PhD Presentations

The title of my presentation Gyal you body Good comes from dancehall artist Admiral Baileys song of the same name. The song colourfully describes the beauty of the female from her physical attributes to her walk and complexion albeit aided by nadinola or ambi which are skin lightening creams. Although there are other cultural issues of preference of lighter skin colour at play within these lyrics it is the goodness of the female body which takes precedence. The resounding chorus line gyal you body good yes you body good-oi takes on a very folk-like quality with the rural sounding hail oi calling much attention and focus to the female subject of Baileys lyrics. Admiral Bailey is also the artist who produced the dancehall hit Punany[1] in 1987, which was band on the radio waves, condemned as unclean lyrics [2]. The rhythm of the controversial song, also rebelliously held the name punany rhythm which has been adapted by many other artists[3].

There is a strong link between the act of sex, lyrics and music in the dynamic Dancehall space. The Dancehall DJ is meant to control his or her lyrics as well as ride the rhythm. The DJs ability to dominate the Dancehall space is the determining factor of his success. Dancehall lyrics are filled with patriarchal evidence, which proves that control and power play are significant elements in this genre. It is not surprising that this rebel sound which is largely from an oppressed mass, seeks to de-stabilize and invert through lyrical warfare. Empowerment and disempowerment co-exist in Dancehall lyrics as a mirror of the society, which they represent.[4] A struggle of class and patriarchy spill over into gender negotiations and violence resonates in the bedroom lyrics of Dancehall. These lyrics often associate an aggression with the handling of the female anatomy that lends to the branding of misogynistic.

Jarret Brown in his essay Masculinity and Dancehall[5] defends that through the use of the dialectic, Dancehall is able to reinforce patrichology which is a state of beliefs in which sexual dominance is ideally masculine and therefore the subordinate woman is conditioned to believe that painful sex is the epitome of pleasure. He goes on to discuss that the dancehall community is the promoter of this patrichology. The portrayal of hegemonic masculinity in Dancehall is well documented in this script with limited analysis of the function of female DJs. Brown clearly states that the very act of female lyrical response disrupts the mode of masculine domination in Dancehall and challenges the ideologies of patrichology when these lyrics deny the power of man over the female body. This subversive role of female DJs like Tanya Stephens, according to Brown, offers a re-definition of the female identity in the patriarchal equation and an empowerment of women through the feminine celebration of their prized punany.

However there is an omission in Browns argument which parallels the gender positioning of women in the Dancehall with that of the women in the Jamaican society in general. For example in the following text;

Stevens is representing a brand of female agency that is not consistent with Jamaicas conservative expectation of the woman or the masculine ethos regulation of her to a place of exclusion and absence.[6]

What Brown does not address in his paper is the stereotyping of the women in the Dancehall that exists in the wider Jamaican society. It is the ghetto woman that gives the wickedest (or most aggressive or creative) slam[7] and by origin Dancehall is typified by its ghetto fabulous appearance and ghetto origins, therefore the outsiders to the Dancehall community identify women in the dancehall as sexually lewd or vulgar. I argue that the type of dominant sexuality portrayed by female DJs like Tanya Stevens has become a conventional portrayal of a certain type of Jamaican woman the working class woman and the Dancehall Queen. The ideologies of conventional roles vary through the nuances of classism in the Jamaican society but overtly there is a persistent binary sexism of good girl versus bad girl[8]. In the space of bad girl exists the rebel woman who goes against the conservative expectation of the (uptown )woman.

I argue further that the bad girl image of female DJs like Tanya Stephens and Lady Saw can go against the empowerment of all types of Jamaican women when classism marginalises their gender subversions as a-typical of a ghetto/low culture.

Donna Hope also addresses this classification of women. In her paper Love Punany Bad: Negotiating Misogynistic Masculinity in Dancehall Culture, says:

In other words Hope identifies economic instability and social marginality as the space within which the male ego grasps for the only form of masculine dominance he is allowed, sexual dominance. For Hope there is no misogyny in the Dancehall and her analysis concludes that outright immersion in the dancehall will discover that male dancehall adherents are not misogynists but actually revere woman as mother and nurturer. However there is an obvious division within Dancehall lyrics to the portrayal of sexual women and a-sexual mother, which Hope also admits. There is a danger in her general statement to overlook the patriarchal issues involved in placing mother outside of her sexual female body. In fact, particularly male DJs are guilty of a-sexualising matriarchal figures of mother, grandmother, and caregiver falling into the stereotyping of the Madonna versus the whore.

This division of feminine roles is the very essence of patriarchal discourse being that woman has her place whether in the home or under her man sexually. Denial of mother as a sexual woman on one hand elevates her unrealistically to Immaculate Conception while at the same time identifying female sexuality as a corruption of this pure image. While Hope states that mother cannot be viewed as bearer of the sexual vagina, the feared punany but rather as the bearer of the nurturing womb a positive space[10], she fails to identify that this age old portrayal of maternal woman can also be an alternate showing of masculine domination.

Mother is cook, as in Mercilesss lyrics to the song Mama Cooking[11]. Professor Nuts shows mother and grandmother as hard working provider for the family and despite his mentioning of father figure daddy the matriarchal domination is apparent in his lyrics to the song Mama have her Own[12]. The Grandmother image of womanhood becomes the object of bawdy lyrical comedy in most cases. In Coopers analysed Granny Two Teet by singer Lovindeer she claims that age is no barrier to sexual pleasure for women in Dancehall lyrics. [13] I argue however that the mockery of the lyrics is evidence of the disempowerment of female sexuality. General Degree also makes fun of Granny in his song of the same name.[14] He portrays her as a miserable woman who loves cussing about the price of subsistence foods going up. A-sexual Grannys misery is catching according to Degree cause if you live wid Granny you will tu(r)n Granny too. Misery is shown as a feminine penance for aging which threatens to emmasculate a man who lives with Granny for too long. In Lovindeers Granny Two-Teet the stud Don Juan wishes to make love to both the Grandmother and the daughter who implores that her Granny is sickly and not to be disturbed. Granny is more than willing to sleep with Don Juan who has to ask her to cool off. The comedy remains in the lyrics;

Granny is desperate for more sexual advances from Don Juan and is willing to hide her aged tooth loss to satisfy her young lover. What Cooper does not discuss in her analysis is the obvious grossness with which Lovindeer treats Granny. The cross over of maternal woman from Madonna to whore in a manner of speaking is treated with ridicule and humiliation in Lovindeers lyrics pointing once again to the female sexuality as a form of corruption in patriarchal discourse. Don Juans dismissal of Grannys advances is punishment in the form of rejection, his reminder of her missing teeth a subjugation of her place as an old woman placing her on the outside of being sexually hot or desirable.

Lady Saw on the other hand acknowledges mother as a sexual woman in her song Mama G[16]. The Lyrics discuss mothers as providers and strugglers as heads of fatherless homes while at the same time acknowledging their sexual abuse at the hands of various men. Saw sings:

By aligning herself a symbol of overt sexuality in Dancehall[18] with the hardships of motherhood through her lyrics Saw can symbolise a parallel between sexual and a-sexual woman. Her lyrics embrace both the hard working, spiritual mother as well as the babymother who falls from patriarchal grace after men use and abuse them then leave or draw extra gear. The inclusion of the babymother in the celebration of maternity is critical in the empowerment of women in Dancehall. Hope argues that the battle for male ascendancy and power against the feminine other has to be sited in male-female intimate relationships with sexual partner, girlfriend, baby-mother.., the bearer of the sexual vagina[19]. Female DJ Lady Saw subverts this argument with her lyrics in Mama G by ascribing matriarchal dominance to the baby mother despite her sexuality.

Professor Cooper and Donna Hope share similar perspective. In Coopers essay Slackness Hiding from Culture: Erotic Play in the Dancehall, she says:

Hope and Carolyn Coopers theory seems only relevant to those Dancehall DJs who are indeed from the working class and socially oppressed. While Hope and Cooper are not specific about their definition of working class it is obvious that the DJs of the ghetto would fall under the description of socially and economically marginal. In which case this theory does not explain the use of sexually dominating masculine lyrics by artists such as Sean Paul and Shaggy. According to Hope artists like middle-class born and socialised Sean Paul do not share the same experiences of artists like Back To born Bounty Killer and are merely commercial exploiters of Dancehall music.[21] The theory also does not include female DJs who choose to use the same mode of slackness as their discourse. Cooper further develops her argument in the book Noises in the Blood when she reads into slackness or sexually explicit lyrics, a celebration of freedom from sin and law through Dancehall. According to Cooper Dancehall lyrics and space allows the female participant as well as the masculine DJ to rebel against and reject the notions of conservative relations of gender. Within this theory artists like Sean Paul can find niche. Within his lyrics he is able to revel in slack lyrics as a so-called uptown boy subverting classism firstly while celebrating his freedom from the conventional laws and sins of society that an uptown youth indulging in a ghetto/low culture. His lyrics and presence challenges the assumption that an uptown DJ cannot be given the same level of respect in the Dancehall as a Ghetto DJ.

What is evident in the works of Brown, Hope and Cooper is that the female voice is seen as a persistent rebel answer to the objectifying male DJ in Dancehall and rightly so. The female DJ uses masculine discourse and self-objectification as an act of further rebellion against the masculine command over naming and ownership over the female body. The image of the sexual aggressor is originally a masculine one in Dancehall usurped by women to command their own empowerment. This is not to imply that some male DJs do not empower women in their lyrics. While DJs like Patra, Saw, Tanya Stephens and Lady G empower women in their sexual dominance in the Dancehall it is the cases where male and female lyrics meet to compliment or debate that the forces of empowerment are seen at work.

Let us take for example the lyrics of the song Dancehall Queen by Chevelle Franklyn and Beenie Man[22] and compare this to Patras song Queen of the Pack[23] respectively.

Beenie and Chevelle revere the Dancehall Queen as a title earned for life. Patra declares muder me wrote an me no take back no chat, trample pon dem me ah di Queen ina di pack.[24] The Queen is the most powerful symbol of female empowerment in Dancehall lyrics. The Queen possesses a sexuality is powerful and untouchable. Beenie compares her to fire and pepper and an explosive bomb or 'boomah killer' in his lyrics and gives to the Queen of the Dancehall all the attributes of an empowered woman. According to Beenies lyrics the Queen is full of etiquette, clever, designed to be the dancer and made by Selassie. She remains cultural and spiritual while she dominates the dance floor and asserts her sexuality over men who can look but not touch without her consent. Beenie admits this when he says if a fi me alone me woulda turn you ina me lover[25].

The lyrics of masculine domination exist within the discourse of female empowerment not undermining it but struggling to counteract to no avail. Beenie compares the Queen to a nail who he wants to knock with his hammer. The penile or penal blow is offered as challenge to her feminine power in an attempt to curtail it and re-position the Dancehall Queen under the dominance of masculinity, however Beenies clever lyrics draws a line between wanting to and being able to and remembers his role in this instance is not to objectify the Dancehall Queen but to celebrate her empowerment.

Patras lyrics are an overt celebration of the sexuality of women in her song Queen of the Pack. Her masculine vocal tone adds to her de-railing of patriarchy in the bedroom. The images in the video revere in the punany and bottom put in full visual focus taunting the men who look on or try to control the waistlines of the champion wining women. By declaring sexual woman Queen and not Skettel or prostitute and showing mens weakness and fear of being unable to handle the female body Patra and other DJs undermine masculine dominance within the Dancehall.

Male DJ Gingermans song Tek Wuk[26] makes it very clear that there are some lyrics in Dancehall that specifically objectifies and dehumanises the female body. In an interesting interpretation of role reversal Gingerman acts as both recipient and deliverer of his big wood making it a very patriarchal representation of male-female sexual relations.

Tek wuk ina you bombo gyal, me say fi siddung pon me john me naah cause no funeral

[Male] Put you foot dem pon me shouldah, you punny hair pretty and you fat likka wah

[Gingers normal voice] Me neatly come off den gwan go stone up, me start wo(r)k again, ten minute she buck

Maaay she start gwaan like goat ,before we go ah we bed, me hear she mek a oath,

Ow Ow Ow she start gwaan like dawg, ah so di gyal a gwaan when me start to massage.[27]

The lyrics show the woman groaning and screaming and obviously in great pain. Her lover admonishes her screams by telling her that his intense sexual action will bring her close to death but not to her funeral. In his conquering of the punany he admits to its beauty as an object separate from the identity and emotions of the woman paying it the vulgar compliment you punny hair pretty and you fat lik-a wah. The demise of the woman occurs when she dears to demand that the man work(s) her, or gives her more torrid sex. In masculine indignation and fear of his own inability to dominate the woman he turns to stone a sex-aid to increase virility as a punishment and instantly the woman is dehumanised from screaming to the hee-hawing of a donkey, the mooing of a cow , the maying of goat and the final lowness of animals the how how howing of a dog.

It is the existence of this type of dancehall lyric that makes the female voice a necessary one. Lady Saw says in her song If Him Lef[28] despite the loss of her lover she still remains tight, clean and the owner of a much desired good underneath.

She goes on to warn women in the lyrics that men will disguise their own sexual and egotistical shortcomings in critical slander of the punany removing it from the position of subject to the position of object. She emphasises in her lyrics that men are no strangers to impotence, premature ejaculation and inadequately sized penises therefore the size of a womans punany does not take away from her identity as Queen in society or Dancehall. I consider her introductory line to If Him Lef, me born with the initial of success the ultimate description of the empowerment Saw perpetuates in hr lyrics. The female body according to female DJs must be re-claimed and placed under feminine control in order to de-rail the patriarchal domination of masculine Dancehall. Through Dancehall lyrics and the Dancehall space there is a re-translation of gender politics within a society built on classist divides. Subversive discourse in Dancehall lyrics presents the paradigm shifts necessary to critically analyse the Jamaican society from the grassroots up. The marginalised working class, the oppressed, the socially ostracised will always be able to find an empowering voice through the dynamics of this ghetto born sound.

Look into my life, can you see my kids?
Let me ask you this, you know what hungry is?
Well in this part of town, survival is my will
For you to stay alive you got to rob and kill.

Look into my house would you live in there?
Look me in the eyes and tell me that you care,
Well I've made up my mind to end up in the morgue
Right now I'd rather die, than man a live like dog.

Look down at my shoes, can you see my toes?
The struggle that we live nobody really knows
Stop and ask yourself, would you live like that?
and if you had to then, you woulda bus gun shot?

Look into the schools, tell me how you feel?
You want the kids to learn without a proper meal?
Den what you have in place to keep them out of wrong?
If they drop out of school dem a go bus dem gun! [29]

[2] Colin Larkin, The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae (London: Virgin Books Limited, 1998), p. 6.

[3] King Midas presents DJ Polish Ole Hype Mix. Shabba Ranks Needle eye. Terror Fabulous Girls Motto and Grindsman Benz Punany as examples of lyrics done on the punany rythmn. Bootleg, 2001.

[4] Norman C. Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People (USA: Duke University Press, 2000), p. 9.

[5] Jarret Brown, Masculinity and Dancehall, Caribbean Quarterly Volume 45, No1 (March 1999), 3-5.

[7]Beenie Man. Slam. Arab Attack Volume One. Various Artists.1995. MHCD2028.

Gi me di gyal dem wid di wickedest slam , di kinda gyal weh know how fi love up she man , man if waan fi get di medal you haffi get a slam from a real ghetto gyal

[8] Whores and Other Feminists, ed. Jill Nagle (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 5-6.

Hetereosexual privilege generally functions as subset of good girl priviledge, while lesbianism and prostitution are subsets of bad girl categories Feminist whores function in a similar way with respect to the good girl/ bad girl trope.

[9] Published in three parts in the Sunday Gleaner. Origins of black bedroom conflict, (pt 1), The Sunday Gleaner, 27 January 2002, p.6E. Courting and conquering the feared p-ny, (pt. 2), The Sunday Gleaner, 3 February 2002,p. 5E, Love for Mama in the dancehall, (pt.3), The Sunday Gleaner, 10 February 2002, p.6E. The complete paper was presented at the Second Conference in Caribbean Culture held at the UWI, Mona, January 9-12, 2002.

[12] Various Artists. Showtime Juggling. 1998. VPXLCD 3110. Track 3.

[13] Carolyn Cooper, Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the Vulgar Body of Jamaican Popular Culture (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1993), pp. 158 - 160

[14] General Degree. Granny. VP Records. 1992. CD.

[16] Lady Saw. The Best of Lady Saw Raw. VP Records. 1998. VPCD1516-2. Track 16.

[18] Lady saw is described in The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae as;

Inspired by the popularity of the slackness stylem she performed lewd songs, which earned her a reputation as an X-rated DJ.(p.162)

[19] Hope, prt. 3, Love for Mama in the Dancehall

[20] Carolyn Cooper, Slackness Hiding from Culture: Erotic Play in the Dancehall Part 2, Jamaica Journal, Vol 23 No 1 (February April 1990), 48.

[21] Tanya Batson, Dancehall, Sex and the P-Word, The Gleaner, 15 January 2002:

She was also asked about how she placed Sean Paul in the Dancehall arena, given his middle-class background and shade. She pointed out that Sean Paul fit into her 'Don Yute" category of deejays, for whom the music was not a lived experience, simply a way to make money.

She argued that Sean Paul cannot be compared to the likes of Bounty Killer, who comes from Back To, a place that many Jamaicans do not know about and would not like to know about.

[22] Dancehall Queen. Directed by Don Letts, Rick Elgood. 1997.

[23] Patra. Queen of the Pack. Epic. 1993. CD. Track 4.

[24] Patra takes the 1980s series Murder She Wrote and translates it to be a celebration of herself declared murder me wrote. The rest translated to mean she makes no apologies for her lyrics, she is ahead of the rest , the Queen in the pack.

[25] Translated: if it was up to me I would turn you into my lover.

[26]King Midas presents DJ Polish. Ole Hype Mix 2000. Bootleg CD.

[29] Bounty Killer Look. Bug and Bellyas. Casette Jones Half Way Tree Kingston Jamaica. Bootleg audio casette. 2000.

A copy of this paper is also available in pdf format on http://www.cypcaribbean.org/researchdocs.htm as a part of the Commonwealth Youth Programme: Caribbean Centre (CYP:CC) which is developing a database of statistics and research-based information on young people in the English-speaking caribbean. Their homepage is www.cypcaribbean.org.

I specifically like this paper by Tricia Rose who has also written extensively on Hip Hop culture in America, because it is quite similar to the perspective I took on my paper titled 'Alison Hinds and Marion Hall: Positioning Caribbean female sexuality from East to West '.

I presented this paper at the Islands in Between Conference in Guadeloupe, Nov. 14th to 16th 2002. It has been selected for publication in SARGASSO, a journal of Caribbean literature, language and culture edited by the University of Puerto Rico. This should be out in 2004.

Race, Sex and Stigmas

March 1, 2003
By TRICIA ROSE

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.

For African-Americans, Magic Johnson is the public face of AIDS. Most recently, a public service ad he did for GlaxoSmithKline became the centerpiece of an advertising
blitz in magazines like Ebony and Savoy to focus attention on H.I.V. and prevention. The message was long overdue, and Mr. Johnson's celebrity and leadership status certainly
make him a valuable spokesman. But within this image also lies what's wrong with the limited conversation on African-Americans and AIDS: women are not always a
meaningful part of it.

Black women make up less than 15 percent of the female population in the United States. But they represented 64 percent of all new AIDS cases among women in 2001,
according to the federal government. Yet it is difficult to find any public campaign that focuses specifically on the prevention and treatment of black women. Magic Johnson maybe a powerful symbol, but he cannot be expected to speak to the specific predicament of black women.

That predicament has been shaped by a long history of distorted notions about sexuality. Images of black women as sexually debased were developed during slavery to justify forced breeding for profit and the sexual oppression of female slaves. Over the decades, black women have consistently been portrayed as sexually dysfunctional and
deviant through such commonly used images as Mammy and Jezebel and through abundant television and film roles as prostitutes, drug addicts and bad mothers.

Such depictions remain the basis of many stereotypes. In the 1980's, for example, the image of the "welfare queen" breeding children for payments led to punitive restrictions
for women seeking public assistance. Some states even proposed forcing women on welfare to take birth control or lose their benefits.

Today, these stereotypes are given added force in contemporary culture, where black women, especially young performers in popular music and film, are portrayed as
highly sexually available and valuable because of it. Such perceptions have discouraged many black women from speaking openly about their sexual desires and experiences for fear that what they say will be distorted and used against them. In turn, some men interpret using a condom as a threat to masculine prowess, and some women play along. Similarly, some men and women perceive women who are sexually informed
and who set the terms for a sexual relationship as less desirable or less feminine.

Negative sexual images are not easily dispelled by openly challenging them. Sexual and racial labels have a special power over black women. Rather than risk attacks on their
reputations and self-esteem, many women have retreated into silence. All this may help explain why black women who know about safe sex practices sometimes neglect to adopt them.

Educating black women about AIDS and prevention and improving their access to health care should be a significant part of lowering the rate of H.I.V. infection.
But any plan has to involve addressing the racial legacies of sexual stigma and the silences they have produced. This will make room for a new cultural language on sexuality that will help us navigate this crisis and beyond.

Tricia Rose, author of the forthcoming "Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy," is professor of American studies at the University of
California at Santa Cruz.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/opinion/01ROSE.html?ex=1047530819&ei=1&en=918cb365649e6244

My above mentioned paper will be uploaded on this site soon. I also presented a version of this paper specifically for the Jamaican context titled 'Punany as object and subject: the Queens and Skettels in the lyrics and images of Dancehall'.This was presented at the University of the West Indies on the 1st of November 2002 as a part of the Reggae Studies Unit Lecture Series and was very well attended and supported. I was interviewed by Elain Wint & Co on talk radio Power 106 about the content of the paper on the same date.

Alison Hinds and Marion Hall: Positioning Female Sexuality from East to West

by Miss Kala N. Grant Ph.D. Candidate University of Warwick, Centre for Caribbean Studies

Contemporary media portrays Black women to be either aggressively 'over-sexed' like scantily clad temptresses Halle Berry or Josephine Baker or a-sexual, fat, maternal women, proud of their domesticated, submissive roles like Hattie McDaniel as Mammy for Scarlet O'Hara or that faceless maid in the cartoon Tom & Jerry. These have been the more prominent representations of Black female sexuality globally. Black female sexuality stereotyped as exotic, vulgar or undesirable is very much related to colonial attitudes towards black people as fetishistically strange. These images are persistently being challenged in the colonially implicated popular culture of the Caribbean.

Let us take for example, the recently laid to rest Southern African Hottentot Venus who was placed on display for all Europeans to ogle at the size of her extended genitalia and protruding bottom in 1810. Saartje was objectified and exploited as 'a freak show and scientific curiosity' justified first by England then in France as a part of her demise of blackness. Her vagina and brain were pickled by French anatomist Baron Curvier. Her body cast in wax and placed on display in a French museum as evidence of the inferiority of the African race until they were taken back in May 2002. The 19^th Century illustration of La Belle Hottentot shows one soldier not only staring at her big buttocks but reaching out lustily to fondle it exclaiming God damn what roast beef. To me this is symbolic of the hypocritical desire of the European colonials for the African body. It is the soldier behind who expresses his desire freely. Those in front appear detached, disgusted and shocked at the spectacle of the black female body which is subtly shown as even more unnatural a sight than the anatomy of the dog ignored in the background. The 19th Century artist uses the speech lines as indicator of the visual focus. All three facing La Belle Hottentot shy away from the feared black vagina as if denying (or asserting the power of) Saartjes sexuality. She becomes object, less than human, lower than animal incapable of being found attractive to western man or woman excepting in the subaltern contexts which the empire represented to Europe. Where the European stands outside of the view of his society in this drawing it appears perfectly normal to lust and eroticise the black body.

The late 19th Century poem To a Black Gin by James Brunton Stephens with its accompanying picture describes the disgust of an Australian white man towards the appearance of a Black Aboriginal girl.

In the poem, Stephens describes the aboriginal girl as ungainliest of things ungainly, with brutish looks, hideous, not beautiful, the [m]ost unaesthetical of things terrestrial with a body that is positively bestial. He describes her hair as coarse tresses and her mouth as a [a] flabby-rimmed abyss of imperfection and questions how anybody in their right mind could find her attractive.

Indeed this poem is directed at an Australian aboriginal woman, but it is not her origin that is being analysed here, but her blackness. Stephens as western imperialist not only dehumanizes the black woman but literally looks at every part of her body scrutinizing as Europeans had the Hottentot, as the west and members of our society still does the black female body. The western image of black sexuality (and by extension that of the darker races) remains one of mysticism, exotica and carnality. The perception that senses and sensuality rule the identity of Africans and their descendant is a stereotyping made even more accessible to the Caribbean through the ultimate institution of racism that was slavery. While portraying the black woman as temptress racist philosophies try to ignore or minimize the existence of the white races desire for the Other.

It is little wonder that over 300 years later Europe, especially England still sees its colonies and ex-colonies as over-sexed . The mostly white visitor to the Caribbean islands come to act out fantasies, sample the big bamboo and plant brown-skinned babies along the coastlines; sun, sea and sex.

In 1998 21st Century Fox and UK Cable channel Sky One presented a docu-soap titled Caribbean Uncovered which focused on the highly-sexed Jamaican tourism industry and the mostly American tourists who visited the island particularly for its prostituted packages of sun, sea, sex and ganja. Although Jamaica spearheaded the program as western dominant Caribbean culture, it served to deepen the stereotyped exoticism of Caribbean sexuality on the whole. Quite apart from this fact, Twentieth Century Fox and Sky had the imperialist insolence to not only use one hotel (Hedonism II) as the cultural eyelet to the entire island but to colonise the identity of an entire region with a part of the Jamaican experience.

Caribbean Uncovered - the uncut version is available globally on the Internet. Black women are persistently shown throughout this video as sexually easy and lewd, so too were Latin and white American women while the few British females were shown as sexually controlled, disgusted at the display of ugly bodies around them. This is hardly an accurate example of contemporary British sexuality in tourist resorts. Ibiza is a classic example of British holiday sex spots.

Marion Hall a.k.a. Lady Saw and Alison Hinds use dominant black female sexuality as the essence of their creative energy. These women could be regarded as pseudo-Hottentots with their overt sexuality on display through popular culture. However through their lyrics and gender positioning they are able to invert those still existing ideals of black sexuality being bestial and undesirable. Their overt sexuality is blatantly desired by the masses. According to masculine Dancehall and Soca, the title of Queen cannot be self-acclaimed, but must be earned from the affected male audience. Not so says Alison Hinds and Lady Saw in their lyrics. The important point they make is that the female identity is not defined by a submissive role to masculinity within the Caribbean context. While defying issues of patriarchy by presenting a female perspective in Soca and Dancehall they are also subverting conservative notions of femininity globally. Saw reminds that is woman we name so we born lucky because women are born with the initial of success and no guy can tek dat from her. Hinds also takes the obvious desirability of the black woman and places her as a star in Hollywood in the song Move colonising in reverse a white dominated institution. It is noticeable in gender biased lyrics Hinds becomes the instructor of the female body instead of the male voices of Square One who become instigators of female sexual power only in response to Alison. Take for example the following lyrics:

(Alison)

Get ready for the jab-jab! Jab-jab!

Roll your batty gyal! Roll your batty gyal! Sexy body gyal!

Let me see you wuk!

Roll your batty gyal! Roll your batty gyal! Sexy body gyal!

Let me see you wuk!

(Male voice)

Aint no if nor but no maybes,

Come to represent all ladies!

Show di man dem how you move those batties!

Women from all over, dey come to take over!

Come out in dey numbers,

Mashing up man lumbers!

Batties rolling like thunders!

Well you are the founders of those batties!

(Allison)

YEAH!

It is Alison who commands the female body to roll and uses her position as dominant female to name the body. The Masculine voice simply responds to Allison. This is a definite subversion of the male voice in Soca music. By denying masculine Soca the power to name the female body Alison is able to reclaim female sexuality for the female audience as something to be celebrated and acknowledged for its inherent power.

Both Hinds and Saw warn in very similar songs that man does come man does go and men say the darnest things when they want ride the rhythm. So while their lyrics and stage appearances reinforce black women as sexually voracious feeding the fetishes of colonial stereotypes, they remain untouchable in their dominance. It is the competition between the sexes in the lyrics of Hinds in which feminist doctrine finds strong niche. While the top class bubbler eats rough winers for lunch she remains the queen or lioness of the fete in complete control of her sexuality. She is desirable but not prostituted.

Both Dancehall and Soca music share very equal subversive perspectives in the positioning of female sexuality. There is a duality of woman as object and subject within the lyrics of both genres which can either reinforce or negate the western stereotypes of sexuality in the Caribbean. Woman as lyrical subject is domineering, sexually demanding, equal or even superior in her waistline prowess to her partner or any man who challenges her ability to match his bedroom bullyism, her body and all its parts is hers to do what she pleases at her own call. In these lyrics the punany, the bam-bam, batty or bumper, the roughest gyal winer or top class bubbler are the power elements to the Soca and Dancehall Queen. Females using their sexuality commercially have always been roles firstly in which they were allowed to flourish in a male dominated economy and secondly where many choose to remain knowing that there is domination and power in being woman with a much desired and competed for sexuality.

Woman as object on the other hand becomes subjected to the python, the doggy bone, the raggamuffin and the iron which makes them so bazodee. The phallus as dominating pain-delivering tool is common imagery in both Dancehall and Soca and many times comes into play as patriarchal punishment for female sexuality. Beckett declares that small pin chok hard, the Baha Men warn a doggie is nothing if he dont have a bone (so) all doggie hold your bone in their version of Who let the dogs out. In Dancehall artist Red Dragon has di agony the girls dem remedy also emphasising pain or agony as a source for pleasure (the remedy) for women. Risto Benji says men have the passport buddy fi di visa punny, they attend ketch gyal college and sex gyal primary. The female vagina takes on many metaphors in Benjis lyrics but his resounding chorus me have di peenie, pawnie, peenie pawnie peenie is a celebration of his masculine dominance. His lyrics assert a conquered knowledge of the female body, which he learned at a college for catching and having sex with girls. As object the punany is removed from the woman with identity separate from its owner ready for rejection or ownership and it is the conquering of this that becomes a status measurer for manhood or masculinity. Both male and female artists use this imagery.

Pum-pum as object is a wall torn-down, meat stabbed, swinging engine, taxi revved out, hairy bank which can collect cent, five cent, ten cent dollar. It has a life and commercial value of its own but is always shown as being hurt or run red by masculine Dancehall and Soca. While female artists like Saw and Hinds declare that there is a weakness for sweetness it is female agency, which asserts and inverts control of her sexuality. This in itself is the subversion of female lyrics over male a truth that patriarchal popular culture sometimes admits. It is also a subversion of the stereotypic portrayal of black sexuality as crude and vulgar in western societies. Western interpretations of Caribbean culture in media such as Caribbean Uncovered promote patriarchal objectification of the female body in the Caribbean ignoring the many examples of the celebration of it in effect undermining the female response to patriarchy and silencing their perspective on a global scale.

Saw and Hinds both celebrate the female body and its power to mother and to mentally and physically control. Saw warns women in her song If him Lef that men will disguise their own sexual and egotistical shortcomings in critical slander of the punany removing it from the position of empowerment to the position of objectification. She emphasises that men are no strangers to impotence, premature ejaculation and inadequately sized penises therefore the size of a womans punany does not take away from her identity as Queen in society or Dancehall. Hinds throws female sexuality as hypnotic device in the face of lusting men. In her song Girls Bam Bam where the man gives a bumper inspection greeting her from the waist down, Hinds raises the bam bam to full attention as symbol of the African body shaming the lusting male (of whatever race) for his objectification of her identity. This is a very similar parallel to Jamaican folklore tales of rebel woman Nanny of the Maroons in who used her bottom to repel bullets from English soldiers. Interestingly this song was written by Red Plastic Bag who admits to womans sexual power over men in his song Uneasy. It should be noted that the celebration of female sexuality can and does sometimes co-exist within lyrics laced with patriarchal sentiment. In the Dancehall one of many examples is the track Dancehall Queen. According to Beenies lyrics, the Dancehall Queen possesses a sexuality is powerful and untouchable. Beenie compares her to fire, pepper and an explosive bomb or boomah killer in his lyrics and gives to the Queen of the Dancehall all the attributes of an empowered woman. According to Beenies lyrics the Queen is full of etiquette, clever, designed to be the dancer and made by Selassie. She remains cultural and spiritual while she dominates the dance floor and asserts her sexuality over men who can look but not touch without her consent. Beenie admits this when he says if a fi me alone me woulda turn you ina me lover.

The lyrics of masculine domination exist within the discourse of female empowerment not undermining it but struggling to counteract to no avail. Beenie compares the Queen to a nail who he wants to knock with his hammer. The penile or penal blow is offered as challenge to her feminine power in an attempt to curtail it and re-position the Dancehall Queen under the dominance of masculinity. Beenies clever lyrics draw a line between wanting to and being able to and remembers his role in this instance is not to objectify the Dancehall Queen but to celebrate her empowerment.

Juliet Robins also plays on the image of woman as temptress in Weakness for Sweetness when she tells her man to watch how her pum pum roll and tumble, her belly jus wheel and bubble and her hipsstart to whine then challenges him to control her if he dares. The shaking of the sexual hips, grabbing of the punany or the penis to critics are a reinforcing of Caliban savagery, a backward step for the civilisation of Caribbean people. This argument only holds water if one seeks to reinforce colonial sentiment. It should be reinforced that these women use their lyrics to regain control of the female body. In reclaiming the sexuality of the feminine gender, celebrating its power and flaunting their assets they counteract local and global dominating patriarchal cultural presence. On a holistic level both the lyrics of male and female Soca and Dancehall artists force western recognition of the black womans body as normal, equally as desirable as that of the white woman perhaps more so for those who seek to exoticise her.

Both Hinds and Lady Saw use their lyrics to re-negotiate female sexuality in a male dominated musical industry as well as a masculine dominated economy, subversively using their waistline and punany as distraction to their power. The fundamental difference between Saw and Hinds is the fact that Hall's lyrics revel in the sexually explicit and her performances showed her forever grabbing, patting and pointing to her vagina. This makes Hinds far more accepted to the Jamaican middle and upper classes that are the main supporters of Carnival in the island. Classism is coupled with pigmentocracy and cultural prejudice and Saw becomes ghetto, skettel, X-rated, raw and offensive. Saws lyrics with punany as dominating, feared and desired subject, exposes the hypocrisies of a society still bent on covering up the desirability of black females though institutional censoring and denial of free speech as well as an overt pre-occupation with the lighter skin. Even when Saw makes it clear that life without dick could never be nice in her song of the same name and prays to the Lord to find her a good man; she never comes out as object in her desire for a man. Saw is a Queen of the Dancehall despite the Jamaican public opinion of her as Skettel or prostitute. Hinds as Soca Queen within Jamaicas carnival which originally separated the rich from the poor along with her lighter shaded package and a greater use of dialect further along the line of the English continuum becomes sexy and hypnotic despite her sexual lyrics. The bottom line is that there is no difference in the lyrical devices of both artists. They both assert by their very presence as well as their dialectic that it is through the black females acknowledgment of her spirituality and physicality that she will never lose control of her own sexuality to be dissected and displayed as Hottentot object at the whim of western commercialism.

This paper is one in progress and is a part of the series on sexuality in Dancehall:-

'Bun Out a Chi Chi': Homosexuality in Dancehall Lyrics - May 2003

"How you fi shot and nah shot battyman?

How you fi shot and nah shot lesbian?

How you fi shot and nah shot pagan?

How you fi shot and fraid ah policeman?

Never yet try fi invade a station!

Never test a priest? Never test the bank?

Never test di camp? Dat mean you a ramp!

For black people rights they dont care a damn?

You ever educate fi shot the Queen of England?

Ever educate fi shot John Paul the Second?

Ever educate fi shot Bill Clinton?

How you take the gun from the politician?

Pon you owna black breddah you a ra-pa-pam-pam."

Capleton "Bad Man Knowledge"

One of the criticisms of Dancehall music is its anti-homosexual content. It is very difficult to trace the beginnings of anti-homosexual content in Dancehall history due to the large amount of unrecorded lyrics. However overt heterosexually explicit lyrics has been an intrinsic part of Jamaican music on a whole particularly since the late 1980s to early 90s. It was then that anti-gay lyrics also came to the fore. By giving much lyrical attention to the female anatomy there is an obvious exclusion of other forms of sexuality in Dancehall otherwise referred to as deviant. There is evidence that shows that it is not only homosexuality which receives lyrical attack. Also placed on grounds of equal damnation in most instances is the act of oral sex, what deejays refer to as bowing, while masturbation is mocked as comical desperation.

In an interview by Gregory Stephens with Julius Powell the Chairperson of the Finance and Enterprise Committee of J-FLAG, Powell makes a direct link between Dancehall lyrics and the anti-gay sentiment of the Jamaican people.

Gregory Stephens: Some of the anti-gay lyrics coming out of Jamaica are disturbing. There is one by Beenie Man called "Damn" where he says, "I m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays". Then "Chi Chi Man," the biggest tune on the island over the last year: "Rat tat tat every Chi Chi Man dem haffi get flat/ Mi and my niggas ago mek chi chi man fi dead and dats a fact". How do you react to that?

Julius Powell: The songs incite violence and hatred towards gay people and peoples whose sexuality differs from the norm This whole idea of Jamaica being a plural society is a farce. We do not believe it is as plural as mainstream society makes it out to be. Because "Chi Chi Man" is just one of a number of songs that are played continuously on the air and television in Jamaica. There is Elephant Man, Spragga Benze to name a few. Spragga Benze two weeks ago issued a statement condemning gays and [emphasised] that his anti-gay message will continue to go out. .. The root cause of this is Jamaicas "cultural intolerance" towards gays and homosexuals. This manifest itself in the music."

It is not the aim of this paper to prove or disprove the connection of Dancehall as popular cultural expression with anti-homosexual crime in Jamaica or trans-nationally, however the debate has to be acknowledged in order to emphasise the effectiveness of such subversive lyrics. According to Mark Simpson in his paper "Gay Dream Believer: Inside the Gay Underwear Cult",

[H]omophobia was an illness produced by ignorance, secrecy, and an aversion to wearing leather harnesses in public, the underlying cause of homophobia was a shortage of proud gays.

This reading of homophobia is purely Western in its perspective, however it has been the criticisms from the West that has lead to the branding of Dancehall as homophobic. The treatment of homosexuality in Dancehall lyrics is varied, however what is obvious is that Dancehall culture is strongly against both the act and the perpetrators of the act. If one was to accept the description of Dancehall as entirely homophobic then is there a debate for subversiveness in the use of anti-gay lyrics to keep the Jamaican audience ignorant and ashamed of homosexual expression?

The lyrics of Dancehall DJs came under much scrutiny when homosexuals and gay rights activists in the Diaspora began to voice their anger at the advocating of violence against them in Dancehall culture in the early 1990s. To date there has been much controversy surrounding artists receiving recognition having released and celebrated lyrics with anti-homosexual content. It was not until Dancehall crossed over internationally that anti-gay lyrics were debated publicly. The fact that JFLAG being the first of its kind, was only just formed in 1998, is a great indication of the level of stigma attached to the discussion of homosexuality and the protection of their rights in the Jamaican society. The writings on homosexuality in Jamaica are scarce and in general writings on homosexuality and colonialism tend to focus on desire, fantasy and exoticism as in Lane (1995), Bleys (1996), and Hyam (1990, 1991, 1992). Most of these writings are biased in support of homosexuality. The lack of objectivity from the authors on homosexuality in the Caribbean tends to obstruct the analysis of anti-homosexual discourse. Carolyn Cooper on the other hand presents an extremely opposite view from the mainstream Caribbean cultural theorists. According to Cooper contrary to what is believed by human rights activists in Jamaica, she argues that:

[T]he literal elimination of homosexuals is not so much the issue as is the verbalization of anti-homosexual values. In Jamaica creole abstract ideas (homosexuality should be eliminated) tend to be expressed in graphic language (all battyman fi dead). Anti-homosexual values are quite compatible with knowing acceptance of homosexuals in Jamaica in both the family and in public life.

While I do accept that anti-homosexual values are compatible with the knowing acceptance of homosexuals, the Jamaican societys reaction to gays whether physically or verbally has been so powerfully negative that homosexuals have remained without representation until 1998. Chevannes relates a story on his interaction with ghetto youths in Motown and their reaction to him when he was suspected to be gay because of his affiliation with known homosexuals:

The Cedar wood corner youths knew of the research project and had already given views on man-woman relationships and children. Now, on this visit, they claimed they had evidence that we were seen associating with two Motown homosexuals, Mr McDonald and Fatman."But, if a mistake di man a mek, den a so! If a no so, bwaai, yu life coulda iina danger, because we no like dem-ting deh roun ya! (If the man is mistaken, so be it! If he isnt , your life could be in danger, because around here we do not approve of such things !")Our life could be in danger they told us, implying that they killed homosexuals, though they had evidently done nothing to McDonald or Fatman, both of whom they claimed to know were. But it was the association with homosexuals they would have none of, lest they too be branded homosexuals. And so, the minute we moved to sit with them, some got up and left. Hostility towards homosexuality and the fear of being contaminated by homosexuals were themes encountered during the research.

The fear of contamination is at the essence of anti-homosexual behavior in Jamaican society according to Chevannes. This fear of contamination is strongly evident in many Dancehall lyrics, which could be described as homophobic. For example TOKs Chi Chi Man, some lyrics of which are below:

From dem a spar ina Chi Chi man cyar,

Fire! Mek it bun dem! From dem a drink ina Chi Chi man bar!

Fire mek it bun dem!

Here it is clearly the affiliation with a homosexual that condemns. To spar or hang out with homosexuals being the method through which the disease is spread. In Kip Richs lyrics to Cut Him Off , he addresses homosexuality within the family unit. As Cooper rightfully implies there are degrees of anti-homosexual agenda in Dancehall that must be recognised and the knowing acceptance seems to exist when the discussion crosses into the family in Kip Richs lyrics. Instead of the regular advocating of murder and death, Cut Him Off seeks to alienate and ostracise related homosexuals and hence:

Coulda be me Daddy, from a funny man?

Cut him off!

Coulda be me Mother, from a lesbian?

Cut him off!

Coulda be me Uncle, from him chat woman?

Cut him off!

To cut off the suspected homosexual stops the spreading of the disease of homosexuality. His lyrics also parallels oral sex or bowing as the Dancehall culture calls it, to homosexuality and both are treated with equal disdain a common comparison in Dancehall lyrics.

It coulda be me breddah, from a bowerton?

Cut him off!

Coulda be me sister, from a suckerton?

Cut him off!

Coulda be me cousin, from a tonguerton?

Cut him off!

Hmmm?

Cut him off!

Damn Right!

Those who indulge in oral sex are deviations from the normal sexual relations of man and woman in Dancehall culture. One of the earliest references to homosexuals in Dancehall is Tigers song When in which he declares, two man a love up love up , dem a men. Although this is not a lyric of violence its analysis is intrinsic to the understanding of the treatment of homosexuals and gender relations in Dancehall culture. The movement from a man to men is a removal of individuality and manhood to becoming a weaker form of man. Men- the meaning being simply that it takes two men to be gay and that their interdependence on each other for sexual gratification erodes their patriarchal domination over women and their household. Wicker Man in his song Gungo Walk also begins with the following lyrics:

[Granny] Hear him bout him chick-chick-chick-chick now!

[DJ] Theyre my friends! Get rid of the mens!

[Chorus] We no want , we no want no man stare ina we face!

We no want, we no want no funny boy pon we base!

We ready fi go walk a mile and a half pon di gyal gungo walk!

We ready fi go walk a mile and a half pon di gyal gungu walk!

Funny man a flood di place from ina di seventy,

Di youth dem get vex and want di place fi empty!

We never did know dem woulda get so plenty,

Man a lick balls fi six and dem a get all century

But we a cock-a-doodle, we doodle ina hen,

We a doodle, who a fool you we no follow backa men!

We doodle-doodle-doodle and we get we children,

If two man a doodle den we know dem condemn.

We no doodle-doodle woman weh a keep girlfriend

Woman a doodle doodle man weh all a keep boyfriend,

Dem deh little tings will make di almighty bend!

Dancehall rationalises that the definition of manhood depends on his ability to dominate both his woman and his money. To control another man is not considered domination but subjugation, a castrating of manhood and hence a backward step into boyhood in some lyrics. Hence the later terms battyboy. Oral sex is equally condemned. By referring to the act as bowing there is a metaphorical reference to an emasculated man. He has to bow or become subject in order to please the woman he should otherwise dominate. Kip Richs well coined names bowerton, suckerton and tonguerton are all brands of alienation , as is the term funny man. What is obvious is the lack of creativity in the branding of lesbianism which has always received less direct objection in black popular cultures, not only the Jamaican Dancehall. While words such as trenton, batty-man/ bwoy chi-chi man, men, funny guy, puff, Mr. faggarty, are all anti-homosexual slang in Dancehall lyrics, lesbians are referred to simply as sodomites and lesbians. Those who practice oral sex are also referred to as bow cats, and the most recent creative use of globally influenced Dancehall lyrics being internet face coined by Beenie Man where the woman logs on (sits) on the mans face making his face into a version of the internet. However there are other anti-homosexual lyrics, which are steeped in the apocalyptic imagery. These types of lyrics go beyond this notion of pure hatred of gays to include a deeper discussion of anti-colonial preoccupation. In many instances these differing motifs of anti-homosexual lyrics co-exist within one song. Kip Rich continues in his song Cut Him Off:

Wah do dem?

Wish every freak coulda drop down and dead,

Curse de parents dem weh go bend...

Blaze up de fire two man no fi wed!

Damn Right!

Dem mek diseases ah spread,

Dem a stop hard working yout bread,...

Bu's a head weh a go between leg

I argue that while particularly the Fyah (Fire) Burn lyrics of Dancehall from Rastafarian influenced Dancehall employ much biblical reference to instill fear and guilt in its audience. Much like the puritanical preacher to the church, there is a connection between anti-gay sentiment, sexual machismo and anti-colonial beliefs which is essential to the subversion of what is considered to be "the white mans disease" infecting black consciousness. In other words to voice anti-gay sentiments is to position ones identity against Westernisation and colonial influence. Despite the alienation of homosexuals within the Jamaican environment and Diaspora the act of subversion is made even more effective when the voices of the West cry out its opposition to the lyrical attack on gays in Dancehall music. In Tracey Skeltons essay Boom Bye Bye Jamaican ragga and gay resistance the international reaction to anti-gay lyrics in the early 1990s is well charted. However, while Skelton addresses the issues of patriarchal domination otherwise supported by Cooper she skims over what is an essential theory behind the very existence of such lyrics in Dancehall music. Skelton describes an incident on her visit to Jamaica in her essay where a taxi driver stated that batty was the name used for dirty sinful men who were homosexuals. He spoke of homosexuality as the white mans disease. He continued:

Because all of the white men up in those places, New York, London and so, are homosexuals, you women have to come to Jamaica to find some real men, to find some real sex.

While there are obvious elements of male prostitution and capitalism taking place in this conversation it is apparent that homosexuality in the Jamaican culture is paralleled to Western customs and as such both the act and the inclination becomes equally corrupting in Dancehall culture.

From this perspective only, I do not consider all anti-homosexual lyrics to be simply homophobic according to the 1970s definition of homophobia unlike contemporary writers on Dancehall such as Lloyd Bradley and Norman Stolzoff. Fyah Burn lyrics do not simply reveal a fear of homosexuality or however it also poses as a subversive rage against the infection of Westernism and all that it represents which according to artists such as Capleton and Sizzla pose a threat to the identity of Black nationality.

Skelton places both the African American experience and the Jamaican experience as similar in regard to anti-gay sentiment as Jamaica is the Caribbean island most influences by political and cultural debate within the United States. She theorises that homosexuality in Jamaica is not an issue of race but one of sexuality.

When such gay resistance appears at first sight to be white gay resistance against black Jamaican culture then the complexities of race and sexuality further complicate the issue. Such a dualism is inevitably going to be the one which informs mainstream media representations which are costructed by , and construct, racist societies which following the traditions of Western thought which elevates binary divisions. Their analysis will suggest that all victims are white gays and all antagonists are black: and that all black people are homophobic Closer inspection of the resistance shows that it does not follow that lines of race but rather of sexuality. In all presentations of the debate within tha gay press the emphasis has been that this is a straight/gay problem and not a black/white problem.

Her focus is entirely media related and while I believe she is correct in stating that it is not a race issue. More emphatically than this however are the binary oppositions within most subversive anti-homosexual lyrics which counteract sexual orientations, religion, systems of control/ babylonialism or the state of being in the control of babylon with the essence of a rebellion echoing anti-slavery but reinforcing anti-enslavement.

There are distinct categories of anti-homosexual lyrics in Dancehall. There are those which blatantly advocate the murdering of homosexuals for the sake of egotistical gratification and patriarchal domination. There are those that are insular in its translation which can be referred to as anti-homosexual clash lyrics where the defamation of another DJs character is to associate or denounce him as a homosexual. Then there are the anti-imperial or fyah burn lyrics aimed at associating corruption elements of the west in the Jamaican society. The imagery of fire is used in its Biblical sense to imply a purging. There is a direct relationship between this type of anti-homosexual lyric and Christian beliefs. While an irrationally violent lyrics against homosexuals are no different in its implication to that which is rationalised, there is a risk of losing the subversive effect of a much theorised argument to purge homosexuality in Dancehall.

I will analyse in particular the lyrics of DJs Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Elephant Man, and Capleton. Theoretically I argue that while there appears to be only hatred in anti-gay Dancehall lyrics there are different manifestations of it which can many times become lost on the global music scene.