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Uganda: Elephant Man And the Height of Vulgarity
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New Vision (Kampala)
COLUMN
3 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Timothy Bukumunhe
Kampala
I would like to think I am a hardened man. In the 1982 movie First Blood, Col. Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna) tells Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy): "I trained John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone). I trained him to eat things that would even make a Billy-goat puke." And I thought I was hard in that I have seen things that would probably make Joseph Kony puke
Well that was until met a chap I had never heard of at the Silk Street Jam last weekend. The chap went by the names of Elephant Man aka Ele from the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean.
Ele, so I was to find out, was a ragga star who had rolled out a couple of hits from Pon De river, Pon De bank (whatever the song was about I do not have the faintest idea) to Five O.
Ele was to be the centre of attraction at the jam. And because of his status as a star, the organisers of the show had constructed a small marquee at the back of the stage that was to act as his VIP lounge. It was furnished with leather sofas, a rack of fresh towels, more than a mini-bar of assorted beers and a table laden with the finest scotch.
When Ele finally turned up, he looked anything but a star. He didn't look as masterful as, say Wyclef Jean or Lucky Dube. With his red- and orange-braided hair, complete with beads, he looked more like the star clown who had come to entertain the teenage girls with strawberry-size boobs and metal in their mouths caging their teeth together. The only thing that was missing was the bouncing castle where he would do his entertaining from.
But like the superstar that he and the full house at the Street Jam reckoned that he was, Ele did not come alone. That would be unthinkable. He needed an entourage. There was the chap with a camcorder.
His job description was to film him backstage and on stage. There was another chap whose job it was to hold the stack of towels. Then there was the tall Ali Baba-looking chap, complete with green robe, who played the role of the man with the roving eye! And his job description? To look for chicks for Ele, the superstar.
Lastly, there was the bag man, much like President Museveni's aide-de-camp who walks behind him carrying the president's briefcase. Except that in the case of Ele, his aide-de-camp was not carrying a briefcase, but a plastic bag.
In the VIP tent before Ele went on stage, he was a man on the edge. He looked scared, jittery and uncertain of himself and came across as a man who had been on the run for a while and who half-expected the long arm of the law to break into his marquee and arrest him.
As the the curtain raisers peformed, Ele's aide de camp was sitting in one corner doing his job - rolling up reefer after reefer for the superstar. Ali Baba had at this time commandeered enough chicks for Ele to lust on - even though, for the time being, the lusting was being done with his eyes.
With his body pumped up and intoxicated, Ele was ready to take to the stage.
But then something happened. Somebody changed the script because it was just not supposed to happen. I mean here were are, Ele stubbing out his joint and downing a quarter of a glass of scotch and what does he do next?
He asks all of us to stand up and hold hands while he says a prayer! Did any of you see that coming? I bet you didn't because even I who was there and swaying next to the gates of heaven from the fumes of his joint was at a loss for words.
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With that, Ele took to the stage and there he displayed a perfect command of the English language - shouting out the word "f**k" at every possible opportunity. There were so many "f**k's" in the air that I was startled when he decided to employ a different word - the word "weed".
For Ele, his performance centred round profanity. While his songs went down well with the crowd, he was nevertheless vulgar.
Some of his antics on stage were deplorable. But Ele is a superstar. We hope that Buchaman, who rubbed shoulders with Ele, does not take to same profanity.
I agree totally with your comments about his actions, that is typical elephant man. As a Jamaican myself I am not too proud of his method of musical expression.Firstly I must say Ele is not a reggae but a dancehall artist. Reggae music is a conscious, uplifting and spiritual music sung by artist such as Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Lucky Dube etc.Reggae from it's creation has been the voice of the oppressed and it has been at the forefront of the African liberation cry. I really find it sad that promoters tend to be more attracted to dancehall music when... [Read Full Text]
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