The Feud between Mavado (Gully Boss) and Vybz Kartel (Gaza Boss)
The Jamaican music industry has always had its own laws. It elevates people who would never make it past a record label’s welcome desk elsewhere: the cross-eyed, toothless DJ King Stitt, the oddball producer Glen Brown, famous for releasing singles with the wrong labels on purpose.
As a result, it comes to reason that it would result in a conflict that surpasses all others: one involving both the prime minister and the country’s most famous Olympian, Usain Bolt.
What was the reason behind the feud between Movado (Gully Boss) and Vybz Kartel (Gaza Boss)?
The dispute is between Vybz Kartel and Mavado, two dancehall stars. Kartel claims to have had an affair with Mavado’s mother and allegedly carried a coffin onstage with his rival’s name written on it. Mavado believes Kartel is a closet homosexual, has had his skin bleached, and does not believe in God, the last of which is a major slander in a country with the most churches per capita on the planet.
But what distinguishes Kartel and Mavado’s animosity is that it is tied to two different Kingston neighborhoods: Gully, where Mavado was born, and Portmore, nicknamed “Gaza” by its most renowned inhabitant, Kartel. Some believe the dispute is related to Jamaica’s warring political parties: Gaza backs the PNP, while Gully backs the JLP. Others claim that the conflict has been fueled by a sales slowdown in the music industry.
Whatever the reason, it is being blamed for dancehall brawls, tourist attacks, and violence in prisons and schools. Usain Bolt allegedly ordered that no Gully music be played at his post-Olympic homecoming party. Finally, in December, Prime Minister Bruce Golding asked for a meeting with both artists in order to reach an agreement.
According to some sources, the dispute has now expanded to West Indian communities in New York. Meanwhile, Kartel and Mavado appear to have moved on in Jamaica. “Somebody tell me why Gully and Gaza fight,” Mavado begs on a new song called Starlight, to which the apparent answer is: you definitely didn’t help by calling Kartel a skin-bleaching atheist.
