Aba Luke

A liv­ing leg­end. A dance­hall-reg­gae icon. In­car­cer­at­ed but still thrilling world­wide au­di­ences with hits that range from GAL, Op­ti­mistic Soul and Let Dem Know–all songs un­leashed since he was locked away.

To­day, Mark An­tho­ny Myrie–the one and on­ly, Bu­ju Ban­ton, cel­e­brates his 37th birth­day. As a Caribbean en­ter­tain­er whose name stands firm­ly among some of the re­gion's finest per­form­ers, Bu­ju must be giv­en cred­it for his ac­com­plish­ments over the years, this de­spite be­ing ar­rest­ed for the De­cem­ber 2009 charge of con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess, with in­tent to dis­trib­ute, more than five ki­los of co­caine–a charge he has de­nied but one that has since left him in­car­cer­at­ed in the US.

The Leg­end

Eight months pri­or to his in­car­cer­a­tion, Bu­ju Ban­ton per­formed in T&T at the I Am Leg­end 3 con­cert, held at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on April 3, 2009. His per­for­mance was tru­ly a mem­o­rable one, as it was on that oc­ca­sion that many of the na­tion's youths heard the voice and ad­vice of their role mod­el as he plead­ed with them to stop the crime and vi­o­lence.

As one of the more pop­u­lar mu­si­cians in Ja­maican his­to­ry, the reg­gae/dance­hall croon­er has en­ter­tained world-wide au­di­ences, even get­ting be­neath the skin of a se­lect few. With nine al­bums un­der his belt be­tween the years 1992 and 2009, Bu­ju's reper­toire spans bor­ders as he has touched on top­ics of rel­a­tive in­ter­est to mil­lions around the world and proven, over the years that he is a mas­ter sto­ry-teller as his so­bri­quet, Ban­ton, rep­re­sents.

Cel­e­brat­ing Bu­ju

On his Birth­day, we high­light the mys­ti­cal beau­ty of this Caribbean soul, de­spite al­le­ga­tions of mis­de­meanor. In the ear­ly 90s Bu­ju gave the world hits that ranged from Love Me Brown­in' to Love Black Woman–ded­i­ca­tions to both dark and light skinned women. It was in that year, 1992, that Bu­ju broke Bob Mar­ley's record for the great­est num­ber of num­ber one sin­gles in one year. His ear­ly ca­reer al­so saw a ded­i­cat­ed lev­el of at­ten­tion giv­en to HIV/Aids, by the young mu­si­cian.

The track, Willy, Don't Be Sil­ly–which pro­mot­ed safe sex and the use of con­tra­cep­tives, par­tic­u­lar­ly the con­dom-earned prof­its which were do­nat­ed to a char­i­ty sup­port­ing chil­dren with Aids. In 1995, Bu­ju's fourth al­bum, Til Shiloh cat­a­pult­ed him to yet an­oth­er lev­el of world-wide ac­cep­tance, as both sup­port­ers and crit­ics heard a unique­ly en­joy­able blend of dance­hall and con­scious lyrics belt­ed out in tracks like, Mur­der­er and Un­told Sto­ries–the lat­ter of which heard many favourable com­par­isons made be­tween Bu­ju and the late, great Bob Mar­ley.

Bu­ju has proven time and time again that he is tru­ly a mas­ter­ful singer and song­writer.

He even col­lab­o­rat­ed with T&T So­ca King, Machel Mon­tano, on the remix of Win­ing Sea­son, a 2008 crowd pleas­er. He has been nom­i­nat­ed for Gram­my awards on four oc­ca­sions, the fourth of course, while he was held be­hind bars. Dur­ing the years, the en­ter­tain­er has been scold­ed and shunned by the Gay and Les­bian Al­liance Against Defama­tion, for what they cite as hate­ful and mur­der­ous lyrics against peo­ple of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. His 2010 Gram­my nom­i­na­tion was met with much dis­plea­sure by the group, which protest­ed against the nom­i­na­tion via pe­ti­tions. How­ev­er much to their dis­may, the Gram­my com­mit­tee ig­nored their call and kept the artiste among the list of nom­i­nees for Best Reg­gae al­bum. In an on­line in­ter­view with the Guardian, Tracii Mc­Gre­gor, Pres­i­dent of Gargamel Mu­sic Inc said, "We are still pa­tient­ly await­ing the new tri­al date in Sep­tem­ber and ex­pect one soon.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Bu­ju re­mains in lock up at Pinel­las Coun­ty Jail.

How­ev­er, he is hang­ing tough. He gets tons of let­ters from sup­port­ers around the world and reg­u­lar vis­its from fam­i­ly and close friends. "We are con­fi­dent that when Bu­ju fi­nal­ly has his day in court he will be ex­on­er­at­ed. In the mean­time, fans can look for­ward to a brand new Bu­ju Ban­ton al­bum–Be­fore The Dawn, which will be re­leased on Sep­tem­ber 28 on Gargamel Mu­sic, Inc." Mc­Gre­gor said sup­port­ers of the artiste can vis­it, http://thi­sis­bu­juban­ton.word­press.com for a time­line of the case and all things Bu­ju Ban­ton. To­day, we say hap­py birth­day to the artiste who has brought us much great mu­sic in the past decade and half, and con­tin­u­ing.