Tanya Stephens Defends Koffee For Speaking Out On George Floyd
The comments section of a Jamaica Star article on dancehall artistes’ response to the unfortunate death of George Floyd in the US has drawn an explicit laden video response from veteran dancehall songstress, Tanya Stephens.
The article was about Koffee and other well-known artistes weighing in on the death of Floyd.
The article quoted Koffee as saying: “As we witness the constant injustice towards our brothers and sisters, we must stand together. I may be young, but I can fully feel the weight of the decades of oppression and abuse towards not only Black Americans, but Black people all over the world. Let George Floyd’s life be not in vein. We must fight for freedom and fight against injustice. We are all in this together. None of us are free until all of us are free.”
Stephens, who was tagged in the comments of the article on Instagram, said she went through the responses because she wanted to understand how the people of Jamaica were thinking. The comments section under the article has since been closed off.
On an Instagram Live video, Stephens said she was expecting negativity because she felt Jamaicans, in general, were not supportive. “The first few comments I read under it were disparaging artistes,” she said.
She added that many of the comments accused Jamaican artistes of not getting involved in any local issues but always supporting US ones. She said that was “ a lie.”
“Artist lend them voice, them lend cash out of there pocket, they lend them name, their credibility, the lend everything tangible wuh them have,” she added.
Stephens reasoned that it was only natural that artistes would comment about worldwide events because that’s where they ply their trade. Stephens added that if Jamaican artistes only played to Jamaican audiences their careers would fail.
“Get out of your feelings,” she chastised adding that Jamaicans made things extremely difficult for local artistes because of all the negativity that is spewed towards them. “We care bout we yard brethren, we live here,” she said but noted that she couldn’t speak for every artiste.
“First and foremost we are humans, we are adults, we are individuals and then we are artistes. We are citizens of the world,” a clearly emotional Stephens said.
The It’s a Pity singer also said that no one should try to take away her right to cry with America as many artistes have relatives living there and are closely associated with the US.
She added that when she spoke about issues affecting Jamaica recently she was told that she was a crackhead and that she needed a new wig, which she jokingly added that she’d got for the video.
She defended Koffee’s decision to comment on the incident saying that Koffee was an international star who needed to let her fans around the world know how she feels. “Unuh need fee stop expect we fee fix Jamaica and unuh go getup and go fix Jamaica,” she said.
Stephens ended the video by appealing to Jamaicans to allow artistes to “live and breathe” and freely express their opinions without having to worry about the negativity that many throw at them for their feelings.