Editorial Statement

1 July 2024, Leipzig, Germany // Editorial Statement

BigUpMusic.com is a promotion site and a digital label, registered as a label in Germany with a label code (LC 24313, reference: https://wiki.musik-sammler.de/index.php?title=Labelcode_LC_24000_bis_24999).

It is owned and run by me, Dorian Johannes Voet Bøyesen, also in the function as chief editor.

The site and me, the promoter, offically are open minded, and distance us from any hate speech, including homophobic utterances, lyrics etc.

I do believe that some good things need time, and that each music community needs to deal on their own with certain topics, and with necessary time, in tolerant, and with good intention, in a manner, that is worthy of history and humanity, as having found solutions to conflicts, compromize, negotation and peace with and beween many subcultures. I personally like jazz, and many artists of the jazz community are, and have always been queer.

As with plants, good things need time, and many good things happen, when the process is respected.

So many might ask themselves, why leave a Sizzla promotion post of the song “Lead Us Jah” online? Why not boycot the artist? Quite simple: it is a good tune!

Well, my personal opinion is that the topic(s) homophobia, racism, and many other political issues are social mine fields, which need to be dealt with very delicately, and I believe that censorship eventually destroys the freedom of art. For a more thorough discussion on this this topic, I refer to the article https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1574067606010106 “Chapter 10 Censorship versus Freedom of Expression in the Arts”, by Tun-Jen Chiang, Richard A. Posner, University of Chicago Law School, Chicago, IL, USA, Available online 27 April 2007.

Each editor chooses what to promote, and BigUpMusic.com has always been about promoting good music, music with soul, with heart, with love, peace and harmony for the planet and eachother.

Perhaps the universe, the planet, and we are here to learn, and it should be a learn field, for us to learn from eachother. Thus, we also need discussion, visibility, also by opposing subcultures, this has always been the way how music culture has evolved, the clashing and learning of opposing forces.

Therefore, also the reggae community should deal with topics, that are modern, and post-modern.

We are diverse and share some beliefs, and others are divergent. Diversification has always been part of culture, cultural studies deal with this scientifically, subcultures artistically.

I will thus quote the ancient Greeks, and what they partly believed in:

“The ancient Greek myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, two divinities who fused into a single immortal – provided a frame of reference used in Western culture for centuries. Androgyny and homosexuality are also seen in Plato’s Symposium, in a myth where humanity started as three sexes: male-male people that descended from the sun, female-female people who descended from Earth, and male-female people who came from the Moon.^[7] This is one of the earlier written references to androgyny – and the only case in classical Greek texts that female homosexuality (lesbianism) is ever mentioned.”
[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgyny]

Finally, BigUpMusic.com originated from my experiences at Squad Parties in London, UK, beginning in 1999, Brixton experiences, warehouse experiences, so I would like to conclude this statement by referring to a respected artist and poet, Saul Williams.

Sincerely
D.J.V.Bøyesen

Coded Language