When WMV interviewed Bay-C of dancehall group T.O.K in June 2021, he said at the time that he had no regrets about singing songs with homophobic lyrics including the infamous “Chi Chi Man” dancehall anthem, but going forward he would be consciously inclusive.
Bounty Killer had apologized for past violent lyrics the same year, and the Prime Minister Andrew Holness called on dancehall artists to be less violent in their expressions although his party’s former leader Edward Seaga used Chi Chi Man in a political campaign. Subsequently, WMV asked the barytone toaster Bay C if he regrets singing Chi Chi Man and other songs that are discriminatory or violent.
To which he said: “I am not sorry for any song that I have made, saying that you are sorry and having regrets for me is almost saying you are not happy with where you are now. Every decision that you made back then, whether it is good or bad is a contributor to where you are now, so to regret is to say you are not happy with where you are now and I am very happy with where I am now. All of that is experience, some of that is good experience some of that is bad experience, but you have to go through that to learn.”
The term “Chi Chi” is Jamaican parlance used to reference white public buses and a derogatory term for the homosexual lifestyle.
He continued at the time: “Having said that I am not sorry about anything that I have sang or have done, but I defiantly know that moving forward, and from a very long time I have moved forward with a different approached, cause I really believe that my music should bring people together, I don’t believe I should be discriminating against anyone so I have matured, after I have gone out the world and seen how our music has impacted people I can be inclusive or divisive and. chose to be inclusive.”
Bay-C’s other group members of T.O.K, who built a career on street credibility recently refused to perform the homophobic song at a show in Barbados last week although the Bajan crowd ask for the hit that was recorded more than 20 years ago.
Instead they performed their other party hits like “Gyal Yuh A Lead,” Shake You Bam Bam, Money To Burn and their emotional record “Footprints.”
T.O.K.’s first hit was Eagle Cry on the Bruk Out Riddim produced by Dave Kelly.
“Basically ‘Chi Chi Man’ is like a gift and a curse. It’s a great record that means so much to so many people from just the love of the music, but for some people it’s offensive as well. And because we feel like the music should really unite people, we’ve made a decision to not perform the song, because we don’t want to offend any of our fans,” Bay-C Clarke confirmed again about the decision.
Chi Chi Man is produced by Tony Kelly for Lord Of Yards Records, the organizers of the soon to be returned Sashi concert for the Sashi riddim.
“Craigy T” Thompson also added his rationale in another interview explaining why the group will be leaving the base heavy track behind. “So T.O.K, we’ve been through a lot. We had a moment of a hiatus where we were doing individual stuff but we’re back now as a group, we have a record called ‘No Place Like Home’ and it’s very ironic and very poetic for us to be here because Barbados is like a home. It’s almost like a reunion with our fans and introduction to new fans.”
T.O.K. released 3 albums, My Crew My Dawgs {2001}, which is the first line of “Chi Chi Man” song. They followed up with Unknown Language {2005} and their last album was 2009’s “Our World.”
