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Gay rights groups fume over Sizzla’s Oslo gig

Norwegian gay rights groups are planning to gather outside an Oslo concert venue on Thursday night to take a stand against Sizzla, a reggae star notorious for his anti-gay lyrics.

Gay rights groups fume over Sizzla's Oslo gig
Photo: Avarty Photos (File)

The Jamaican artist was originally scheduled to play at Rockefeller, one of the city’s most illustrious venues. But earlier this week Rockefeller said he was no longer welcome after it learned he had recently breached the Reggae Compassionate Act, an agreement he signed pledging not to discriminate on sexual grounds.

Instead, the concert will take place at the Rhythm Club, where organizers have vowed to pull the plug on the singer if he reneges on a promise not to rail against gays.

Meanwhile, gay rights groups LLH and Skeiv Ungdom (SkU) are planning to meet outside the club an hour before Sizzla takes to the stage.

“We hope to see as many people as possible outside the concert venue at 9pm for a controlled gathering to show that we distance ourselves from artists like Sizzla and the decision to book artists who incite violence and murder,” said SkU leader Åshild Marie Vige and the head of LLH Oslo, Hans Heen Sikkeland, in a joint statement posted on Facebook.

On Wednesday, the 35-year-old Sizzla saw a planned concert in Stockholm cancelled at the last minute as promoters gave in to vocal criticism from Sweden’s gay community.

"Last Sunday, the 18th of March, at a concert in Kingston, Jamaica, Sizzla called for homosexuals to be murdered," said Ulrika Westerlund, spokeswoman for Swedish gay rights group RFSL.

"It should go without saying that gigs should not be booked for this man," she said in a statement.

Critics have branded Sizzla’s lyrics as being hateful towards the gay community, with the killing and burning of homosexuals a recurring theme in several of his songs.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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