NO one ever died from skin bleaching, said deejay Vybz Kartel at a University of the West Indies (UWI) lecture last week.

It was arguably his most controversial statement while addressing the throng which gathered at the UWI’s Undercroft to hear the high-riding deejay speak.

“More than 10,000 people a year die from lung cancer, but no one has ever died from lightening their skin,” stated an unrepentant Kartel in response to a question.

Representatives from the local medical assocation were not immediately available for comment up to press. Kartel defended his bleaching using argumentation, wit and analogies. It made his premises logical and set the tone for conclusions that divided the over 1,000 patrons.

The crowd was apparently larger than the university’s annual graduation ceremony held in the same venue based on the expanse of the bodies that stretched from the lecturn onto the ring-road. This reporter had never seen a similar crowd in 12 years of attending these UWI conferences (which included lectures by other popular entertainers). It indicated the importance placed on this entertainer by the students and public in attendence.

Kartel maintained that he lightened his skin to highlight his tattoos, rather than to reflect any sort of black self-hatred.

“Bleaching today is not the same as it was 25 years ago. I maintain that today we are a much prouder race than in the past. And now we set trends. So when I do it it’s just style,” he said.

The deejay analogised that males who wear earrings nowadays are not trying to be pirates as in the 17th century or homosexuals as in the 1950s.

He then asked why those who equate his skin altering to self-hatred aren’t criticising those who alter their hair chemically or via wigs and weaves. At that point many females in the audience got vocal apparently vexed.

“One may not understand why I alter my skin but that is my opinion,” he said at the lecture hosted by the Department of Literatures in English and the Centre for Gender and Development Studies entitled Pretty Like a Colouring Book: My Life and My Art.

Kartel views tattoos as beauty and artistic expression. Kartel also rubbished suggestions that he sold his soul to the devil. Kartel stated that his stunts only increases his fortune and fame.

“I will bask in this controversy with cake soap as my sun tan,” he quipped.

Kartel ignited a fire storm and multiple musical counteractions, when he claimed in an interview that the reason for his noticeably lighter complexion was as a result of the use of cake soap (a bar of laundry detergent) combined with the effect of air conditioning. Cake soap was initially referenced in his track Straight Jeans and Fitted. He subsequently released, Cake Soap for which a video was shot.

Blue Power Group Limited, which manufactures cake soap, stated that they were approached by one of Vybz Kartel’s producers to use the company equipment for a video shoot. The company agreed on condition that “they must tell people that the blue soap that we make will have no effect on bleaching the skin”, according chairman Dr Dhiru Tanna.