I have a very sick sense of humor, and it carries me through stuff like this, and I laugh at all of it. It’s ridiculous the things we do to each other.”

And now, after all of Buju Banton’s pre-existing controversy, comes these cocaine charges. Having read the official affidavit, I don’t understand how fans can still rant that this was somehow a set up. It’s difficult and disappointing to even picture Buju — our Buju — slicing into a brick of cocaine with a knife and tasting such a product with a expert’s ability, and it being all caught on video. It sounds like the plot for an awful movie, or an episode of Miami Vice. Not Buju who sang about Sensimilia Persecution. But that’s what he is described as doing in the affidavit. And still people are tweeting, Facebook wall posting, and YouTube commenting –that this must somehow be a diabolical plot by those that hate Buju for his beliefs. In my opinion, that’s the kind of willful ignorance that makes an appropriate response difficult. But still I’ve seen many people I know and used to respect, repeat that kind of foolishness — “set up dem a set up Buju.” [Emphasis mine.]

No matter what we believe (or want to believe), Buju is now linked to big time American drug charges and he’s facing a lengthy prison sentence — unless his rising star lawyer is able to help him out of this bind. In the meantime, all fans of Buju Banton can do is speculate, rage against these accusations, wonder what’s really going on. And wish that things were different.

Click here to read Afrobella’s complete post.

Also of interest are articles from Miamiherald.com (Buju Banton faces drug conspiracy charges), BBC NEWS (Buju Banton denies US drug charge) and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buju_Banton).

My favorite tidbit from the Wikipedia article is that “Buju” means “breadfruit” is a nickname given to chubby kids. TMYK.