CARISA LEE

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Trin­bag­on­ian rap­per Nic­ki Mi­naj has joined the con­ver­sa­tion sur­round­ing the name of ac­tor Michael B Jor­dan’s rum, J’Ou­vert. Mi­naj yes­ter­day used a screen­shot of one of the many Trinida­di­ans who at­tempt­ed to clar­i­fy why the us­age of the name was of­fen­sive on so­cial me­dia and asked Jor­dan to change it.

In her cap­tion, Mi­naj wrote, “I’m sure MBJ didn’t in­ten­tion­al­ly do any­thing he thought Caribbean peo­ple would find of­fen­sive, but now that you are aware change the name and con­tin­ue to flour­ish and prop­er.”

Over 200,000 peo­ple liked the post, with many agree­ing with the No Frauds rap­per.

One per­son com­ment­ed, “The queen has spo­ken.”

An­oth­er wrote, “This is why I love you.”

The com­ment sec­tion was al­so filled with the Trinidad and To­ba­go flag emo­ji and many peo­ple thanked her for stand­ing up for what is right.

Ac­cord­ing to so­cial me­dia posts, Jor­dan launched J’Ou­vert Rum over the week­end and has ap­plied to trade­mark the name. A pe­ti­tion, ti­tled “Stop Michael B Jor­dan’s trade­mark of J’OU­VERT for his rum,” was start­ed on Change.org and over 10,000 peo­ple have al­ready signed it.

Since the news of Jor­dan’s new en­deav­our be­came pub­lic, sev­er­al lo­cal and re­gion­al na­tion­als have re­ferred to it as cul­tur­al ap­pro­pri­a­tion.

“Cul­tur­al ap­pro­pri­a­tion is the adop­tion of an el­e­ment or el­e­ments of one cul­ture or iden­ti­ty by mem­bers of an­oth­er cul­ture or iden­ti­ty.”

Xaria Rox­burgh, the per­son be­hind the post that Mi­naj screen­shot­ted and com­ment­ed on, wrote just that.

“It’s not just about the name, it’s what it rep­re­sents per­tain­ing to en­slave­ment and free­dom,” she wrote in all caps at the end of her post about J’Ou­vert’s his­to­ry.

Rox­burgh, who works at Guardian Me­dia, said she re­searched the top­ic be­fore post­ing and she didn’t think Mi­naj would see her post but was hap­py it was re­ceived well.

Love and Hip Hop At­lanta star and Trinida­di­an na­tion­al Kar­lie Redd al­so spoke out about the is­sue.

Michael B Jor­dan is yet to re­spond to the back­lash.