| Behind the Reggae Compassionate Act ..."The signatures were obtained on our behalf by the U.K. reggae promoter Eddie Brown of Pride Music," Tatchell told Gay City News, adding, "I have total confidence that he obtained their real signatures." Tatchell explained to this reporter how the stop-gay-hate agreement was reached with the Jamaican singer-songwriters. "Negotiations over the RCA began in March this year," he said, recounting how, "Eddie Brown of Pride Music U.K. - not a gay company despite the name, but a straight reggae promotion and PR firm - approached me expressing concern that the 'murder music' tag was harming the Jamaican music industry. He admitted the SMM boycott campaign had hit the artists hard financially and also damaged promoters like him. He offered to try to broker a deal to end the singers' incitements to murder LGBTs . Our aim is to stop murder music, so we agreed to cooperate. Eddie acted as the go-between." Then, Tatchell said, "Within the framework agreed with J-Flag, OutRage!, and BGMAG, Dennis Carney of BGMAG and I drafted the statement, and I sent it to Eddie Brown. Our draft consciously pitched it to reject all hatred and violence, and to appeal to reggae's tradition of one love, peace, and justice." After that, Tatchell told me, "Eddie forwarded our version to the singers and to his fellow reggae promoters. The artists rejected our first draft and we rejected the revised version they sent back to us. The title Reggae Compassionate Act was the idea of Eddie and his fellow promoters. Eventually, Eddie and his colleagues accepted our second draft, which was a slightly softer-worded version than the first. Nevertheless, it included all the essential points we wanted. He then put our new version to the singers on our behalf. One by one the four artists agreed to sign it." According to Tatchell, "Eddie arranged the actual signatures with the artists while some of them were in Jamaica and while others were on tour. He negotiated face-to-face with some of their managements. The four signed agreements were delivered to him. He then sent us PDFs of these signed documents, which I have put on my Web site." Tatchell added, "Eddie is totally confident that all four artists have signed - and we have their signatures, including Banton's and Beenie Man's, to prove it. Eddie also believes that more dancehall stars will eventually sign up to the RCA."(extract from Gay City News) The Reggae Compassionate Act was negotiated by Eddie Brown of Pride Music UK, with the support of the promoters Michel Jovanovic (Mediacom France), Klaus Maack (Contour Germany), Peter Senders (Panic Productions Holland), Fabrizio Pompeo (Tour de Force Italy), Julian Garcia (Roots and Vibes Spain) and Tim Badejo (Dubble Bubble Scandinavia). (extract from UK Gay News) |