Beenie Man Feels The Heat

Dance-hall reggae may be one of the hottest things thrumming in the U.S. club scene, but the genre's current headline act Beenie Man is also taking heat from gay activists for his violently homophobic lyrics. His song Damn includes the lyrics, "I'm dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays." And the activism seems to be working. A campaign called Stop Murder Music, launched by London-based OutRage, forced MTV to cancel an Aug. 28 performance in Miami by the Grammy Award--winning reggae artist. With the help of OutRage, activists in New York City are protesting performances by Beenie Man and three other artists scheduled for Sept. 3. In all, 30 Beenie Man and other reggae artists' shows in the U.S. and Europe have been canceled. "We're talking about someone who is saying you should burn gay people alive," says OutRage president Peter Tatchell.

But the outrage hasn't stopped there. Beenie Man is the focus of a criminal probe in Britain, where under the Public Order Act, it is unlawful to use threatening words to incite violence. "This is the first investigation of its kind," says Detective Clive Driscoll of London's Metropolitan Police. So far, activists haven't targeted the artist's main record label, Virgin Records. A spokesman for Virgin says the offending songs were released by an unaffiliated label.

--By Peter Bailey