Jamaican music icon Sugar Minott has spoken exclusively to ClashMusic explained his sometimes controversial views on homosexuality.
Sugar Minott is a living legend of Jamaican music. As a singer, Minott crafted some of the finest works in reggae music before his ceaseless search for something new took him into unexplored areas.
Pioneering the ‘singjay’ technique his vocal style would become a fixture of the soundsystems as reggae begat dancehall, begat ragga and digital dancehall.
However an early, unreleased track decrying homosexuality has continually dogged the singer. Containing the lyrics “If you see a chi-chi man run, then send bottle and stone after him, run chi-chi man run…” the track details violence against Kingston’s gay community.
Speaking to ClashMusic, Sugar Minott attempted to explain his real views on gay people. “We grew up like that – religion, rastafari, Christianity – we were always against things like that. It’s not because people are coming up with it now – we’ve always been like that. Jamaica’s like that.”
“Myself – I don’t condone violence – people trying to kill people because of their lifestyle – or whatever. We have to live together anyway” he claimed. “I would say, leave them to Jah.”
Referring to the infamous track, Sugar Minott claimed that he stopped the recording from being released. “I recorded the song just for the fun of it – then we decided, ‘No man, we can’t put this out’. When all this nonsense came out we didn’t bother. But it was just for fun, you know? Stop taking it so serious. Jamaicans say, ‘boom bye bye’ [a homophobic expression committed to song in a track by Buju Banton that details shooting gay people in the head] just for fun; they’re not actually gonna boom bye bye nobody. I’m saying leave it alone. I’ve never committed violence against anyone who wants to live the way they want to live.”
To read the entire interview with Sugar Minott click HERE.
