Buju Banton

MARK 'Buju Banton' Myrie was ebullient and inclusionary when he presented his Rasta Got Soul album to an adoring crowd at the Undercroft, University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, on April 22.

At the launch, responding to a question from the audience about the target market for the 13-track set, Buju said "Everybody - the young, the old, the gay, the lesbian, the obese, the slim".

And he took it to the 'everybody' who wished to attend his concert in the US, the deejay's seven-week Rasta Got Soul US tour, starting on September 12 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and slated to end on November 1 in Orlando, Florida/

But it wasn't the Gargamel's (as Buju is also known to the music-loving public) latest collection, which includes Magic City, which the gay community in the United States was concerned with.

It was the near two-decade old Boom Bye Bye and they made their presence felt with protests which led to concert cancellations and venue changes.

One website, parodies the cover of Rasta Got Soul, adjusting it to 'Rasta Got Hate', gives the tour itinerary and invites interested persons to "log on to update local information and organise a protest or venue boycott".

cancellations

Among the cancellations were an October 8 date at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, Utah, while there were reportedly three venue changes for the late September dates in Richmond, Virginia.

Then Buju met with repre-sentatives of the gay community in San Francisco, California, on October 13, and the tsunami from that unprecedented face-to-face encounter is still rocking 'yard'.

Teddy Laidley, tour coordinator and host of the radio programme 'Inside The Music Biz', explained to The Sunday Gleaner the basic economics of touring and said that the cancellations must have hit Buju in the pocket.

He said that for each tour an artiste does, an income-and-expenditure projection is drawn up. Laidley said that some dates pay more than others, with Monday and Tuesday nights being typically low turnout or 'dead' nights.

"If these dates (Mondays and Tuesdays) are the ones affected, it is not so bad," Laidley said, categorising the income from those shows as just money to offset expenses.

"It will save you from taking money out of your pocket," he said.

However, if the artiste has been advanced a portion of his or her fee for a high-paying show, which is then cancelled, "you are in a hole. You have to pay staff (which includes band members and technical crew), buses and so on. If your tour is not sponsored, it is coming out of your pocket".

"Buju must have lost money," Laidley said.

While there is no dollar figure yet on the loss, music insiders say it could be tens of thousands of US dollars.