Daily Loaf

Jamaican dancehall singer Buju Banton, whose notorious song “Boom Bye Bye” advocates gay-bashing and murder, was originally supposed to play The Ritz Ybor and Jannus Landing this weekend. Those gigs are no more — cancelled like so many of the gigs on Banton’s U.S. tour. But now we hear the show is back on — at the Cuban Club in Ybor on Oct. 30. Here’s the promoters’ defiant announcement:

This is the show Gay Activists have tried to shut down. Originally scheduled for The Ritz Ybor then forced to move to Jannus Landing – Now CONFIRMED for The Cuban Club – The Buju Banton Freedom Tour! is an event for All Peoples of All Colors and Choices to embrace the Music from Jamaica BACK now in Ybor City where it should never have been made to leave!

Equality Florida had been calling for a letter-writing campaign to protest Buju Banton shows in Jacksonville, Miami and St. Pete, receiving what the organization calls “an unprecedented flood of hate mail and threats” as a result. Now that the St. Pete gig has been moved back to Ybor, expect a call to action there as well.

BB claims he’s all about peace and love now. The club owner who’s hosting Banton’s show in Jacksonville points out that he wrote the offending lyrics when he was 15. But Jamaica is still a dangerous place for gays and lesbians — Banton himself was charged with a gay-related beating in 2004 (charges were later dropped) — and as Equality Florida points out with the following anecdote, “Boom Bye Bye” (lyrics below) has become an “international gay-bashing anthem.”

In 2004, Brian Williamson, Jamaica’s leading gay activist, was violently chopped to death with a machete in his apartment in Kingston. A reporter walked to his street shortly after the murder and found a crowd of people gathered outside Williamson’s apartment singing and celebrating his murder and shouting the chorus of “Boom Bye Bye”.

The Cuban Club is lending tacit support to an “artist” who condones gay-bashing and gay murder. You might want to give them a call: (813) 248-2954

Here are the lyrics to “Boom Bye Bye,” with Jamaican patois followed by Americanized translation:

Boom bye bye
Inna batty bwoy head
Rude bwoy no promote no nasty man
Dem haffi dead
Send fi di matic an
Di Uzi instead
Guy come near we
Then his skin must peel
Burn him up bad like an old tyre wheel

Boom  goodbye, goodbye
In a queer’s head
Rude boys don’t promote no queer men
They have to die
Send for the automatic  and
The Uzi instead
Shoot them, don’t come if we shoot them
If a man comes near me
Then his skin must peel
Burn him up badly [as in pour acid over him], like you would burn an old tyre wheel

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