The Jamaican Lyrics Newsletter » Jamaicans demand apology from iPod executive

Furious Jamaicans and reggae fans are calling for an apology from iTunes A&R manager Kirk Bonin after he asked to be disassociated from all Jamaican artists.

The shocking comments came after managers of reggae superstar Buju Banton approached Mr Bonin to playlist his new single “Magic City”. Mr Bonin sent an email to Banton’s record company Gargamel Music Inc, which said: “Please remove me from any [mailing] list having to do with this artist or any Jamaican artist actually.”

Tracii McGregor, Vice President of the New York based Gargamel Records, told the Voice newspaper that it is “scary that some one in such a position would be prepared to make such a statement”.

She continued: “He has undermined the tremendous relationship that Jamaican artists and the reggae music-buying public have had with Apple for years.”

But Mr Bonin defended his actions to the Voice newspaper by saying he was expressing his personal views and not those of iTunes.

“I am personally offended by his homophobic lyrics. Unfortunately I had a friend who was murdered in a homophobic attack some years ago. His lyrics personally and spiritually upset me and when I come to work in the mornings and I see those emails they bring back painful memories.”

View all songs by Buju Banton

Source

14 Comments so far

I dont know if Mr. Bening know what is feedom of speech. He need to give an apology to Jamaican Artist

It looks like Mr. Bening was speaking freely, I think he has a very clear sense of “freedom of speech”. Jamaican artists are brilliant and I love them, reggae, dancehall and all. As long as they hold onto their violent homophobia though, they’re going to be brilliant, popular, and poor.

I don’t care what Mr. Bonins situation was or is, his comments were very racist. If he had a problem with Mr. Baton’s lyrics he could have said he wanted nothing to do with Mr. Baton, but to come out and codemn all Jamacian artists is wrong. If I have a problem with one white man can I codemn all white men. Mr. Bonin’s comments were irrational and obviously he didn’t think before he spoke. I am not Jamacian but Mr. Bonin’s comments disturbed me.

I firmly believe in a human beings right of choice and I fully disapprove of the maiming and the murder of homosexuals, which these lyrics sometimes insight but I am offended that a person in such a influential position as Mr.Bonin has made such a ingnorant statement.What about those Jamaican artists who have chosen to avoid homosexual bashing lyrics. Should they suffer too? As a unrelenting heterosexual I strongly believe i have the legal right to disapprove of any behavior I deem as unfit. Apologize Mr.Bonin you not only dissed jamaican artists you dissed the Jamaican people here and abroad!

Freedom of speech is one thing but abuse of this freedom is totally different. I don’t see the importance of going around saying what you are going to do the homosexuals because they are who they are. That is prejudicial behavior same as the KKK going around saying that they will black people and I’m sure you don’t agree with that. you can choose to not like them you can choose to voice you opinions about them but you are not right for abusing them verbally or otherwise this is their decision and they chose to live that way who are you to denounce and judge them. I am personally disgusted by their choice of sexuality.

Now for this person to ask to be removed from the mailing list I don’t see the problem, like was stated he was voicing his opinion and not that of apple, his personal feeling and I don’t think you should have to apologize for it. the fact of the matter is almost 90% of Jamaican artist lyrically abusing homosexuals and if someone don’t want to be a part of it he should have that choice even if it to a point where he generalize to such a elevation, personally I would and I am 100% Jamaican!

We are not just hating homosexuals because we want to hate them. Please do not mistake what we jamaicans are saying.
We are speaking based on the Bible, and the Bible says that it is wrong.
Therefore it is Wrong.

The KKK did not have any biblical reason to hate black people, and I have no problem with 100% of Jamaican artistes stating their sexual disgust at homosexuality. Fire Bun!

The bible?? Please spare me the drama!! Where in he bible it says, “Fire bun batty man” or “Verily verily I say unto you thou shall kill batty man” I advise you keep the bible out of this. While I do recognize that the writings of the bible prohibit same *** copulation, it is not the reason why Sizzla fire bun di wulla dem! Bennie, bounty, Buju or any of them sing about it and promote violence. The bible denounced aggression and violence so it not that. so if you gonna preach bible preach the whole thing, and if that is the case it would be ok for ppl to go around and hold down the politicians in Jamaica and cut out dem tongue for lying, or kill di man dem for committing adultery, or open fire on all there fornicators! It isn’t the bible its simple wannabe bad man rebellion!! Nuttin more!

Some nerve!

As a Jamaican, I cannot help being amused by the whole situation. The double standard has to be acknowledged…
It is free speech to condemn homosexuality, but when someone disagrees, freedom of speech is threatened? Wake up and smell the coffee. I believe homosexuality is a sin, but I am not God. Since we’re bringing the Bible into this, the Bible says, “..vengeance is mine I will repay…” I, here, is referring to God, not man! While people like Mr. Bonin is obviously ignorant (classifying all Jamaicans as one the way the whites do of Blacks), he is certainly entitled to his opinion, no matter how distasteful it may be to hardworking, reggae-loving Jamaicans like myself, who plays reggae on my iTunes. Keep the faith. Reggae music is here to stay and there will always be a medium on which to play it!

batty man fi dead fi true, it aint right if it was everybody wuda do it, Mr. whatever his name is sounds like a batty man himself.so big up to all da artists who promote that same *** relationships are what they are…WRONG!
The kkk were wrong because they were killing people for something they couldn’t help, whereas these batty men have a choice. IM not saying that man fi kill man,because God will deal with them.Everybody a go dead at some point, but da batty man dem will burn in hell!

Gotcha great blog going on here.

why don’t you stupid homophobic jamaicans learn to spell. I am *** man and I personally can’t stand your smelly music and am glad that your stupid uneducated music was not accepted by that manager. For a bunch of lazy,pot smoking, poor, losers you sure do have a superior attitude. I make more money than the entire population of your stinky country and I would personally reject buju nevertakes a shower bantons music too. I mean who can even understand that uneducated ghetto stinkpot anyway. so why don’t you all go smoke pot, be poor, eat your stinky jerk pork or whatever it is that you people eat and leave us **** alone

your country produces the world’s most STUPID music. I use Bob marley cds as coasters. Buju Banton is nothing more than a disgusting poverty stricken loser who happened to find a bunch of other idiots (which is the whole country of jamaica) and tell them to murder innocent ****. Personally I would NEVER bring any of my money into that stinky country or allow any music into the US either. Your loss. I mean jamaica is so poor that $1 that I would bring would feed 100 of your lazy homophobic men who all have only 1 year of kindergarten education.

I take that back. Tell you what, I will hire Jamaican men as garbage men or to pick up my dog’s droppings. How is that? cmon rudebwoys dem job is waiting fer ya.

alds1hxqbo24mewk

Leave a comment

Jamaicans demand apology from iPod executive

Categories

Archives

Search

Site Administrator Only

Pages