Durrant Pate/Contributor

Dancehall heavyweight Beenie Man has finally secured a US visa after serving a 10-year ban from American soil.

He is now in the US Virgin Islands, as Governor Albert Bryan Jr.’s guest of honour to the territory and Beenie Man is speaking of being a musical ambassador, according to The Times. For more than a decade, the artiste, born Moses Davis, has been unable to enter the US, as each time, he applies for a visa, he is turned down.

But thanks to the help of Governor Bryan Jr, Beenie Man, being a person with extraordinary ability in the arts, has been granted a US visa. He has described the moment as a high point in his career, telling The Times that the 10-year ban – excluding him from one of the biggest markets for Caribbean music – had been disastrous for his career.

Governor Bryan Jr. a big fan 

The dancehall legend has been a global superstar since the 1990s, winning both a Grammy and a British Mobo award. The US Virgin Islands governor remarked: “It was awesome to meet the man that livened plenty of dancehalls for me. Welcoming him to the Virgin Islands was a special pleasure, not only for the privilege of meeting him but the joy I know his music brings to people.”

Beenie Man, who has a Jamaican Order of Distinction for his contributions to music highlighted that a return to performance in the US was a chance to be a cultural ambassador for Jamaica, a country whose music is central to its identity.

For Beenie Man’s attorney Bridgette Bennett, dubbed the “reggae visa lawyer” after winning a string of complex US immigration cases for Jamaican musicians, explained that no clear reason was ever given for his visa refusals.

According to her, “A big part of my challenge was dissecting the situation and understanding why they were denying my client. There is a concept in immigration called ‘inadmissibility’ that is written into the Immigration and Nationality Act. So they will check off on a little piece of paper saying you are inadmissible under this section of the law. And sometimes … they will not give specifics, but just point to a general area of the law.”

Arguing Beenie Man’s case

The US-based attorney, who originally got into immigration law when her then-husband, a Jamaican entertainer, was facing deportation said her arguments had focused on touring artists’ economic value.

“I usually make arguments on the economic benefits of having live performances. And I have lots of research showing that performers bring in jobs and billions of dollars. Their tours generate a lot of benefits for the US. I also talk about cultural enrichment,” she said.

For Beenie Man, real name Moses Anthony Davis, the visa ban was just the latest hurdle among many he has encountered in his music career, which started when he was just seven years old.

As a child, he had a severe stutter, but he discovered that it disappeared when he sang saying, “I never got into music. Music was born inside of me because when I was a kid I used to stutter, and music allowed me to be able to have this conversation with you now.”