HARARE - Controversial Jamaican reggae star Sizzla Kalonji has been rewarded with a farm for singing at President Robert Mugabe's lavish 86th birthday party in February. Rather than paying the bill, Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party handed the artist who denies he is on the run from gun crimes charges back home a farm in central Chegutu, according to reports in state media.
His publicist Olimatta Taal told Zimbabwe’s official media: “Instead of giving him cash (for his performances] they gave him land. It is very honourable that he would take land instead of cash.”
Sizzla, 34, has called on Mugabe to “champion the cause of the return of the African people from the gates of hell they are living in in Jamaica and the Caribbean,” the pro-Zanu-PF Mail reported. “I think he’s a good president, kind to his nation, just and true,” Sizzla said of Mugabe last month.
The reggae star is apparently unaffected by just-enacted indigenisation laws, which say that new entrants into the agriculture sector have to be black Zimbabweans.
“Sizzla here to stay”, the newspaper proudly boasted. The Mail claimed that the singer who gained notoriety for his anti-gay lyrics “was the latest and most important visitor to be swayed by the infectious Zimbabwean touch”.
Sizzla’s publicist said the Zimbabwe move had nothing to do with allegations that he was on the run from Jamaican authorities for gun crimes allegedly committed less than a month before Mr Mugabe’s party.
“He (Sizzla] laughed when he heard the allegations,” Olimatta Taal was quoted as saying. “He doesn’t take it to heart.”
The Jamaica Star online said the singer born Miguel Orlando Collins was arrested by police in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, on 29 January in connection with a shooting incident. He was released a day later when witnesses did not come forward.
A police spokesman said then that investigations were ongoing and suggested Sizzla “could be detained in the future, if the need arises”.
Sizzla had to abort a UK tour in 2004 after Scotland Yard launched investigations into his homophobic lyrics. One of his songs, Pump Up, includes the Jamaican patois lyrics “fire fi di man dem weh go ride man behind”, translated by gay rights group Outrage! as “burn the men who have sex with men”.
Post published in: Music