Vybz Kartel Claims His Accompong Maroon Heritage
Incarcerated Dancehall artist Vybz Kartel has claimed Maroon Heritage, days after an altercation erupted between plainclothes policemen and Accompong Town Maroon Chief Richard Currie in the hills of Bethsalem in St. Elizabeth, a property which Currie says are Maroon ancestral lands.
On Thursday, Kartel reposted a video Currie made following the altercation, in which the Colonel declared that he did not need permission to “use any modern weapon” to defend his people and their property.
“@chiefrichardcurrie SPEAKS,” Kartel captioned the video post of Currie, declaring, in the wake of reports that the Firearm Licensing Authority had “launched an investigation” into the circumstances, in which the Accompong Maroon leader was seen with what appeared to be a shotgun slung across his back during the standoff with the police.
Not long after, Kartel, in attempting to point out that his lionizing of Currie was no band-wagonist affair, posted a photo of the late former Accompong Town Maroon Colonel, Sydney Peddie, and pointed out that the now-deceased chief was his grandmother’s (also pictured) father.
“Former Maroon Chief Colonel Sydney Peddie is my Great Grandfather (my Granny’s Dad) so doh feel me a look a hype. BigUp the new Chief @chiefrichardcurrie And The Entire Accompong Town. 🤜🏿🤛🏿,” Kartel wrote in the Instagram post.
Peddie died on August 11, 2014, at his home in Accompong Town at age 81, after ailing for some time and was buried in the graveyard of the Accompong United Church.
The Colonel, who was bestowed with the Order of Distinction (Officer Class) in 2005 for service to community development, was elected to serve as Colonel of the Accompong Town Maroons in 1999, after defeating his predecessor, Meredie Rowe, and was also re-elected to the post in 2004. His major achievements had included the renovation of the Accompong Town Museum, which was undertaken with support from UNESCO, the Institute of Jamaica’s Museums of History and Ethnography, and the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank. He had also created a Bickle Village in 2004, in collaboration with the Tourism Product Development Company, and spearheaded the formation of the Accompong Development Foundation.
On the day of the standoff between the police and Currie, the chief posted a video of the interaction showing himself walking toward men dressed in civilian clothing who were carrying rifles. The men were shooed away by the Maroons’ who advanced whilst beating drums.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSah4zQi0uh/
Currie later wrote, in a video post caption following the standoff, among other things, that “upon investigation we realized these were not honorable members of the JCF”.
“These were men six in total posing in causal clothes bearing high powered rifles that were pointed at the Maroon people on our land! They came and left in a big police truck and we have the license plate for further investigations,” he wrote.
In the video monologue following the police-Maroon altercation, Currie said that it was his duty to defend the Accompong Maroons, and that “it should be the duty of any leader to do the same”.
In the six-minute video, the Munroe College old boy had also stated that the protection of his people and their property was his fiduciary duty and that there was “no power on earth”, whether temporal or spiritual that can separate him from his duty as the vanguard of his people.
“We are no longer in a time of bows and arrows and spears and slingshots, we’re in a time of modern warfare [with] guns, bombs and all manner of weaponry. I unequivocal reserve my right to defend my people using modern means as this is my right,” Currie had said.
“The members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the members of the Firearm Licensing Authority are not elected by my people. In the Cockpit Country, we believe in democracy and the political freedom of the people,” the 40 year old chief added.
Currie also reposted Kartel’s post in which the Any Weather singer shared his Maroon lineage through Peddie.
“Maroons always carry their ancestral receipts #SoundDiAbeng 📣 @vybzkartel #Maroon #Arawak #Kindah #oneblood,” he wrote, to which Kartel replied: “Yes His Excellency 🤜🏿🤛🏿 @chiefrichardcurrie.”
“@vybzkartel Accompong to GAZA 🔥,” was Currie’s response.
There was one dissenter, ytrulhddd who made his opposition to the chief’s adulation of Kartel, saying he was unworthy of claim Maroon heritage or Africanness, as he promoted skin bleaching and unsavoury lyrics, and as a consequence was no better than the oppressors.
“Stop look hype off a the chief of the maroon…. Please u disown u Africanism by bleach ur skin, u are just puppet of the system,” he wrote under Kartel’s response on Currie’s post.
“That guy have money and all he choice to do is to do thing that promote violence and hate against our people, we kn the system is built to destroy us but if we wise up like the maroon we can destroy the system, by farming, loving each other sharing, invest in activated that elevated and teach our youth who we really are. Not to buy gun and kill off each other,” he added in another rant.
He then turned his anger on the Accompong chief.
“@chiefrichardcurrie u is disgrace to the maroon community, how can involved criminal Vybz Kartel in this fight against the system. Kartel used the system to killed and promoting ghetto youths to kill dem selves and bleach them skin,” he added.