Beenie Man exhilarates Kampala

There have been fountains of tales about Beenie Man being controversial – and revellers at his show at Kyadondo Rugby Club on Saturday got a piece of it.

The King of Dancehall stuck a sword of words into gay people through singing and talking.
“In my family, we don’t have any gay person but if you’re gay, my brother that’s not my fault,” he said as he performed his song Mi Nah Wallah, in which he says he would like to cut the throats of all gay men.

George Bush and Bin Laden were also at the receiving end of the Jamaican’s wrath calling on the audience to say “murderer” as he sang about the pair’s warfare.

The adrenalin-charged 36-year-old also served our eyes with some raunchy moves by dry-humping the back-up dancers and also asked whoever wanted sex that night to put their hands in the air – almost everybody did.

The controversial words aside, Beenie Man was at the top of his game performance-wise, save for performing most of his songs halfway. He came on stage at around 11.30 p.m. and it took him just five minutes to remove his jacket as he sweated profusely. He took the audience on a music journey of one and half hours with an intense harp/guitar delivery from a Jamaican band he hired a few days to the concert, as he said he had sacked his band.

His head held high, dread-locks swaying east to west and vice-versa, body vibrating and right foot stomping, Beenie Man showed he is the best interpreter of dancehall music.

After singing a few of his songs including Who Am I, Dude, King of the Dancehall and Gals Dem Suga, Beenie sampled a few songs, from the likes of Alicia Key’s No One to Bob Marley’s Turn Your Lights Down Low and Chaka Demus’ Bam Bam. He also paid tribute to Michael Jackson by doing break dance moves on the Billie Jean instrumental.

Cindy joined Beenie Man to do Dude with the former Blu3 girl standing in for Miss Thing, whilst Jackie of Blu3 stood in for the late Natasja as the Jamaican sang Better than Dem.

The show began with a set of passionate local artistes who were clearly performing for Beenie Man. All local artistes put in impressive performances as they fought for supremacy with Good Lyfe, Bobi Wine, Bebe Cool and Jose Chameleone taking centre stage.

Only the meeting of George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would generate higher temperatures than when Bebe Cool meets Mowzey and Weasel – they, as expected, targeted each other.

Rabadaba also brought down the house with his unique style that he calls Uga ragga.

The show was sponsored by Pepsi and it doubled as the Crown Beverages’ Chamuka Keys Finale with three RAV4 winners presented on stage to join 17 previous winners in receiving their car log books.