Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

For the sec­ond time a mat­ter of weeks, Trini­bad artiste Kman Sixx (Kashif Alexan­der) has been banned from per­form­ing in a neigh­bour­ing Caribbean coun­try.

Au­thor­i­ties in St Kitts and Nevis said Kman’s mu­sic con­tains ex­plic­it en­dorse­ments of vi­o­lence, pro­mo­tion of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and a glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of gang life and a per­for­mance could hurt pub­lic or­der and safe­ty. The Roy­al St Christo­pher (St Kitts) and Nevis Po­lice Force said in a state­ment that the de­ci­sion to ban the 23-year-old T&T artiste was based on a com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ment.

Kman was un­able to com­ment on the mat­ter yes­ter­day as he is cur­rent­ly in po­lice cus­tody. It is un­clear why he is be­ing ques­tioned by the po­lice and his man­age­ment team was un­will­ing to dis­close any in­for­ma­tion.

The artiste was due to be the head­line act at a con­cert in St Kitts on March 2. The de­ci­sion by the St Kitts Po­lice Force fol­lows sim­i­lar ac­tion by the au­thor­i­ties in Grena­da who de­cid­ed last month to re­strict Kman Sixx from per­form­ing on the is­land on Feb­ru­ary 6.

Kman Sixx was due to head­line the event Our Fete, host­ed by Roll­out Pro­mo­tions, The Cow­Pen Big Yard and Bo­go­zo Bar­ber­shop on the eve of Grena­da’s 50th in­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary. How­ev­er he was not grant­ed per­mis­sion to per­form on the is­land due to safe­ty con­cerns.

A se­nior of­fi­cial at the Roy­al Grena­da Po­lice Force said there were se­ri­ous con­cerns about a pos­si­ble spill over of the on­go­ing gang war­fare in T&T giv­en re­cent at­tempts on the life of the artiste.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Trini­bad singer said: “Trini­bad in­cludes a whole num­ber of artistes, like why is it on­ly Kman? I have not heard any oth­er artiste be­ing red-flagged yet.”

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, who al­so com­ment­ed on the ban, said St Kitts has the sov­er­eign right to en­force its laws to main­tain law and or­der. He re­called that T&T de­nied en­try to dance­hall star Boun­ty Killer at the height of the Gaza/Gul­ly ri­val­ry.

Mitchell said he did not see the ban as an em­bar­rass­ment to the coun­try but be­lieved the de­ci­sion could se­ri­ous­ly im­pact the Trini­bad genre.

“This can, how­ev­er, be seen as a se­ri­ous ob­sta­cle and threat to the fu­ture of Trini­bad mu­sic if Trini­bad artistes glo­ri­fy­ing gang and gun vi­o­lence are now no longer wel­comed in oth­er coun­tries. It strikes a death blow to the genre if artists can­not ex­port or ex­pand their earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty, there­fore they must ad­just and adapt,” he said.

“More than that, re­gion­al­ly, states are more and more in­tol­er­ant to im­moral and vi­o­lent mu­sic as to­geth­er we all grap­ple with in­creas­ing vi­o­lent crime.”

Asked whether T&T should clamp down on vi­o­lent mu­sic on the air­waves, the min­is­ter said: “These songs aren’t played on the air­waves, but are dis­trib­uted on YouTube and oth­er so­cial me­dia plat­forms where the clamp­ing down is a mat­ter for the rules of en­gage­ment with those plat­forms.”

In re­sponse to the min­is­ter’s com­ments, a mem­ber of Kman Sixx’s man­age­ment team, who asked not to be named, agreed that Trini­bad mu­sic was be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly vi­o­lent, but be­lieved that many peo­ple seemed to pre­fer lis­ten­ing to vi­o­lent mu­sic rather ‘good’ mu­sic.

“If there are peo­ple who are on­ly lis­ten­ing to vi­o­lent mu­sic - there’s so much good mu­sic out there - why are you blam­ing the artiste for the crime sit­u­a­tion?” the artiste’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive asked.

“This has been in ex­is­tence for so long, why is this now be­com­ing an is­sue? I know peo­ple who sing vi­o­lent mu­sic and they come to Trinidad reg­u­lar­ly, so why is it you putting a stop to the sit­u­a­tion for Kman, your own artiste?”

The re­cent bans are the lat­est con­tro­ver­sies to em­broil the artiste who sur­vived two shoot­ing in­ci­dents late last year.

Last De­cem­ber, in what was deemed an as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt, three peo­ple who were trav­el­ling in a ve­hi­cle with Kman Sixx were shot dead af­ter armed men chased them along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way. A fourth per­son, 51-year-old Lana Sa­hadeo, was killed when a stray bul­let en­tered her Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn home.

In Oc­to­ber the artiste was in­jured in a shoot­ing in­ci­dent on Ari­api­ta Av­enue which claimed the life of DJ Glob­al (Kaveer Alvin Nan­dram), 28.