Gays Block Queen Ifrica

REGGAE enter­tain­er Queen Ifrica has been pulled as head­lin­er at Amazura Concert Hall in Queens, New York, tonight, due to mount­ing pres­sure from the gay com­mu­ni­ty. Six oth­er Jamaican female acts are also booked to perform.

“She is not per­form­ing… every­one else will. The show will go on though,” John Rios, man­ag­er of Amazura Concert Hall, told the Jamaica Observer. The man­ag­er said his mega club is opened to every­one as “there’s no dis­crim­i­na­tion”. “We’re not prej­u­diced against any­one. I wel­come the gay com­mu­ni­ty and we get along with every­body,” he said. Yesterday, a 200-strong protest was held out­side the club. The organ­is­ers called for a halt of the ‘Invasion of the Queens’ show, which they said con­tributes to vio­lence against les­bians, gays, bi-sex­u­als and trans­gen­ders. According the New York Daily News, the protest is being led by open­ly gay City Councilman Daniel Dromm. “We don’t need homo­pho­bic peo­ple like her com­ing to Queens to spread their mes­sage of hate,” he was quot­ed as saying.

Queen Ifrica, 39, whose giv­en name is Ventrice Morgan, is known for her stri­dent lyrics, includ­ing Keep It To Yourself, Daddy and Times Like These. The Rastafari enter­tain­er expressed her dis­ap­proval of the homo­sex­u­al lifestyle at last year’s Independence Grand Gala cel­e­bra­tions in August which prompt­ed cul­ture min­is­ter Lisa Hanna to express regret at the utter­ances. In her response, Ifrica’s man­age­ment team released a state­ment which, in part, read: “Queen Ifrica express­es that, while she remains ground­ed in her morals which espous­es het­ero­sex­u­al­i­ty, she wants to make it abun­dant­ly and emphat­i­cal­ly clear that she does not con­done nor has ever sup­port­ed or advo­cat­ed vio­lence against any group or com­mu­ni­ty, whether implic­it­ly or explicitly.”

This is not the first time that the Jamaican act has felt the wrath of the gay com­mu­ni­ty. Last August, Ifrica was pulled from the line-up of Rastafest in Canada fol­low­ing protests by the gay com­mu­ni­ty there. As well, Buju Banton, who is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a 10-year sen­tence in an American prison on drug-relat­ed charges, had his con­certs repeat­ed­ly can­celled due to gay protests through­out the United States.http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​G​a​y​s​-​b​l​o​c​k​-​Q​u​e​e​n​-​I​f​r​i​c​a​-​_​1​6​7​3​5​516