BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

(bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)

Fans of Gram­my Award-win­ning reg­gae artiste, Bu­ju Ban­ton, will have to wait to see him in the flesh at the I Am Leg­end con­cert, card­ed for East­er Sun­day in T&T on April 21, 2019. But to­day they got an ear­ly taste of what to ex­pect with a mo­tor­cade put on by High Fre­quen­cy En­ter­tain­ment LLC, in ho­n­our of the ‘Mr Men­tion’ singer’s re­lease on Fri­day from a fed­er­al prison in Flori­da.

The pa­rade route, which be­gan at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, and trailed the streets of Fred­er­ick and Hen­ry, up to Wood­brook and back to the sa­van­nah, saw scores of fans join along as it moved. They sang along to Ban­ton’s hits like Po­lice and Rude Boy Can­not Be Friends, Not an Easy Road, Give I Strength and Go If You Want, among oth­ers. Some donned the ice green and gold colours, akin to Rasta­far­i­an wear—al­so sig­nif­i­cant to Ban­ton’s be­liefs, while oth­ers waved their rags, and minia­ture T&T and Ja­maican flags.

A dee­jay shouts from atop one of the two mas­sive mu­sic trucks blast­ing Ban­ton’s best, “If yuh have a dread, shake it right now!” as it ap­proach­es Fred­er­ick and Queen Streets cor­ner. His in­struc­tion is well obeyed.

Guardian Me­dia al­so caught a seem­ing­ly ar­dent fan lock­ing up her store on Hen­ry Street and send­ing her staff out to join the pa­rade.

On No­vem­ber 7, 2018, Ban­ton, born Mark Myrie, was re­leased from prison af­ter serv­ing a ten-year sen­tence, con­vict­ed on drug charges in 2009. He walked a free man on Fri­day from Geor­gia's pri­vate McM­cRae Cor­rec­tion­al In­sti­tute.

A be­spec­ta­cled ma­ture look­ing Ban­ton, dressed in a pair of blue jeans, brown tim­ber­lands, and white sweater com­plet­ed with a white cro­chet hat, hid­ing his locks, is seen in videos cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, stop­ping to greet work­ers and fans at the Nor­man Man­ley In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, in his home­land, as they scream his name. “Ah Bu­ju, me say,” shouts a fan re­peat­ed­ly.

High Fre­quen­cy En­ter­tain­ment LLC, CEO and di­rec­tor, Glen­roy Wat­son, in an in­ter­view pri­or to the mo­tor­cade’s start, told Guardian me­dia he had been plan­ning the con­cert since Ban­ton’s in­car­cer­a­tion. He said to­day was a “hap­py day” for fans of Ban­ton all over, and Ban­ton’s billed per­for­mance in 2019 had rem­i­nis­cent sig­nif­i­cance as he (Ban­ton) was part of the first I Am Leg­end con­cert, which start­ed al­most a decade ago. Of the an­tic­i­pa­tion of the con­cert, Wat­son said peo­ple could ex­pect noth­ing less than “spec­tac­u­lar”.

“Bu­ju is very ex­cit­ed to be in Trinidad once more. He knows his base in Trinidad is still strong, hence the rea­son we’re hav­ing this cel­e­bra­tion to­day.”

He said the mo­tor­cade was a demon­stra­tion of Ban­ton’s fans “be­ing hap­py that he’s out.” “I’m hap­py that he’s out," he said.

Friend, men­tor, and com­pos­er of some of Ban­ton’s most in­fec­tious of­fer­ings, Richie Rueben, said T&T has al­ways been good to them over the years, so the de­ci­sion was tak­en to have Ban­ton back in T&T one more time.

“He is al­so a son of Trinidad, not on­ly Ja­maica. It’s all love and it’s a joy­ful day when I see meh brethren come off ah di plane, scene (un­der­stand). So we just ah cel­e­brate this mo­ment and not think of us as Trinida­di­ans or Ja­maicans, but just think of us as one,” said Reuben in his Ja­maican twang.