Great Dancehall Freezout of 2010
Why are many of Jamaica's biggest acts now barred from entering the U.S.?
When word spread on April 1 that the U.S. Embassy in Kingston was stripping dancehall stars Aidonia, Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, and Mavado of their visas, many Jamaicans figured the news for a joke—just more fodder for Clovis, the Jamaica Observer cartoonist whose satirical barbs target trouble-prone musicians just as often as inept politicians. For the artists themselves, though, it was no laughing matter. "It was a big shock for us," says Lav Lawrence, Aidonia's brother/manager. "These are maybe four of the five top artists right now. They're ambassadors for the country."
As such, all four are remarkably problematic ambassadors: Each has come under great scrutiny at home and abroad for their controversial lyrics and what seems like a never-ending cycle of feuds with one another. Bounty Killer has racked up a litany of arrests over the years, adding one for allegedly assaulting his longtime girlfriend just days after the U.S. Embassy edict. Beenie Man was busted for marijuana possession Stateside in 2000. Aidonia and Mavado were both apprehended on gun charges in Jamaica in 2008. But no convictions have resulted from any of these crimes, in either country. That, and the timing of the revocations—just weeks after prominent Jamaican businessman Wayne Chen lost his own visa—has led many observers to conclude that the cancellations were de facto sanctions, prompted by the Jamaican government's dawdling on the U.S. request to extradite politically connected Kingston druglord Chistopher "Dudus" Coke, a debacle that steadily heightened tensions between the two countries for nearly a year before his capture in Kingston last week.