The FIYA BURN Controversy:
On the Uses of Fire in a Culture of Love and Rebellion

"Fire is for the purificaton"
Capleton, "More Fire"

"No water can put out this fire"
Bob Marley, "Ride Natty Ride"

"God gave Noah the rainbow sign:
No more water, the fire next time."
Afro-American folk song

"The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire,
We don’t want no water, let the m.....f..... burn!"
Traditional chant of R&B artists

It seems to have come to this: Fiya Bun fi real now. Some youths of a generation nursed on dancehall’s fire burn fashion have fudged the line between rhetoric and reality. A few zealots have begun burning down churches and bludgeoning nuns. Verbal arsonists are cutting best-selling records calling for all homosexuals to be executed. Bun Dem! And people in high and low places have begun to ask: where does it all end?

DJ RJ and I have recorded an edutainment special about the Fire Burn controversy titled "Love and Rebellion: Fiya Fi Purification." It is an aural companion piece to this essay. Readers can hear the show on Daniel Frankston’s first-rate website IReggae.com, at: http://www.ireggae.com/djrj&mc.htm. In addition to a wide range of fire burn tunes, from 1970s roots to 21^st century dancehall, the show contains samples of many Jamaican artists commenting on the uses of fire for destruction, and for purification.

The "great controversy" about Fire Burn lyrics has been growing for several years. By the summer of 2000 it had achieved a critical mass, as noted in a commentary on the synchronicities between this and other fiery signs of the times on the RootzReggae website. But by the New Year of 2001, the "official" beginning of the new millennium, the controversy quickly escalated, giving proof that a fuse had been lit that was burning far beyond Jamaican dancehalls.

Just hours before DJ RJ and I first broadcast our Fire Burn special in Austin, TX on Jan. 2, 2001, a 20-year-old Rasta named Kim John and at least one other accomplice started the new year by entering a cathedral on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and put the fire burn philosophy in practice. According to a report by Mark Fineman in the Los Angeles Times: "Clad in flowing robes and armed with clubs, flaming torches and gasoline cans, the attackers charged up the aisle, randomly dousing and torching a dozen parishioners. One attacker set fire to the priest and the altar. Another bludgeoned to death Sister Theresa Egan, an Irish nun who had worked on the island for 42 years, because ‘he saw the devil’ in her blue eyes."

According to police investigators, John had a vision in which Haile Selassie anointed him as "the chosen one" and commanded him to free his people from the Babylon System. And the Catholic Church—of which 80% of the island nation of St. Lucia are members—is of course a prime symbol of Babylon for many Rastas, especially for the Boboshantis, who have been calling down fire on the Pope and the Vatican with increasing ferocity in recent years.

Some people downplayed this incident as unrepresentative of "real" Rastas. Others asked, along with Prime Minister Kenny Anthony of St. Lucia: "The question is, if the church is the first victim, who is the next?"

YARDY’S BATTYMAN OBSESSION

The battyman would be a good bet. The battyman, i.e. homosexuals, have been the focal point for more fire burning than any other group or institution. Lately this trend has gotten ugly. One of the songs on the "Love and Rebellion" special was Beenie Man’s "Damn," in which his first words are: "I’m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays."

Come again?

There are many DJs and listeners who share this virulent homophobia, of course. Others are just interested in the vibes of the music, the beats, and don’t question the message. Still others may choose to look the other way, even though they disagree. Especially a foreign (as Jamaicans call the world outside their island), many want to prove that they are down. Criticizing burn battyman music would be seen as proof of having gone soft, of having been corrupted by Babylon. In Jamaica, it seems almost impossible to criticize such lyrics within the culture, without facing accusations of being out of touch (such as uptown intellectuals, etc.), or gay. Beenie Man himself went through this a few years ago. Calling for the execution of gays may just be the way that Beenie Man, ever the chameleon, seeks to re-establish credibility, after cutting some tunes (such as "Better Learn") that seem critical of the "burn down the queer" mindset.

But the culture is changing, in part because ground zero of dancehall reggae cannot clearly be located in Jamaica anymore. Jamaica has spread out to off-shore communities like Miami, Toronto, London, and New York. And non-Jamaicans, especially Europeans and Americans, play an ever more important role in the production, promotion, distribution, and consumption of the music. The music’s audience is changing, and there is an evolution of the consciousness of people within the culture. For instance, my Idren DJ RJ in Texan for many years shared the homophobia that is widespread in mid-America. Yet the spiritual values and equal rights philosophy of Rasta Reggae have had a transformative power in his life, leading him to explore other spiritual and political philosophies. So when we did the "Love and Rebellion" special, RJ felt that the time was right to "call Beenie Man on the carpet." "It doesn’t sound like love and righteousness to me," RJ said about the burn battyman fashion.

Lyrical murder of the battyman is of course nothing new in Jamaican culture. Buju Banton caused an international firestorm in 1992 with his hit "Boom Bye Bye" (in a battyboy’s head). You can get a sense of how deeply rooted anti-gay prejudice is in Jamaican culture by watching Isaac Julien’s film A Darker Shade of Black, filmed in the wake of the foreign outcry against Buju. I think what has changed the most is a growing awareness among long-time promoters of reggae that this is our culture too. If it is a culture we live in, even part-time, then we have a duty to think critically about the kinds of messages we pass on to our audience; to the next generation.

There comes a time when intolerance becomes intolerable. Can we tolerate the intolerant? Maybe, but increasingly, many of us also feel empowered to resist intolerance, not by condemning it, but by pointing to more attractive alternatives. This means we can’t put our heads in the sand. We have to be clear-eyed about the source of intolerance in the culture we love, that for many of us has become a home.

There is an enormous gap between dancehall’s core audience, a yard (as Jamaican’s refer to their island nation), and reggae’s international audience, which is still dominated by roots and culture fans. The core audience is what those a foreign would call homophobic, and often militantly, proudly so. I’ve reasoned with Jamaican artists who have realized that they can’t voice these sentiments while on tour in Europe or the U.S. But this doesn’t change the way they think, or more to the point, the way they play to the demand for burn-battyman tunes in Jamaica.

"A virulent anti-gay virus infects Jamaica, a too-well-loved disease for anyone to easily eradicate," writes Stephen Foehr in his new book, Jamaican Warriors. True dat, a well-loved disease. One suspects that the more elites in Jamaica or fans a foreign try to stamp out the rootman’s toxic hatred of the battyman, the more yardies will intensify their rhetorical war against the battyman. Above all, because they know there is a tailor-made audience for this message.

Case in point: in March 2001, a burn-battyman song by the quartet TOK, "Chi Chi Man," hit #1 on numerous dancehall charts in Kingston, Miami, and New York. Like Beenie Man’s "Damn," this chart-topper is not just intolerant of gays, it advocates their eradication. The song has been hugely popular, and has even been used in a recent political campaign in Jamaica. But one can’t just blame this phenomenon on yardies: TOK has been touring the United States, and some of its most enthusiastic audiences have been in places like New York and Miami, where the crossover between hip-hop and dancehall, in matters of musical style, sartorial flair, and shared worldview (including contempt for gays) is increasingly evident.

Many artists and consumers in dancehall and rap share a tendency to pose as revolutionary critics of the mainstream, even as they wallow in the excesses of mainstream materialism. And on both sides, one finds both artists and fans who are enamored of gangsterism, bad boy bidness, the rude boy lifestyle, as it was known in Bob Marley’s youth. The line between between rhetorical and real-life gangsterism is hard to draw. Even artists who deny that their words have an influence will freely admit that it is of great benefit, both in terms of artistic credibility and often in terms of sales, to have a background in real-life thuggery. Thus, Tupac Shakur has been turned posthumously into a sort of combination of revolutionary/black messiah, his tremendously profitable iconic status made possible by his violent death, foretold and indeed solicited by his glorifications of the thug life.

There are similar dynamics at work in Jamaican dancehall, with a social context that lends emotional currency to artists’ fire burn rants. There have been reports of churches being burned down in Jamaica, and youths setting fire to each other’s clothes at concerts. One mother reportedly awakened to find her house on fire, and her daughter chanting the lyrics to Capleton’s "More Fire." Public concern with the incendiary influence of the dancehall firemen has reached such a level that P.J. Patterson, Jamaica’s first black Prime Minister, has publicly criticized the fire burn mania, and has even met with Capleton to encourage him (unsuccessfully) to tone down his fiya bun routine.

YOU TOO, GARNETT? WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

In early 2001 Greensleeves released a 12" single of a recording by the late Garnett Silk, "What Do You Say?" The lyrics sent shock waves through parts of reggae’s transnational community, already abuzz with news of the St. Lucia murder, and other reports of fiya bun run amuk. The hook of Garnett’s tune, repeated over and over, was:

"You don’t love Haile Selassie?

Fire gonna burn You and Your Family"

The lyrics caused an uproar among some American fans, which to me actually seemed out of proportion to the lyrics, which are fairly innocuous, by Jamaican standards. I reasoned about this with my Idren Scottie McDonald, who hosts a reggae show on KTRU in Houston. He seemed to feel betrayed, as if this song had destroyed or tarnished all of Garnett’s other works. My email box buzzed with similar messages from other people in reggae’s well-connected electronic community. Clearly the reaction to Garnett’s use of fire burn lyrics was driven by the contrast they provided with Garnett’s international reputation, which is as a Rasta Prophet.

For roots fans, there is often an undertone of messianic aspirations in the feelings they express about an artist like Garnett. Like Tupac, Garnett became an icon by dying young. The script, the social myth, is that prophets and revolutionaries die young, and dying young becomes the proof of prophetic or revolutionary status. But while Tupac traded on his "thug life" reputation to gain a posthumous reputation as a revolutionary [against the system of white supremacy and/or capitalism, it is claimed, either explicitly or implicitly], Garnett in life wore the mantle of spiritual prophet. This became magnified, in death, with messianic overtones.

What a shock then, for some true believers, when recently a more complete picture began emerging of Garnett Silk as a dancehall artist. In a review of Garnett Silk Meets the Conquering Lion, I contrasted the hype of the liner notes, with Garnett being "hailed as Reggae’s New Messiah," and the actual lyrics of these dub plates, many of which were "sound boy murders," with Garnett lyrically "killing" rival sounds.

This could be "forgiven," as these dub plates were cut when Garnett was a young artist, emerging from the dancehalls. By contrast, "What Do You Say" is supposed to have been one of the last tunes Garnett cut. For those who see him as a prophet of peace and righteousness, it seems to work against everything he stood for. Then there is the strange irony of these lyrics sounding almost like a curse which boomeranged: Garnet and his mother died in a house fire. I hesitate from drawing the obvious moral to the story, but it seems to demand to be spoken: Live by the fire, by fire you will die. "Fire gonna burn you and your family."

But I think there’s another moral here. The extent to which even a "prophet" like Garnett Silk was rooted in dancehall’s "fire burn" mentality should be a wake-up call for international fans of reggae. Too many have latched on to a primarily "for export" version of reggae, and have lost sight of the culture from which the music comes. Fortunately, interest in dancehall and Jamaican culture has been spreading. Numerous books about this turf have been published over the last two years. One of the best is Norman Stolzoff’s Wake the Town and Tell the People. Stolzoff’s book is a persuasive, historically grounded study of Dancehall Culture in Jamaica. It could help reggae’s fans (and critics) grasp the reasons for, and rhetorical uses of, phenomena such as Fiya Bun and Sound Boy Killings. A deeper understanding of this culture, I think, would give us a greater appreciation for the evolution of an artist like Garnett Silk, the distance he traveled to create visionary songs like "The Rod."

Still, I do not want to downplay a spirit of intolerance that has taken hold. Young rasses have been burning without distinction: burning Jesus and the Bible, even though Selassie was a devout Christian (hear Morgan Heritage’s take on this in "Dem a Bawl"); according to Jabulani Tafari, burning Marcus Garvey and even burning those that burn, like Capleton.

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