Gays caused J'can music to suffer

[Mosiah]

Gays caused J'can music to suffer

CURTIS CAMPBELL, STAR Writer

Iconic entertainment manger Copeland Forbes says Jamaican music lost the war against the homosexual community.

According to Forbes, the war was unnecessary and only served to set back reggae and dancehall music for decades.

The manager, who has worked with a long list of icons including Beres Hammond, Gregory Isaacs, The Wailers, Peter Tosh, Ziggy Marley, Sugar Minott and Luciano, was speaking to The STAR at the recently concluded International Reggae Conference hosted at The University of The West Indies. He believes it will take a strong level of professionalism for Jamaican music to bounce back.

"I used to tell my artistes you don't need to go down that road, leave that alone. You don't need to go on stage and address homosexuality because it existed before you, and it will exist after you are gone. The sad thing is that our entire music industry was affected," he said.

http://jamaica-star.com/thestar/20150217/ent/ent1.html

[Sir X]

How come it never made rap suffer? Incidentally some artist haven't stopped .This theory is pure wild speculation and hype.

[Mosiah]

How come it never made rap suffer? Incidentally some artist haven't stopped .This theory is pure wild speculation and hype.

Maybe it did?! Rap does not seem to have the respect it once did. Or maybe I'm getting old.

If it wasn't for Kendrick Lamar...

[Sir X]

Respect in which niche market? ....Reggae can't be pigeon holed into a Caucasian niche market to seek justification,its bigger than that, reggae is huge in Africa, Latin america ,to the point of having their own stars who we, by extension Babylon doesn't have a clue about.Rap hasn't even reached that level with all its misogyny and homophobia.

People like him are a confused lot with a narrow view of where our influence is and lies and which market we are comfortable in.That said we don't need such lyrics because it takes away from our creativity.

[Sir X]

Of note at the height of the agenda,reggae artist- homophobia, found shelter in the Caribbean,Latin america,Africa and parts of Asia.I said it then ,I will say it again reggae is comfortable in its niche markets,reggaeton was born out of dem bow ,by shabba ranks,in fact all of Shabba songs were copied.

[Tilla]

You are not making sense X! It is one thing to be comfortable in your "niche market", it is quite another to stupidly exclude yourself from one of the largest markets for music and and one with the most disposable income to purchase the music (The USA is you missed my point).

Reggae music is message music. It is the artists who are lyrically challenged resort to homophobic and other hate music. We need to rid ourselves of the myopia and see that in the long run, those type of things hurt reggae.

[Sir X]

Sense to you , would be to forego a market you feel culturally and financially comfortable with for a more lucrative niche caucasian market ? correct me if i am wrong ! forget that culturally i am not in want of anymore riches ,there is a reason the writer said ,those signatures were done in secret ,other niche markets would be sacrificed at a cost.There is a reason only a handful singed .There is a reason artist continued to rebel against babylons agenda.



I dont expect it to make sense , to some of us.Some of us are comfortable with that.BTW i hear that Jamaican artiste get damm good money when they tour Africa.

[Muadib]

You have conscious lyrics and unconscious lyrics...

[HL]

Sense to you , would be to forego a market you feel culturally and financially comfortable with for a more lucrative niche caucasian market ? correct me if i am wrong ! forget that culturally i am not in want of anymore riches ,there is a reason the writer said ,those signatures were done in secret ,other niche markets would be sacrificed at a cost.There is a reason only a handful singed .There is a reason artist continued to rebel against babylons agenda.



I dont expect it to make sense , to some of us.Some of us are comfortable with that.BTW i hear that Jamaican artiste get damm good money when they tour Africa.

mek the ole a dem move 'an gweh X

[Stonigut]

Lazy excuse that. I don't see anybody boycotting Sean Paul, Ziggy Marley, Jimmy cliff, wailers, shaggy etc they are doing quite well but they are not tearing down the place. Truth is the natural order is mediocrity, to really do something great you must put a lot in to get a lot out, our quality is just missing totally. Gay thing is just hiding behind an excuse, our quality has been poor to mediocre.

We have not seen one good reggae group since Black Uhuru left the scene and the best days of steel pulse and Aswad, so nothing from mid 90's till now. Nothing but pure wine up, daggering, dancehall foolishness, who you think want to pay good money to see that junk. Rap is creating the same junk so they can consume that same materialistic crap domestically. The only dancehall style music that I can listen to would be the conscious dancehall sounds of capleton , sizzla etc and even that have a limited market.

It is no wonder that at reggae styled shows in the us the acts are all from the US from California, Hawaii and New Zealand bands.

[Sir X]

Thank yuh sah.They can hide behind the agenda to excuse poor quality ,even if we stopped singing against the agenda, the quality we produce would not sell,which leads to the other issue of global competition for that quality.Africa produces quality reggae,so does america,latin america ,asia and europe.The world doesnt need us to produce it .

Thats our reality.

[Sir X]

You seem uncomfortable with issues that dont align with your world paradigm,the truth seems to hurt you.You would do well in silence ,like the alleged signatories.

If only north america and the european caucasian paradigm was the only market for reggae i.e Beck.

Reggae artist make good money from shows,selling cds are only a part of it.They are comfortable.

[Assasin]

Stoni while some people got away with it. It certainly affected the career of Buju Banton and Shabba Ranks. It certainly affected some of Berres concerts even though he made it known privately and publicly that he sings love song for everybody.

Reggae has always depended on the odd hit songs from the underground to the mainstream and some activists targeted this. I am not for DJs etc. shouting "*****man" to try and make a hit as it is very annoying but to say it didn't affect the music especially in the late 90s is not factual and this Manager/promoter has been in the trenches during that time so I think he has some relevance.

Some artists were hell bent on fighting this war and it affected the music somewhat. It is just one factors that affected the music. Sean Paul and Shaggy came to real prominence in 2000s when some artists knew the protocol based on experience of Shabba and Buju. When you have the music on mainstream station saying it is anti-gay. When you have apple originally saying they were not touching reggae originally when their iTunes came on line, you know it affected the music and so many other execs who would otherwise pick up these artist do not.

[Rockman]

Sass,it has morphed from lyrics inciting violence to lyrics affirming the straight life(nuh waan nuh fish inna me ital stew).
Record sales are not the only eye-catching changes,during the period in question,we have seen an increase in blatant homosexual activities(New Kingston).
Remove shame and everything is accepted.
What may very well be of utmost importance to an entertainment manager may be detrimental to a society that is shaped by its music.

[Sir X]

Awaiting your conscious thoughts on the JLP lettergate.