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Well, it’s been said, “it takes a village”, and the village of Humboldt came together and moved a mountain. We were able to reach Carol Bruno from People Productions this morning and had a nice conversation with her about our concerns.
She had met with Gil Miracle, the owner of Nocturnum, and they decided to cancel the Buju Banton performance scheduled for this Sunday night, October 11, 2009 due to all the negative feedback they have received. We want to thank everyone who took the time to email and call Carol and Gil with their concerns. We received many copies of emails that were so well written, coming from the hearts of our community members. It was very touching to read them all. Carol and Gil sent me this letter shortly after our phone call this morning:
October 5th, 2009
TO: Todd Larsen/ Queer Humboldt
FROM: Carol Bruno/ People Productions Gil Miracle/ NocturnumGreetings Todd, This email is to confirm to you that after lengthy consideration, Gil and myself decided that we will cancel the upcoming Buju Banton concert at the Nocturnum Nightclub scheduled for the October 11th, 2009. We have been diligently speaking with the management and various activists over the past two weeks in an effort to help establish a dialogue for discussions. We care about our local gay community.
Buju did issue a statement today that we have forwarded to you today, but it doesn’t change our decision. We will continue towards positive, constructive solutions. We regret any inconveniences this has caused to our community. We are very appreciative that Carol and Gil heard the community’s concerns and took this action. As you may or may not know, we are not alone in having Buju Banton’s concert’s cancelled. Just take a look at the list of cities that have cancelled his performances for his most recent tour: http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/ Buju Banton releases a press release today that can be found here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/buju-bantons-rasta-got-soul-us-tour-a-success-63562192.html. Buju’s record company’s press release includes the statement:
“Throughout my travels as an artist, I have witnessed first hand the senseless atrocities being suffered by innocent people around the world and my heart goes out to them. I do not condone violence against anyone, including gays, and I have spent my career rallying against violence and injustice through music. At this point, I can only hope that my body of work speaks for itself and that anyone still offended by the lyrics of my youth will take the time to explore my catalog or come to one of my shows before reducing my character and entire musical repertoire to a single song.” While we think this is a good first step, it certainly doesn’t address all his documented anti-gay statements and relatively recent performances taken place after “the lyrics off his youth” of his hateful song, “Boom Bye Bye”.
For details on the lyrics of the song, visit: http://www.jamaicancaves.org/boom-bye-bye-lyrics.html – Or hear him sing on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWa7fzeX3xo
We also want to recognize some of the local representatives we have here in Humboldt that were drafting a letter today in support of cancelling the performance. Supervisor Mark Lovelace, Supervisor Bonnie Neely, Eureka City Councilwoman Linda Atkins and Arcata City Councilman, Shane Brinton were the first to sign on to a drafted letter that was to be presented tomorrow at the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors 1:30pm meeting.
We also want to thank our local print and radio outlets. KMUD this morning featured David Cobb on the NoHum report speaking about Buju Banton’s scheduled performance. Tomorrow, Times Standard Reporter, Thadeus Greenson, will have an article in the Times Standard on the performance cancellation. And Bob Doran at the North Coast Journal has been in touch with us all weekend. We are lucky to live in such a wonderful community as we have here in Humboldt. Thank you all for your quick and genuine concern to this issue.
Yeah!!!! Screw the haters, get rid of them all!
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