A few weeks ago I did a post on Buju Banton. If you didn’t read that post, please click here to get caught up to speed. In the post I mentioned that Buju was one of the most controversial Jamaican artists and with good reason, he has made some songs that bothered people. One of the first songs he recorded that really got people mad, especially women, was “Love Me Browning” off of his 1992 album Mr. Mention (definitely a classic and worth getting…the “Love Me Browning” single came out in 1991 though). You see, in Jamaican Patois a Brownin‘ is a light-skinned woman and the song is describing Buju’s love for lighter skinned women, but anyone who is familiar with Jamaica knows that the majority of the people are darker in complexion. Darker-skinned women took offense to the hit song and Buju moved quickly to create a song dedicated to the darker women of Jamaica appropriately called “Love Black Woman”.
Although, this song casued controversy in Jamaica in the early 90s, the roots of the controversy date back to slavery. More often than not, lighter-skinned people of African descent fared better in Jamaica and other parts of the New World. Many were able to move between the world of the slave and the slave master. As time went on and the slave masters left Jamaica, many of these lighter-skinned people became the island elite. This might be shocking to some, but this can be seen today in Jamaica and other post-emancipation societies. If you want to see this for yourself, head to Kingston and visit Downtown and then Uptown. This is a complex topic, but it is important to understand the roots of the controversy of Buju’s song. Not surprisingly, this incident would certainly not be the last time Buju Banton released a controversial song, but that is another blog post for another day.
One of the great things about both of “Love Me Browning” and “Love Black Woman”, is that they are great songs to learn Jamaican Slang/Patois. The whole Mr. Mention album is a Jamaican Slang Classic. The album has so many classic riddims, essential patois grammar and vocabulary and just hit track after hit track. Buju was on “fyah” at this point in his career, kind of like Mavado is now, even though their lyrics are so different.
If you want to learn more about Buju and Jamaican Patois, head over to www.jamaican-slang.com and pick up a copy of the Rastaman Vibration. The book is a wealth of knowledge and has a section about Buju in the book.
What? You thought I was going to leave you hangin’ without posting those classic Buju songs, not this time! Here they are:
Buju Banton – Love Me Browning
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Buju Banton – Love Black Woman
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