Audio By Carbonatix
Last week a jury in Tampa confirmed Banton (born Mark Myrie) guilty of conspiring with two other men to possess and potentially traffic eleven pounds of cocaine – plus possession of a firearm and using a telephone to facilitate the whole process.
This case has been in the works since December 2009 and ended in Tampa the other day, almost exactly a week after Banton scored the award for Best Reggae Album for Before the Dawn.
In these tough times, Banton’s history as a homophobe and all other controversy ought to be overlooked. Instead, County Grind wants to encourage Banton to look on the bright side:
- His formal rival, Junior Reid, suggests that Buju Banton’s imprisonment is unfortunate for all reggae music and that his arrest is a conspiracy against reggae artists. This could prompt some kind of revolution.
- Winning a Grammy for an album with a coincidentally uplifting title is the best way to go down swinging.
- A post-Grammy stint in prison could now put him on the same wavelength as the late, great reggae superstar-slash-convict, Ranking Dread. Where Banton conspired to tread, Ranking Dread dominated: a connection to about 30 murders was just part of his list of offenses. He was the head of a Hackney-based drug-dealing and armed robbery gang, which sent him on the run from the police for years and prompted him to illegally escape to Canada with a fake passport – then get busted for it after slashing his girlfriend’s face. (Suddenly a conspiracy to sell some coke isn’t looking so bad.)
Another thing the two masters of their craft have in common: moments of genuinely sweet soul. Here are both of them at their most skilled, getting introspective, loving and – even in Banton’s case – optimistic:
