Grange Calls Out Buchanan For Using “Crude” Vybz Kartel Lyrics Against DPP
Vybz Kartel’s attorney Isat Buchanan is facing the wrath of Entertainment Minister Olivia “Babsy” Grange for what she says is “misogynistic, crude, nasty, sexist, low and disgraceful language” he used recently, in reference to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Paula Llewellyn.
Grange, who is also Minister of Gender Affairs and chair of the Jamaica Labour Party Women’s Caucus, in a news release this morning, called on Peoples National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding to “immediately fire” Buchanan, who chairs the PNP Human Rights Commission, for using lewd lines from Vybz Kartel’s The Menace (2021) to refer to Llewellyn, who is Jamaica’s chief prosecutor, when he appeared on an online platform recently.
According to the former Specs/Shang executive, Buchanan had made the misogynistic remarks “under the guise of quoting his client who’s incarcerated for murder.”
While Grange did not cite the words stated by Buchanan, who is seeking to free Vybz Kartel via the Privy Council, in an audio clip shared by Nationwide News Network, the attorney-at-law is heard telling the online host, during a discussion surrounding the debate about an increase in the retirement age for the DPP and the Auditor General, that he wanted to begin the discussion about the increase in the DPP’s retirement age by quoting the lyrics to Menace to Society, which he claimed was aimed at Llewellyn.
“It is a poetic rendition, that has Shakespearian marvel. And in the second verse he says: ‘speaking of c-cky, hey Paula, go suck a d-ck!’ That is a verse from Vybz Kartel. And I am sure he is saying that right now. Menace to Society. Would you like me to repeat it? Menace to society, verse two Vybz Kartel says: ‘speaking of c-cky, hey Paula, go suck a d-ck!’. That’s what he says in that song. It’s a very poetic song. You might want to look at It. So, I start the conversation there,” Buchanan declared.
In furthering her rebuke of Buchanan, Grange, who said she was “speaking for the JLP Women’s Caucus” said that she was “mindful not to appear to politicise the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions or the holder thereof”.
“However, right is right and wrong is wrong and the truth of the matter is if the holder of any office in the PNP or anywhere directed that comment at any female, we’d have condemned it and insisted that action be taken against him,” she affirmed.
Grange, who is a former manager of Bounty Killer, Shabba Ranks and Patra, also called on PNP president Mark Golding to “condemn Mr Buchanan’s posture”.
The former Deputy Leader of the JLP also said she would be inviting the disciplinary committee of the General Legal Council to “immediately probe Isat Buchanan for breach of the canons of the profession”.
The Central St Catherine Member of Parliament also stated that she was “disappointed that an attorney and chairman of a body within the PNP could bring himself to utter such insolent and vile comments in reference to a woman” and that “the comments represent a new low in the treatment of women by men in the PNP”.
Grange further stated that Golding ought to “take responsibility for the harassment and bullying that the DPP has faced”.
“It is Mr Golding’s own action to politicise the DPP that has created the environment for some men in the leadership of the PNP to believe they can refer to this woman public servant using hateful, vile, harassing and bullying language. The comments have disrespected every woman in leadership across Jamaica and must concern every well-thinking man in politics and the wider society,” she stated.
According to Grange, she is also inviting all women in leadership, including PNP Chairman Dr Angela Brown Burke and the PNP Women’s Movement President Patricia Duncan Sutherland, to join her in condemning what she said was “Mr. Buchanan’s vile and inappropriate rhetoric against another woman in leadership, regardless of the tension that may exist between the government and the opposition on the matter”.
Kartel’s song The Menace appeared on his 2021 album Born Fi Dis.