Entertainment

Capleton barred from venues in France

BY LEIGHTON LEVY, Freelance Writer

Capleton - file

CAPLETON HAS REPORTEDLY been barred from performing in at least two venues in France, as the deejay is embarking on a European tour which began in early June, THE STAR understands.

The ban was imposed after gay-pride campaigners protested against his performances there.

The ban on the deejay comes after some record labels pledged last year not to take any songs with anti-gay lyrics or that promoted homophobic violence. The pledge was prompted by a stand-off with several dancehall acts and the United Kingdom-based Stop Murder Music Group which had managed to initiate the wide scale cancellation of concerts, demonstrations, and revoking of award nominations.

According to reports coming out of Europe, Capleton was also warned that he must agree not to include defamatory speech during his performance at Paris' Le Zenith. "My responsibility is to react if an artiste makes illegal comments on stage," Le Zenith's director David Colling reportedly told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Cancelled shows

However, a spokesperson from David House Productions, the agency which manages Capleton, said that "a couple of shows" had been cancelled but did not have the information to say why they were cancelled. She said she did not want to speculate.

Last week, another spokesperson from David House said that as far as she knew Capleton had performed in France as recently as the night of Sunday, June 6, and had been performing on shows there during that week.

According to that spokesperson, they were informed of one cancellation in France before the deejay even left Jamaica.

The European tour includes performances in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Spain.

The spokesperson said that Capleton has six more shows scheduled for France near the end of the tour which ends on June 29.