Reggae star Buju Banton has agreed to sign up to the previously reported Reggae Compassionate Act, a recently launched 'pledge' drafted by gay rights activist Peter Tatchell in which artists commit to "respect and uphold the rights of all individuals to live without violence due to their religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or gender".
As previously reported, the pledge follows a long running campaign led by gay rights groups around the world against various reggae and dancehall acts who have in the past released songs that incite violence against gay men. That campaign led to a string of concerts around the world featuring the likes of Banton being cancelled after many venues became nervous of the bad press that could be generated against them by groups who objected to those artists' public homophobia.
The gay rights groups called on artists like Banton to publicly renounce previous homophobic remarks. A commitment by key reggae record labels to not re-release any of the offending tracks, and to encourage their artists to no longer perform the offending lyrics, enabled a truce for a time, though some continued their campaign against the reggae stars arguing that the move by the labels was commercially motivated, and didn't involve the offending artists themselves.
Tatchell's 'pledge' is targeted at the offending artists directly, though is cleverly worded so that the reggae stars can publicly denounce homophobia in music, but without making any comment about their opinions on homosexuality in general. Beenie Man and Sizzla quickly signed up to the 'Act', and Banton followed suit this week.
That said, because of the careful wording of the pledge, some in the gay rights community may continue to object to stars like Banton, claiming his participation in the Act is again commercially motivated and does not represent any change in opinion. DJ Kemist of reggae label Xtremix Records admitted to the Guardian this week: "I can see why he's done it. He doesn't want to jeopardise his whole career over just a few songs. But it doesn't mean it's going to change any of his opinions".