Buju Banton, Astoria, London

Universal love... with conditions

It's a sweltering Sunday night in London's West End, and inside this venue, a West Indian community meeting is in progress. Jamaican and Ethiopian flags are being waved, and everyone is wearing their sexiest Sunday dancing best. The mood, away from the guardedness of minority life, is easygoing and convivial, as everyone awaits tonight's main event: the annual visit of the self-styled Voice of Jamaica, Buju Banton.

For white audiences, Banton is still best remembered for the trouble surrounding his homophobic 1992 single "Boom Bye Bye". The song caused outrage around the world and raised questions about Rastafarian and Jamaican attitudes to homosexuality.

For reggae fans, though, he is a very different figure. Only 19 when he recorded "Boom Bye Bye", he soon renounced his roughneck ways for a more serious spiritual and political approach (along with songs about how great he was in bed) on the classic, worldwide hit album Til Shiloh.

Its Rasta and Christian elements, and calls for solidarity among the black working class, made him seem Marley-like, in a Nineties reggae scene otherwise lost in gun-happy, gangster poses. With his rough, rasping voice, burning charisma, and penchant for sharp white suits on stage, he was the complete reggae star.

The dazzling suits have been left at home tonight, in favour of a velvet sweater and flapping flared jeans. But what's most apparent, as Banton bounds on stage, is that he has the longest, hardest working legs in showbiz. Whether prancing, sprinting, strolling or lounging, they jack-knife with an explosive energy of their own. When he moves to the lightless side of the stage, becoming a dramatic, dreadlocked silhouette, people reach out with hands and favourite 7-inch singles, hoping for his touch.

After a pacy initial medley, including "It's Not an Easy Road", the gospel and soul roots of Banton's music are revealed when another redemption song is first left to us to roar, then sweetly harmonised by his female backing trio, and finally barked out by Buju himself, who then leans down at the lip of the stage to preach.

The badness infesting black communities are one subject. Unfortunately, he then asks, "Can I talk about g... a... y... s?" What follows is mostly lost in patois and the PA, but I do hear a burst of what sounds suspiciously like "Boom Bye Bye". Perhaps the downside of the spirituality that now uplifts his work is a taste for easy, divisive dogma. His barely concealed snigger, and affirming cheers from the crowd, suggest that here, in Jamaican private, he simply thinks there's no reason not to be homophobic.

At any rate, he sings of universal love for the rest of the evening, and most people leave feeling better. He's still a mostly positive force.