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And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week
CMU Beef Of The Week #264: Shaggy v Islamic State
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 10 July 2015
Now, you don’t need me, a pop beef correspondent, to tell you that the rise of Islamic State is a complex issue. Just what we’re supposed to call the terrorist group and the region they now control is a can of worms. The BBC recently refused a call by politicians to use the term “Daesh”, opting instead for “the Islamic State group” or “the so-called Islamic State”. Others are using IS or ISIL. Shaggy, for what it’s worth, is still saying ISIS.
Asked by the Miami New Times who he thinks should “go fuck themselves” – the title of a recent single being ‘Go Fuck Yourself’ – he quickly responded: “ISIS can go fuck themselves. That’s some crazy shit what they’re doing. It’s horrible, man. I don’t get that much hate. I just don’t get that level of evil. I can’t understand it”.
He added: “I get someone having a cause. I get somebody fighting for their cause. And I get that people struggle; I get that they suffer. But how does that justify killing your brother? Taking their heads off and filming it… That’s a different level of evil right there”.
But Shaggy has a solution. In fact, he’s planned out a whole way to bring IS down. A military solution based on his time as a member of the US Marine Corps you say? No. It’s a solution based on his experience in music. And before you say it, no, he isn’t just going to advise them to say, “It wasn’t me”.
“If you’re able to cut a man’s head off, you’re sick”, he continued. “But music evokes emotion. So if they’re listening to Shaggy music or reggae music, they’re not going to want to cut somebody’s head off”.
He continued: “There’re two things you want to do when you listen to reggae: you get somebody pregnant or you’re fucking high. High people don’t want to kill nothing; they want to love. They need to bag some Jamaican weed and distribute it amongst ISIS. I guarantee there won’t be any more wars out there”.
Now you might think that’s all a bit flippant of Shaggy, given the complexities and horrors of the conflict in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Though if we start examining his words then people might start asking questions about this whole article. So let’s just park it here shall we?
