Pride Toronto Says Having Queen Of Dancehall Spice On Stage Is A “Political Statement”
The Queen of Dancehall Spice performed for more than an hour at the controversial Pride Toronto Festival Weekend 2022, which was staged by the Canadian LGBTQ+ group Pride Toronto on Friday.
During the show’s opening ceremony, Sherwin Modeste, the Executive Director of Pride Toronto, referenced the Stonewall riots, which occurred in 1969 between New York police and LGBTQ+ protesters, when he expressed excitement that Spice was on their stage.
“Over 50 years ago, at the Stonewalls in New York, they said enough is enough, and today, having Spice on our stage, we are saying enough is enough,” Modeste declared.
Jamaican-born Dr. Andrew B. Campbell, who was tasked with introducing Spice to the stage, later added: “Spice being here, is more than just entertainment. It’s a political statement. It is saying to Dancehall and deejays and artists, who are homophobic, that we are not standing for homophobia and transphobia, anymore.”
“It is a political statement that Spice is standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community,” Campbell continued.
Spice then entered the stage with her first two tracks Romantic Mood and So Mi Like It , and midway through her performance, she paused to take aim at her Jamaican compatriots, who had objected to her performance at the event, even as she expressed her adulation for the LGBTQ+ community.
“First of all let me talk about coming to Toronto, [and] how much bashing I got to come here. Let’s talk about that. They didn’t want me to come here to perform for you guys! When I made the announcement that I am gonna be performing at Pride 2022, it became the biggest thing on the internet. They didn’t want me here!” she told the audience.
“But even if I was the only one from Jamaica to stand my grounds and stand up as a black woman to fight for my fans, to fight for what I believe in, to fight for all a you, I am standing here because I love all a you, and I know you love me too, because you came out in your tens and thousands,” she added.
During her stint, she invited audience members to join her on stage, as well as came down from the platform to mingle with the audience, belting out songs such as Cool It, Indicator, Frenz, Love Triangle (Pum Pum), Fight Ova Man, Jim Screechie, Needle Eye and Send It Up.
In November last year, after Toronto Pride announced that Spice would be the headliner for the show, she had come under fire from music selector Foota Hype and Dancehall/Reggae superstar Sizzla Kalonji.
At the time, Foota, in commenting on Spice’s participation in the Pride event and said he was ashamed of what she had done, and that “in all my 20+ years as an established product of Jamaica and dancehall and reggae music this is the first time I feel completely defeated ashamed embarrassed weak betrayed”.
A day later, Sizzla, in contending that ‘righteousness, Reggae and homosexuality do not go together’, had joined forces with Foota to denounce Spice’s headlining of the festival.
Foota’s opposition had caused a deep rift between himself and Spice and an ensuing tit-for-tat which eventually saw the Dancehall selector calling for a truce, claiming he did not want to reveal things that could be detrimental to her children’s psyche, this after his official Instagram page was deleted, following demands by Spice to remove the post with his commentary about her actions.
At one point, prior to Instagram deleting his page, Foota, who was the producer of Bounty Killer’s Nuh Friend Fish hit song, had posted the music video for the song Grab Up You H_d, an anti-buggery song recorded song by Spice in 2005, on the Straight Forward riddim, and reminded his fans of her anti-gay approach in her early Dancehall days.
However, Spice had shot back at the Dark Knight producer, pointing out that he was being duplicitous, as he had been, over the years proudly adorned himself in designer clothes for which the creators were also homosexuals. She had also posted several photos of Foota posing in several items of clothes from the fashion houses of European designers, she said were gay.
Months prior, Foota had accused some international record labels and their agents of insidiously using Reggae and Dancehall icons and the Rastafari culture as pawns, against their wishes, to promote what he described as the LGBTQ agenda.
The Cassava Piece native had said it was not right for female artistes to keep deceiving their fans into thinking they were straight, nor should they be singing Reggae or Dancehall as these genres were designated to, according to him, carry out the “works of the Almighty”.
The Dollars and Sense producer had also said he had unfollowed Macka Diamond, Lisa Hyper, Spice, and Shenseea, as they had, among other things, posted videos of men in female clothes, dancing to their songs, and he did not want their pages to “infect his brain”.
Pride Toronto 2022 will conclude this weekend, with what the LGBTQ group has described as “signature favorites” including the annual Trans March, Dyke March, Bi+ Pride Programming, Blockorama by Blackness Yes, Pride Parade, StreetFair, and “multiple stages featuring over 300 2SLGBTQ+ artists”.
Meanwhile, Shenseea is set to perform at Pride Island in New York today (June 25).