Staceyann Chin's Redemption Song

By Keith Boykin, in sexuality
Tuesday, October 3 2006, 8:37AM

As the controversy continues to grow over the issue of homophobic music performed by some reggae and dancehall artists, I thought it would be a good time to have a conversation with Staceyann Chin. The Jamaican-born New York resident is a poet, performing artist and political activist, and so much more.

This year I've had a chance to get to know Staceyann a little better as one of my co-hosts on the BET TV show "My Two Cents." And a few months ago I sat in Soldier Field in Chicago and watched as she electrified the audience with a provocative and controversial speech/poem at The Gay Games. I interviewed Staceyann last week, just as the heat was rising in the Buju Banton controversy.

INTERVIEW WITH STACEYANN CHIN

Keith Boykin: Hi Staceyann. What are you working on now?

Staceyann Chin: I’ve been looking for an idea for a play. And I’m working on a couple of ideas but I think I kinda stumbled upon the one. I think I want to write something about the controversy around the homophobic lyrics. And I want to write something hat addresses the nexa of being a lesbian and being a Jamaican and feeling as though a part of the dialogue frees me and a part of the dialogue attacks or indicts me.

And I’m working on my memoir. I have a book deal with Scribner of Simon and Schuster and I have to kind of render an honest portrait of young Staceyann…I’m also for three days out of every two weeks in Boston going to Derek Walcott’s classes. I’m working on my classes of course and I’m working on my class as a playwright.

Boykin: Tell me more about the play?

Chin: I have a bunch of ideas, but the one that I’m leaning toward now is the conversation or the lack of conversation between the reggae artists in Jamaica, both the established reggae artists and the ones that are only aspiring, and the gay and lesbian community that is in Jamaica and the gay and lesbian community that is international. I suppose you could say it’s a comic tragedy.

Boykin: What makes you interested in reggae?

Chin: The violent homophobic lyrics in reggae music. And it’s important to point out that those lyrics are also in hip hop music. Those lyrics can also be found in other types of music….The homophobic lyrics come in different ways. And of course there’s violence in the acid rock music…But since its popular in the reggae music and since its been highlighted in reggae music I have to respond to that.

Those lyrics are only symptomatic of a greater complexity that exists in the Caribbean and particularly in Jamaica. Put poverty and great economic duress and religion and national pride and a corrupt political system and a capitalist system together. A capitalist system with no leftist social leaning because there’s no universal health care. Not that there’s universal health care in America. But in most civilized countries one of the markers is that if you get ill you can get treatment…Let us not talk about what happens to the AIDS community there. No medication for them. Doctors wont treat them. People still avoid them…When you put all of that together people are going to explode in different ways.

It’s important to note that those lyrics and those songs not only advocate for violence against homosexuals. They advocate for women in the same way that rock music and hip hop advocates for that. In the same way that the American sociopolitical system, and particularly the penal system here, advocates for the systematic imprisonment of young black men and young Latino men.

So the people in Jamaica who are at risk are women, homosexuals, poor people and in a lot of ways small children, and old people, the elderly.

Boykin: So who’s not at risk?

Chin: People who are wealthy…When you look at who is at risk you can see it’s a systematic problem and if you have a chance you can look at what the real problems are. The upper class Jamaicans are not killing anybody. They [the criminals are] not rolling up on the mostly wealthy and educated and privileged section of society…it is the people who feel disenfranchised…In the same way here that they say poor white men and poor black men in America attack their women…When people feel disenfranchised they take that anger home…

The Jamaican economy has led people to try to make money in as many ways as they can…If you read the Jamaica Gleaner…you will see everyday there is a murder on the front page…

Boykin: Where did you grow up?

Chin: In Montego Bay. I spent the first 9 years in rural Jamaica and from 9 until about 16 I was a part of the urban landscape in Montego Bay. And after that I went to Kingston where I spent the next 8 years in tertiary institutions, and I went to the Shortwood Teachers College for Ladies.

Boykin: What did you do there?

Chin: I learned how to use the correct fork and how to carry a chair like a lady, and how to respond if a man should ask me out. And at the University of the West Indies I studied philosophy and literature.

Boykin: Shortwood College for Ladies doesn't sound like Staceyann Chin?

Chin: No not any more. And my friends who are there will remind me of how radical my place was. I was always getting in trouble with the authorities. I wasn’t too much of a lady. I didn’t even discover I was a lesbian until I was midway through my second college experience. I was happily heterosexual until I was 21 years old.

Boykin: Where did you learn your progressive values?

Chin: All my life I had been aware that something was terribly wrong with the specifics around race and gender and class. And those three things are so intricately and dangerously involved with each other: race, class and gender….My father is/was definitely from the upper middle class or the lower upper class and my mother was definitely from the lower class. He is Chinese and my mother is black. My mother left Jamaica when I was born and removed herself from my life. Floated back in when I was 9 for a week or two and left again and I didn’t see her again until I was 25 when I found her in Germany.

I think I always knew something was wrong because my grandmother who raised me until I was 9 and the succession of women…were women who were victims of a society that didn’t value poor people or poor women. And they often were the victims of domestic situations in which the men felt they weren’t valued.

Boykin: What do you think African American gays and lesbians need to know about Jamaica?

Chin: Americans need to know about the rest of the world. Americans are largely underinformed. The media here is invested in keeping Americans underinformed because then they can control what information is meted out as well as how the public understands or receives what information is given to them. It has to do with control, I think….

Boykin: What do you think about sexism in the gay community?

Chin: I think that sexism and racism in the gay community is a part of why we are at such a difficult crossroads in a movement. So much was accomplished in the 70s and the 80s because in the 80s we dealt with AIDS…I think the gay identity has been co-opted for commercial reasons.

Boykin: How does that play into what's going on?

Chin: Sexism is the control and exploitation of the supposed norms between agendas. What men should look like. What men should look like. So gay men have become the experts on the fashion industry. And they have become the expert on what women should look like and judging women on their bodies….I hear gay men talk about the modeling shows and say 'Oh no girl, she’s too fat'…Where do you get off trying to tell me how to be a woman? What gives you that right except that you are a representative of the patriarch…

Boykin: How do we incorporate more Caribbean voices in the discussion over homophobic reggae and dancehall lyrics?

Chin: I think some of the questions need to be asked directly of those communities. I think there needs to be a less sensationalized reporting of what’s going on. It can’t be that these Jamaican artists….because these artists are not what comprise the Jamaican identity…these artists are no different from any other artists who are trying to make some money and using that money and endangering lives while they’re making money. So what we probably need to look at is what causes that type of behavior…Is it that Beenie Man is a bad person? Is it that Buju Banton is a bad person?...has he not had the kind of education and exposure….and those record companies are not Jamaican record companies.

Boykin: And what about the record companies?

Chin: Nobody’s asking Sony or Atlantic…Why is nobody going to that…From what I know of it, Buju Banton is probably not even profiting or taking home most of the money from that…He probably doesn’t even own that song anymore….

I’m not saying the artists are not responsible. The artists are responsible for what they produce…But the artists are not as powerful as the record companies that are based here [in the US]…I know 100 artists that are making conscious lyrics. Do they ever get on a record label? Those big corporations that tell us what to wear, when to wear and how to wear it also tell us what to listen, when to listen to, and how to listen to it.

Sony makes music. Apple tells us what to put it on. Everybody tells us what to do but nobody is attacking those large corporations.

Boykin: I actually read that Buju Banton's record company may not be based in the U.S. But even still, why can't we go after both the artist and the record company?

Chin: Absolutely. I agree that we should go after both. But most of the arguments I have read have presented the artists as solely responsible. I know those boys. I grew up with those boys….I also see them on the corner of Nostrand [Avenue, a popular street in Brooklyn]. They’re not even at the place where they can figure out what they really believe and put that into music.

You talk to a lot of these reggae artists and they definitely aren’t your homosexual hugging bunch. I don’t see Beenie Man having a bunch of homosexual friends…But half of the stuff they sing they don’t necessarily believe. So why do they sing it?

And I do believe we should go after both but I feel like the responsibility needs to be shared.

Boykin: Jasmyne Cannick sent out an email a few weeks ago that was essentially a call to arms about Buju Banton's performances in Los Angeles. But she says that almost nobody responded at first until the story started getting media attention. And now that she's out front on the issue, some people are concerned because she's not Jamaican.

Chin: I didn’t see an email saying lets do this. I’m happy. It’s a good thing that this conversation is going on. I’m only worried that the conversation is being had from the external position. Even my own voice is slightly outside the gaze because I don’t live in Jamaica.

Boykin: But you and we are affected here?

Chin: We can talk about concerts here. Those concerts here mirror a situation that begins in Jamaica. There is no reggae artist who is here. There is no reggae artist who is from here except maybe Sean Paul.

Boykin: And he seems to be progressive.

Chin: I feel it's like racism. I feel white people should get involved in that conversation. But it is important that people who are not black speak about racism in the black community with a political awareness and a responsibility of that awareness. If you’re not black, you always have to be very careful how you speak for black people or speak against black people…It’s important that people who do not live in Jamaica, people who are not black, people who do not come from the Jamaican experience that they should always speak from the perspective of an outsider.

I’ve read some of those comments [on your web site Keith] about those Jamaicans that they should not be able to come into our community….

Boykin: So should Jamaicans and other non-Americans not be able to talk about America?

Chin: That’s a very limited vision, a very limited perspective. I’m not American but I can talk about American policy…but I must always know that I cannot make rash and careless comments about those black boys [on Nostrand Avenue] as if I know them or I own them as if I am the be all and end all of all things about their life.

There's Colin Robinson, a magnificent organizer and wonderful man and wonderful activist for so many years….he’s only one perspective. And then Thomas Glave is another perspective. There’s so many people here. There’s so many of us. There’s different people in Jamaica who do talk about it. The conversations need to be more rounded, more inclusive of those kinds of voices…

Boykin: Well Staceyann, thank you very much for sharing your voice with us today.

Chin: Thank you.

Comments (39) reveal

Comments conceal

The Empress
October 3 2006, 11:06AM

Thank you Keith. That was a very touching yet informative interview. I will be on the lookout for her play. I'm sure it will be a much needed wake-up call.

nahtanserious
October 3 2006, 11:54AM

Clearly there are greater ( more general) issues of race class, gender, imperialism, fundamentalism, capitalism and other isms when we are faced with the output from Jamaican Reggae artists. But sometimes we all respond specifically to aparticular song /artist/event and I can't agree that that is wrong.

I was about 20 y.o and living in the USA trying to deal with my sexuality when Boom Bye bye came out and I remeber being so very hurt by that song. Not only because it spoke about killing gays but more because it was as if the caribbean homophobia that I had run awy from was following me to the USA. And more importantly that this type of music was (MIS)representing what caribbean people were all about...we are easy going people for the most part.

Fast forward to today and Buju, beanie etc who are now EXPERIENCED artists have yet to understand the impact of these songs, have yet to unedrstand that these words are not necessary to sell CARIBBEAN music... and that is what still hurts!

kc
October 3 2006, 1:12PM

Natah has a serious point. As a JAMAICAN first, and a Caribbean Male in totality. Anyone can sit back in a society like the United States- albeit, prejudices in all forms rears its head here too. But, I am in the position somewhat like Nathan's been a younger man - when that song came out,damn I was still in Prep School. But, to this day it still haunts me. Because I can write a whole book - then again that too is in the making, on the effect that song and others [which is even worse than the 1993 Boom Bye Bye] have on me and people who I am acquainted with as friends, neighbors, and the list goes on.
Yes, one would have thought that some people like Buju would have come to his senses by now, but I guess they are right. "You can take the horse to the water but you can't let it drink."

manchild1
October 3 2006, 1:55PM

I feel her point...but again ,even if those
singers do not control the final product,they do
have a say in what they do....if you knowly sing
something that will do harm to others,something that
promotes hate and injustice,are you right because you
supposedly know no better and are after dollars.Please.
I only agree that as a community we target not only
the artist,but the companies that produce,distribute
and sensationalize this crap. But at the end of the
day,it is a responsibility issue,personally I do not
feel bad in jeopardizing someone's finance's if
the end result is someone's bashing. Sounds like the
drug dealers argument..or the pimps or any body else
who has gained from someones loss.

kc
October 3 2006, 1:57PM

We as Caribbean folks are easy going, laid back, proud, humble,industrious,educated.............. people.Our people are our dearest to our culture and is our greatest asset. Yes, like everywhere within a society we will have the bigots, mianthrope, bigamist, rapist, misogynist............ But,people like Buju will come to his senses one day, and see the impact his and others like him that preaches hate directly or otherwise, will see the impact that it caused and is causing. I am glad that KB, did an interview with Staceyann Chin, know of her and her brother. Was wondering when Keith was also going to do an interview from someone who actually lived in Jamaica and lived through the era when the hatred for gay people in Jamaica was at its heights. Yes, I say when because believe it or not - things are bad, but times back them tsk!tsk! was WORSE-TRUST ME I HAVE LIVED IT.

Avery
October 3 2006, 4:47PM

What happened to the 5 favorite things?

DDC
October 4 2006, 4:43PM

"I didn’t even discover I was a lesbian until I was midway through my second college experience. I was happily heterosexual until I was 21 years old."

Sorry, I 'm not trying to judge, but I have never understood that type of statement. I can see if a person is supressing their orientation and becomes actively sgl a little later, but if a person is 'happily' anything, it seems unbelievable that they'd totally stop being that.

Zedd
October 4 2006, 5:12PM

I'm sorry if I might seem a little sadistic, but everytime I come on KB's site and see another article about Buju and the protests his "art" has provoked, something inside me just jumps for joy. I literally feel my mouth spreading from ear to ear.
It's about time that these so called artists, that can't seem to broaden their range of what they want to express, experience the discrimination that we have felt over the years.
I'm Jamaican and although I might be young, these old songs and many new ones, and I'm not only talking about reggae (although they are the ones that really hit a nerve, being that they are being produced by people from my own country in a language that feels more like home to me), have gotten under my skin to the point where sometimes I just cry. No, lie, mi bawl.
I'm glad that some light is being shed on this issue. This society has trained me to be in conflict with myself and now that I'm starting to find balance I'm glad that there are signs that the world is trying to do the same

piKeLit
November 27 2006, 7:42PM

Just a quick response to DDC: I think that you can be happily doing something, and then also discover something else that makes you happy, and the second happy-act doesn't cross out the happiness of the first. Ask any bi-person! Also, being a dyke doesn't mean you don't get it on with bois too! there are plenty of reasons that someone will call herself a dyke - it's important to not assume that shame structures everyone's sexual identity and exploration!

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Staceyann Chin's Redemption Song

INTERVIEW WITH STACEYANN CHIN

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