Did You Miss This?

VYBZ KARTEL SIGNS COMPASSIONATE ACT

According to sources deejay Vybz Kartel has signed the Reggae Compassionate Act, which he would have to cease all anti-homophobic lyrics or statements.

Stop Murder Music (SMM) France campaign received a signed copy of the RCA a few weeks ago. It has been alleged that a copy of the document, has the artiste's name and his signature, reports are that that he signed the document on September 22.

In 2007, gay groups in the US and Europe drafted the Reggae Compassionate Act, which called on dancehall acts to be more tolerant to homosexuals.

A concert, which was to be held at the Elysée-Montmartre on Sept-ember 24, with reggae singer Sizzla Kalonji, was subsequently cancelled due to efforts made by gay affiliates.

According to Auerbach Chiffrin, they will be keeping on eye on Kartel to make sure he "respects his words"….


Vybz Kartel and Russian at Odds?
There is word going around alleging that Vybz Kartel is in no longer in any working relationship or any relationship for that matter with ace producer Russian from Head Cuncussion Records.

It is alleged that the Russian had signed up several new artiste that Kartel had some interest in and has been working with artiste from the Bounty lead Alliance group. This seem to not sit well with Vybz Kartel and thus things seemed to have gone sour between them.

It is still being speculated that Vybz Kartel still beats his artiste and thus the new ones are not up for that and thus would rather roll with Russian from Head Concussion Records. It was also indicated that Kartel is trying to influencing Russian not to work with the alliance members...

Kartel and his team recently established the Gaza/Portmore Empire talent show to recruit new artiste and performers. The event will be ongoing until January 2011 where the winners would be awarded with contracts with the group. My advice to them is to get insurance and a body guard.

KONSHENS LANDED A MOVIE ROLE

Recording Artiste Konshens will take on his first movie role early next year in a film that will be directed by Gareth Cobran. Cobran, who is popular for music videos like Konshens' Realest Song and Protoje's Dread, said he would be doing his first film next year, with the dancehall artiste playing the lead role.

While remaining tight lipped about the name of the film, Cobran said he is in the process of developing a script and is also looking for some funding for the script. Cobran said the film will be an adaptation of a play written by Omall Wright and added that it is not the everyday kind of story that comes out of Jamaica but still very relevant to our culture. Konshens says he is excited about this new venture.

As for being in a movie, he said it would be his first time but he is definitely looking forward to the experience. Konshens also said he thinks Jamaican artistes should jump at opportunities like this to work on local projects, build and expand their selling power and star qualities.

TANTO BLACKS STABBED

Upcoming artiste Tanto Blacks was stabbed at least three times last Friday night, after he had an altercation with another man, said to be his friend of 17 years. Tanto explained that he was stabbed after he had asked the man, to vacate a place he had rented to him.

He said he rented the place to the man for a while now but recently gave him an eviction notice. According to Tanto, the tenant was reluctant to leave and decided to stay, despite being given adequate time to leave and identify somewhere else. Tanto said last Friday, he confronted the man who showed no immediate sign of wanting to leave.

He said he went into the house and began removing the blades from a window when he was stabbed in his back. A report was made to the police and following investigations, the alleged assaulter was arrested and charged. Tanto received treatment at the Spanish Town Hospital before getting additional treatment at a private medical practice.

Mary J. Blige. Gyptian Tour

Reggae artist Gyptian continues to sizzle this year as he now joins forces with the iconic Mary J. Blige. Gyptian will be breaking from his tour schedule to join the R&B queen on the England leg of her UK tour. He takes the stage on November 2 at The O2 Arena in London, the same venue Michael Jackson was slated to headline for his infamous 'This Is It' concert. Gyptian then heads with Blige to the LG Arena in Birmingham on November 3, before resuming his own tour. Gyptian has been touring consistently since releasing his current album Hold You this summer, even joining Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley and Nas on several dates of their recent 'Distant Relatives' tour in the US.

Gyptian was enlisted for Blige's new single, "Anything You Want," which is expected to be on her new album. The reggae-infused track also features Busta Rhymes and has been receiving steady airplay since its release in early September.
This exciting concert collaboration was secured by Planet Reggae, the new booking division of VP Records/Greensleeves Records, with AEG, the world's #1 concert production company.

"These are the opportunities that come about by having the #1 record label in reggae enter the live-touring business," states Neil Robertson, head of Planet Reggae. "Our brand lends credibility and comfort for the major international talent buyers. When you combine that with a great artist like Gyptian and a manager like Ivor Ruddock, who both understand the bigger picture, you can expect more high profile opportunities which are good for the whole genre."

Gyptian has been heating up the UK scene recently, with his performance at BBC Radio 1Xtra Live in late September, and will return on October 20 for the MOBO Awards, where he's nominated for 'Reggae Artist of the Year.'

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This song is insane Nicki Minaj has one of the best verses esp the part where she big up Mony Matterhorn I couldn't stop laughing, you just got to love Miss. Onika Tanya Maraj, but you can call her Nicki.


Just in case you are not familiar with the reference this is what she is talking about.

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What if Dancehall Artists Used Their Real Names

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
 
In dancehall it’s all about the bravado and the image one portrays to the intended audience. Among other things dancehall is all about power, sex appeal and just raw energy. Now can you imagine if some of our most famous Dancehall artists opted to use their real god-given names? Really getting your head knocked in with a hammer from a guy named Basil is not as powerful as getting your ass kicked by Bounty Killer. Basil sounds like that dude who works at the art supplies store or at most a foundry. Good thing Jeffrey Campbell sounds like that surveyor you pay a lot of money to, who in turn does a crap job at road repairs. Good thing he decided to go through not one but two name changes from Assassin to now Agent Sasco. These fake names make them more mysterious, more bad ass and yes they just sound cooler.

Oje Ollivierre Sounds like your 3rd Form Spanish Teacher
- Protoje

Windel Beneto Edwards- Gyptian

Miguel Orlando Collins- Sizzla Kalonji

Front Teet Gun Pon Teet Desmond John Ballentine
not  the same ring as Ninjaman

O'Neil Bryan that has got to be the most boring name
-Elephant Man

I think whoever named this demon Adija Palmer knew what they were doing
-Vybz Kartel

Gully God David Constantin Brooks
not the same power as Mavado

Anthony Moses Davis

If a selector called Dufton Taylor Jr. told you to "dash out yu hole!"
Would you? Tony Matterhorn was the better choice

Shabba Ranks should sue whoever named him
Rexton Rawlston Fernando Gordon

James Chambers- Jimmy Cliff, OM

Toots Hibbert- Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert

Mr. Lover Lover- Orville Richard Burrell
not the same ring asShaggy

Tigers die and leave their skins; people die and leave their names.  ~Japanese Proverb
  

 

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Prosecutor asks court to keep Buju locked up

BY PAUL HENRY Observer staff reporter henryp@jamaicaobserver.com

If the US Government has its way, Jamaican Reggae superstar Buju Banton will remain behind bars pending the outcome of his retrial in December on cocaine and gun charges.

In documents filed in the Sam M Gibbons Federal Court, James Preston, the Assistant US Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, said that Banton, whose registered name is Mark Myrie, was a flight risk, while urging that a bond motion filed on behalf of the entertainer should be rejected, "without any further hearing".

Defence attorney David Oscar Markus had on Tuesday filed the motion for bond, a day after Banton's cocaine and gun-possession trial was declared a mistrial because a 12-member panel of jurors was unable to reach a verdict at the end of three days of deliberation.

Among other things, Markus stated in the document that Banton was not a flight risk because of his fame, and that he was only denied bail before his trial that started on Monday, September 20 due to the revocation of his entertainment visa upon his arrest.

Markus stated in his filing that if the federal court were mindful to grant Banton bail, he would also seek bond in the immigration court to prevent his client's deportation so he could face his retrial.

The bail hearing is tentatively set for October 6, at which time a date for the retrial will be agreed.

But in his written objection, Preston charged that Markus failed to give legal support as to why his client should be released pre-trial, and noted that with this second motion for bond, Banton "wholly ignores the previous court order for his detention".

"The motion should therefore be denied," the prosecutor stated in the document.

Preston also rebutted the assumption by Markus that the Jamaican entertainer is not a flight risk because of his notoriety.

He added that Markus, in his motion, had failed to point out that the court had previously found that there were aggravating factors, based on the evidence, for Banton's detention outside of his immigration woes.

"The defendant has presented nothing new, other than a hung jury, for the court's consideration," Preston wrote, while adding, "The defendant again fails to rebut the presumption that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure that the defendant is not a risk of flight."

Banton has been in jail since his arrest last December 10 when he was charged, along with friend Ian Thomas and James Mack, for conspiracy to possess and distribute 5 kilogrammes of cocaine and possession of a firearm during the furtherance of a crime.

Both Thomas and Mack, who were arrested hours before Banton at a warehouse buying the drugs from an undercover agent, have since pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in November.

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Transcripts of Buju Meeting with Informat (CS)

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2010/PDFs/banton.pdf

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Bounty Killer Gets Bail

Deejay to return to court November 9
BY TANESHA MUNDLE Observer staff reporter mundlet@jamaicaobserver.com

Deejay Bounty Killer was this morning granted bail when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's court.

Bounty Killer, whose real name is Rodney Pryce, was granted $500,000 bail and was ordered to return to court on November 9.

He is charged for the assault and unlawful wounding of Racquel Smith. Smith turned up at the Constant Spring Police station two weeks ago and complained that he beat her with a hammer, a mosquito repellant and a chain. Police reported that she was badly bruised and bloodied when she lodged the complaint.

This morning Smith indicated through her lawyer Terrence Ballentine, to the court that she wanted the matter to be sent to mediation.

Ballentine said his client and Pryce had been together for three years and he had never hit her until the incident earlier this month. He said Smith wanted to continue her relationship with the Deejay.

However, Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey would have none of it and dismissed the request.

Pryce also had another matter in which he is charged for possession of ganja put off until November 8.

Jurors Evenly Split on Buju's Fate

Judge rejects lawyer's motion for mistrial

BY PAUL HENRY Observer reporter henryp@jamaicaobserver.com

 A jury foreman minutes ago told United States judge Jim Moody that they have not been able to reach a verdict in the drug case involving Jamaican Reggae star Buju Banton.

The foreman said the 12-member jury was split evenly.

"I don't know if we will get to a final decision. We don't feel that we will progress, so could you provide further instructions? Since Thursday we have been reviewing evidence, nobody has changed their minds from their original positions," the jury foreman told the court.

Moody then instructed the jurors to take their time in coming to a final decision.

"Be as leisurely as the occasion may require," Moody said.

The judge gave further instructions that none of the jurors should surrender their conscience decision.

Banton's attorney David Markus then filed a motion for a mistrial but Moody rejected the motion.

Banton appeared in court in a white shirt and a cream coloured pants today. His feet were shackled.

The long wait for a verdict has not been going down well with the artiste's supporters who all appeared nervous.

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Judge Orders Jury to Deliberate in Reggae Singer Buju Banton's Drug Trial

By The Associated Press (CP) – 1 hour ago

TAMPA, Fla. — A judge ordered a Tampa jury to continue deliberating on whether Jamaican reggae star Buju Banton conspired to buy cocaine from an undercover police officer last year.
The 12-person jury sent U.S. District Judge James Moody a note Monday saying they hadn't reached a verdict because none of them had changed their minds since Thursday, when deliberations began after a four-day trial. Moody had released them for the weekend on Friday.
Banton's attorney asked for a mistrial, which Moody denied.
Banton is charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and aiding two others in possessing a firearm during the course of cocaine distribution. He faces up to life in prison.
Banton's attorney maintains that a U.S. government informant entrapped him.

Old Mon and the Sea

Remix | By CHRIS BLACKWELL | September 24, 2010 

Jamaica has been on the defensive lately. jamaica . . . no problem T-shirts sold in sticky tourist flytraps seemed like so much wishful thinking in June, when a popular mafioso went on the lam and riots shocked the slums of Kingston. It would be a while before the memory of daily body counts receded into a haze of happy ganja smoke.

Chris Blackwell, the big daddy cool of the Island Outpost group — a consortium of glitzster hotels including the Caves, Jakes, Strawberry Hill, Geejam and Ian Fleming’s beach retreat, GoldenEye — remembers the country’s postwar better self, when high tide used to bring Hollywood and royals of every flag. “The first person I ever saw water-ski was Errol Flynn,” says Blackwell, who grew up in Jamaica. Flynn was dressed for cocktails. He had a cigarette holder in his fist “and a dachshund under his arm. I was 12 or 13, and it was the most glamorous thing I’d ever seen.”

That was then. Now Jamaica, with its lush Jurassic terrain and hypnotic music, its fountainhead of rum and distinct cuisine, competes for heat with St. Bart’s, Mustique and even Anguilla, a scrubby cultural wasteland in Blackwell’s view. “Anguilla is just a strip of sand,” he says dismissively. “But a lot of people who have money prefer a place that has no natives. No problems. All they want is a great beach.” Though Blackwell himself is now a very rich man, he is careful to avoid any implication that he has become the Mon. The founder of Island Records, he phenomenized Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Steve Winwood, the B-52s and Roxy Music; signed U2 to its first record contract; and then, in 1989, sold his label to PolyGram for something like $300 million.

Then came a ’90s layover in South Beach, when Miami was practically giving away Deco bijoux, and Blackwell, who couldn’t resist a bargain, scooped up the Marlin and the Tides. But now he’s home, and Jamaica is his next act, only Jamaica is suddenly behaving like some strung-out rock star. A State Department travel warning was briefly issued just as the impresario was getting ready to take me on a tour of his Jamaica, the last stop the gutted-and-overhauled GoldenEye, scheduled to open in mid-November.

The Caves sits high on a cliff in Negril, past the honeymooner hideaways and the storied emerald golfscapes of Montego Bay. Blackwell, who despises golf, has made a conscious decision to leave the country-clubbers to MoBay, as natives call it, where his cousins, the Pringles, famously opened Round Hill in 1953. Blackwell’s Island Outpost almost seems to make a point of tastefully exploiting the other rich and varied neighborhoods of the island.

The Old Harrovian accent notwithstanding, Blackwell grew up in Jamaica, where his mother’s clan, the Lindos, is one of the island’s first families. At the hotel bar, he shows off Blackwell’s Black Gold Special Reserve Fine Jamaican Rum, with its Gothic-scripted treasure-map label. “Settling in Jamaica in 1625,” it says of the Lindos, “they were renowned for exporting bananas, coconuts and rum.” (Equally: the importing of slaves from Africa.)

“On a choppy day, it’s like a washing machine in here,” says Blackwell, 73 but markedly fit, swimming his grotto like some grizzled Neptune. Blackwell fishtails through an underwater tunnel to reach a second, larger cave. I follow and emerge bleeding like shark chum. “Fetch the white rum!” he shouts — 150 proof. Locals slap their faces with it like Aqua Velva before downing a shot. Blackwell dabs it on the back-of-leg scratches, and it burns more than the original offense. But it could be worse: On a recent night swim here with Vladimir Doronin, the Russian-oligarch boyfriend of Naomi Campbell, sea urchins stung Blackwell on both hands. The remedy for that, he reliably informs me, is urine. The Caves is sand-free, and so in the next few months, Blackwell plans to revamp the resort, its Caribbean cottages giving way to Santorini-bleached rooftops.

After a breakfast of johnnycakes and eggs with callaloo, it’s into the jeep for a trek down south. Blackwell used to know the roads like a telephone lineman, but that was ages ago, and the signs are spotty. Blackwell, a widower of five years, turns out to be an indefatigable roadside shopper, on the hunt for lignum vitae cutting boards, artisanal goat cheese, Bombay mangoes. The jeep slows at a fly-clouded shack where Blackwell consumes fried snapper and a Red Stripe as anonymously as any bus driver.

The houses turn more fastidious as we enter St. Elizabeth Parish, where the villas of Jakes bestride Treasure Beach. The rooms are a fashion stylist’s dream: door frames made of driftwood, walls in the outdoor showers built with Perrier-Jouët empties, a birdbath recycled as a sink. The zinc-roofed cottages were designed by Sally Henzell, an unreconstructed hippie who once dated Blackwell before marrying Perry Henzell, the director of “The Harder They Come.”

Her son Jason, who quit banking to oversee Jakes, commandeers the skiff Mr. Nice Guy for a voyage to the Pelican Bar, a flimsy offshore rig that has somehow survived his 40th-birthday blowout and a hurricane. Jason points to the property down the shore that Lily Allen was going to buy — then didn’t. “That’s when her accountant said, ‘What do you want to go and buy land in Jamaica for?’ ” Blackwell jokes. (But, he adds politely, “She’s a terrific girl.”)
The boat slows before two giant hawksbill turtles in flagrante delicto, a rare sight and virtually impossible to capture with Blackwell’s Nokia phone. “Okay, we’ve interrupted enough of this love affair,” Blackwell announces, and the skiff skips onward.

Back in the jeep, we reach Kingston after Blackwell begs directions from a police car and is dragooned into taking on a hitchhiker, a friendly mama juggling plastic-wrapped plates of food. She turns out to be a cop, too. “So now that I have a cop in the car, I can break the speed limit?” Blackwell asks. She gives him a breadfruit recipe before hopping out.

We make a left into Trench Town: broken asphalt, corrugated roofs and car tires repurposed as planters. Bob Marley was raised here. “I released his first record,” says Blackwell, who misread the name on the tape box as Robert Morley. “Same as the foppish English actor. That record’s worth thousands of dollars now. ‘Robert Morley’ singing ‘One Cup of Coffee’ on one side and ‘Judge Not’ on the other. It’s like a mistake on a stamp.”

When Marley was shot, he recuperated at Strawberry Hill, Blackwell’s home high above Kingston in the Blue Mountains, where the coffee comes from. Blackwell’s gingerbread house with shutters is duplicated on a smaller scale on the estate’s 50 acres for guests who dig cottages with treehouse views and the colonial romance of four-poster beds canopied with mosquito nets. “Bob and I were a match made in heaven,” Blackwell says. “He’d met someone who is Jamaican, who understood the language, understood him, what he was. And didn’t reject it. I gave him money without any contract to make a record because with these rebel characters, the only way to establish a relationship with them is to show them trust.”

In Kingston proper, Marley’s house turns out to be a Victorian gingerbread, too. Blackwell lived here first, orchestrating a hand-over, one intuits, to tweak the neighbors, who appear to have responded by selling out to car dealerships in this formerly upmarket neighborhood. “Rich people don’t care at all for the classes that don’t have any money, they really don’t,” says Blackwell, who deems Marley “blessed with a real innate wisdom.” Blackwell remembers when Rastas were treated like vermin, underappreciated as fakirs who rove the land and are today so closely identified with the Jamaica brand. They remind him more than a bit of the Jews.

On the coast, in Port Antonio, No Doubt and Drake are expected in coming months at Geejam’s in situ recording studio. Tom Cruise and his family rented all five villas when he shot “Knight and Day” in town. The Aga Khan is dearly departed from his Port Antonio beach house and private island, but Thyssens still reside at Alligator Head, and the cattle is still branded ef for Errol Flynn at Flynn’s estate, Boston, a 15-minute drive from Geejam, where his widow, Patrice, endures.
Blackwell’s partner Jon Baker is a punk pirate: diamond hoop earrings, chipped tooth and oik accent. His act under management is the Jolly Boys, a bouncy calypso band of elderlies singing Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” down at the Bushbar restaurant.

Blackwell confers with Baker about installing Apple TVs at other Island Outpost hotels: keep the guests pleasantly distracted if it rains. The discussion inevitably runs aground on St. Bart’s. “If they want to make Jamaica happening, they’ll have to loosen restrictions,” says Blackwell, who’d like to see marijuana declassified as a drug here.
“Marijuana is Jamaica’s big brand,” Baker says.
“This place would really take off,” Blackwell continues. “But parents hear the word ‘drugs’ and don’t want their kids near that. Marijuana is a plant. It’s an herb. It’s ridiculous.”

Blackwell handles the jet ski like a Harley as we buzz the beaches and mangrove-shadowed lagoons of his ambitious 52-acre GoldenEye compound. There’s talk that the airstrip nearby, which is being upgraded to accommodate international flights, will be renamed the Ian Fleming Airport. Fleming’s red bulletwood desk, where he fired off 14 spy novels, shall return. (The original skin-and-bones villa that Blackwell acquired in 1977 has been refreshed and expanded as part of the overhaul.) Fleming’s gardener Ramsey Dacosta remains, cutting coconuts for guests. Summer-camp-style docks have been grafted to each of the private villas. Blackwell jokes that one super-property is “the Russian lot.”
Fleming was merely a journalist and former intelligence officer who had only just started fooling about with a novel on his typewriter when he started up at GoldenEye. Blackwell’s darkly ravishing mother, Blanche, eventually became Commander Fleming’s mistress. She sublet GoldenEye and redecorated it, much to the irritation of Fleming’s wife, Ann, who disparaged Blanche to friends as Ian’s “Jamaican wife.” It’s the only subject Blackwell trips over later in the car, probably because his mother is still alive. He describes her back then as “sort of like a man in a way, ready to try anything and go anywhere.” Blanche was a fixture at Firefly, Noël Coward’s house just up the hill and open to the public. This is where, at age 14, Blackwell learned how to be at ease with superstars like Charlie Chaplin, Liz Taylor and Audrey Hepburn funning around the swimming pool with the heart-stopping view.

The jeep pulls into the Montego Bay airport. The end of the road. We’ve been listening to the band 1 Giant Leap in the car. “It’s all about finding things that will attract people,” Blackwell says. “Like a video does for a record.” May Jamaica be a hit for Chris Blackwell.






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Protoje unplugged for Manifesto Toronto

Protoje Exclusive Performance from themanifesto.ca on Vimeo.
Watch this video of Protoje and his Indiggnation band’s lead guitarist, Jason Worton, doing an acoustic version of the song »JA« exclusively for Manifesto. Shot in the hills of Kingston, Jamaica.

No Verdict Yet

Jury breaks deliberations for lunch
BY PAUL HENRY Observer staff reporter henryp@jamaicaobserver.com

The jury has broken their deliberations for lunch and the courtroom closed in the trial of Reggae singer Buju Banton. The jury will return for their deliberations at 1:00 pm or 12:00 pm Jamaican time.

On the 5th floor of the Gibbons US Court here in Tampa, Buju Banton's supporters prayed and held hands, while his longterm friend and fellow entertainer Wayne Wonder broke out singing the embattled artiste's popular hits of the nineties including 'Serious' and 'The Stone Love Anthem'.

"The tension is too thick," a supporter told the Observer.

Buju is being held in a holding area until the verdict is read.

If convicted, the artiste, real name Mark Myrie, could be sentenced to life imprisonment or slapped with millions of dollars in fines for the charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and illegal possession of a firearm in the furtherance of a crime.

He was arrested at his Tamarac, Florida home on December 10 last year, following the arrest of former co-accused Ian Thomas and James Mack, who had been in possession of the firearm for which Banton was jointly charged.

Thomas and Mack have since pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in November.

Remember Why You Like Buju Banton II?

Remember Why You Like Buju Banton?

Just in case you forgot why you like Buju Banton.

Jamaicans Anxiously Await Buju Verdict

Unsure whether artiste will be exonerated American jury

From: BY KIMMO MATTHEWS Observer staff reporter matthewsk@jamaicaobserver.com

Thursday, September 23, 2010

HOURS before a 13 member panel of jurors is expected to deliver a verdict in the case involving Reggae artiste Mark Mryie in Tampa Florida anxious Jamaicans are awaiting the results and expressing mixed views about the pending results.

"Him going to prison," one man, a bus operator identifying himself as 'Mark', told the Observer a few minutes ago.

He was one of several persons who the Observer is now interviewing on the streets about the case.

A 13-member panel of jurors in Tampa, Florida is now deliberating whether to find Reggae artiste Buju Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, guilty or innocent of conspiracy with intent to distribute five kilogrammes of cocaine.

Another man who identified himself as 'Shawn' said he strongly felt he would be set free.

Meanwhile, William Edwards who was at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston this afternoon said he really wanted Buju to be free but said based on the evidence it appeared he would be sentenced.

"I would love for him to be freed but based on the evidence it looks unlikely but I will be watching with my fingers crossed," said Edwards.

A female security guard at the hotel who seemed unsure, said she was praying for Myrie.

"All we can do his hope and pray," said the guard.

Another taxi operator along Waterloo Road said he hoped he was exonerated.

Myrie has maintained his innocence and says he was entrapped by government informant Alexander Johnson, a Colombian who has served three years for a drug offence. Banton told the court he was talking 'straight up crap' when he engaged in conversation with Johnson about drugs on a plane during an eight-hour flight from Madrid, Spain to Miami, Florida last year.

The artiste, along with James Mack and Ian Thomas, was arrested in December last year after Thomas and Mack were nabbed during an undercover drug sting at a warehouse in Sarasota, Tampa. If convicted Myrie faces a sentence of 20 years to life and a fine of up to US$4 million.

LT. Stichie - Wear Yu Size

Nuh Trouble We - Rappa Robert and Tippa Lee