@Dread First made me get reminded of this wonderful song. Thank you!!!
Did you know this was nearly universally pulled off streaming platforms because its "homophobic" despite being authentic reggae and from the EARLY 90s??? even in jamaca.
No problem, thank you kindly for making me smile. Though I'm a Desi man, doing my time in the NY public school system exposed me to the
colossal Carribbean/West Indian diaspora here. The schools I did my time at were blaring Buju Banton, TOK, Vybz Kartel, among countless other artists via shitty portable speakers. We never called one another "gay" like in middle school, we were calling each other battyboys, battymans, chi chi men, the whole nine yards by the time we were in high school. There is a minor insight I'd like to share though: the
entire Caribbean is homophobic on some measure, but Jamaica takes it to another level. Equal parts rigid adherence to Protestant Christianity (pentecostal and evangelical denominations being the most outsized in impact), retention and proposals to
expand still-intact sodomy laws from colonial times, and homosexual behaviour being conflated with degeneracy/pederasty/whatever it is. Buju Banton
did renounce the song as late as 2019, but I've seen
tons of conflicting information about that. Some say he was genuinely remorseful over propogating hatred against homosexuals, others say that he's putting on an act, others still assert that he actually did perform the song live but at unofficial venues. Whatever the case may be: YouTube's the only way where you can unironically say "send fi di matic and di uzi instead, shoot dem no come if we shot dem *static*."
