Mad Cobra Hisses at Sexism : Pop music: ‘I don’t disrespect women,’ the Jamaican singer says. ‘I celebrate women.’

“I don’t disrespect women,” snaps dancehall reggae star Mad Cobra.

What riled him during a recent interview was a mention of how his seductive music is sometimes criticized as sexist--songs that frequently present women as little more than sex objects.

According to Cobra, a Jamaican singer-rapper who appears Thursday night at the Strand in Redondo Beach, some of the songs on his best-selling debut album are, in fact, in praise of women.

“I celebrate women in my songs, we compliment and promote ladies,” insists Cobra, whose real name is Ewart Everton Brown. “I get blamed for something I don’t do.”

He may have a point.

Cobra may be a target for critics of dancehall reggae--a tough, raunchy, sometimes violent, hip-hop-influenced update of traditional reggae--because he, along with Shabba Ranks, is one of the biggest stars of the music style, whose popularity has grown rapidly in the United States in the last year.

The complaints have started to surface as more of this music has reached the American masses through the dance-club scene. In truth, Cobra’s material and other dancehall reggae music does exhibit some of these negative traits. Sometimes, though, the offensive material is masked by the Jamaican dialect or buried in slang phrases known only to Jamaicans or dancehall buffs.

“Dancehall doesn’t disrespect women more than any other kind of music,” continues Cobra, a 24-year-old who joined the dance-hall scene in Jamaica in the late ‘80s. “Besides, women like the music. Why would they listen to something that puts them down? It’s a stupid charge.”

But Cobra isn’t so conciliatory when asked about another sometimes troubling sub-theme ofdancehall reggae: anti-gay sentiments.

He shows no hesitancy in defending dancehall reggae artist Buju Banton’s widely criticized “Boom Bye Bye,” which some critics described last year as calling for the killing of homosexuals. Banton has rejected that interpretation, declaring that he doesn’t advocate violence against anyone. He did, however, say that the homosexual lifestyle is against his religious beliefs.

Referring to Banton, Cobra says, “He’s not really violent. He’s just giving his view. He grew up in a society (in the Caribbean) that believes in male and female (relationships)--and nothing else.

“I believe in male and female too. I’m straight. That other life is not for me. I don’t really have anything to do with that. I don’t like that style of life, but I don’t write about it, and I would never write about destroying and killing gays.”

Cobra believes dancehall should be put in a wider cultural perspective. He points out that his album isn’t just about women and sex but a wide range of subjects, including racial unity--the theme of “Release,” one of the songs on his debut album, “Hard to Wet, Easy to Dry.”

Accentuating the negative, he charges, does the music a disservice: “There may be controversy over some songs, but it’s very important to keep in mind that those songs are just a small part of the music. . . . The music is about the positive aspects of love, about getting along in society . . . and about getting rid of what’s bad in society.”