Bo­bie-lee Dixon

He first pen­e­trat­ed the lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment scene in 2005 singing Pret­ty Boy Fel­la. The song, reg­gae in­flu­enced, was an in­stant hit and dom­i­nat­ed lo­cal ur­ban fre­quen­cies for quite some time, mak­ing the then 25-year-old Point Fortin res­i­dent a seem­ing­ly overnight suc­cess. With fol­low ups like Delilah On The Loose, Rude Boy Rudy, Usu­al Sus­pect and Love But Na Blind among oth­ers, De­von "Prophet Ben­jamin" Samuel, proved to all he was no one-hit won­der. This year he's got them talk­ing again with his no­to­ri­ous Throw Wine so­ca smash­er. The song which he de­scribes as "just a fun song," is re­ceiv­ing love from every cor­ner of the so­ca are­na.

So well re­ceived, it has al­so earned him a place in the fi­nals of the Dig­i­cel In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion. Yep, this ras­ta­man who is of the Bobo Shan­ti Or­der will get loose come Feb­ru­ary 17, at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. "This song was just de­signed to be a fun song for the singer and lis­ten­ers. It was to bring a joy and I think I ac­com­plished that be­cause every­where I go peo­ple stop me to share their feel­ings about the song," dis­closed Samuel. It might be the first time the 33-year-old fa­ther of three is in any fi­nal re­volv­ing around so­ca, but Throw Wine is not his first at­tempt at the genre. Samuel has had a cou­ple-one be­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bun­ji Gar­lin ti­tled Ah Want To Bun A Fire, the oth­er called Fire Fin­ger. Both were al­so suc­cess­ful.

Spread­ing his mes­sage

Ad­dress­ing the talk by some that Bobo Shan­ti should not sing so­ca, Samuel said peo­ple are en­ti­tled to their own opin­ions, but it's just their opin­ion. "I don't be­lieve any­one should make de­ci­sions for any­body on what they should or should not do. My leader is Christ and if He say go ahead then ras­ta hold back for no­body." He said he en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion be­cause he felt it was the on­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty he had to bring across the mes­sage he in­tends to. "Peo­ple love the song but they have formed their own opin­ions of it. But all I can say the sto­ry will be told through my per­for­mance at the fi­nals."