Sugar Minott Memorial Bitter-Sweet This Year With Tragic Drowning Of Singer’s Grandson

The jubilant atmosphere that traditionally accompanies the annual birthday celebrations for the late singer, Sugar Minott, was tinged by grief and mourning this year. The celebrations were held today in the wake of news that 15-year-old David Minott, a favourite child of the singer, drowned in an incident during a beach trip at Somerset Falls in Hope Bay, Portland on Monday.

“This year, the event holds a double purpose, they’re using it to pay tribute to David (Minott) and mark Sugar’s birthday. Ken Boothe is very sick but he plans to come, Sizzla, Beenie Man, all the great artistes, you name it, they will be here,” Sharon Miller, who is the mother of Lincoln Minott Jr., Sugar Minott’s eldest son, told DancehallMag.

She is the grandmother of David Miller, who died on Monday.

Other family members were also feeling the bitter-sweet strain of today’s celebrations.

“It’s bitter-sweet, this year’s celebrations, when my father passed, it was nothing normal, this is like reflections, it’s like 2010 again. I hold my strength in Yahweh,” producer Daniel Blae Minott, the young Wolmerian’s uncle, said. “It’s heart-rending, a great loss , words cannot describe the pain that I am feeling now. I helped to grow David, he is like a nephew and a son to me, he was groomed for greatness and to see this happen, the world has been robbed of a great individual.”

Minott said that David Minott was a credit to his famous father’s memory. The producer printed several dozen shirts with David’s photo in honour of his nephew today which will be worn at the celebrations tonight.

“He was a straight A student at Wolmer’s (Boys High), he had a heart filled with love. He was like a magnet, the Minott blood ran through him, he was a great young man, influential, a humanitarian. He will be greatly missed,” Minott said.

Lincoln ‘Sugar’ Minott was born on African Liberation Day, May 25 and laid to rest on Emancipation Day, August 1.

The singer started his solo career at Studio One in the late-1970s. He recorded numerous hit songs for various producers including Vanity, Mr DC, Herbman Hustling, Good Thing Going and No Vacancy.

He also recorded and produced numerous albums for his Youthman Promotions company. Sugar Minott sired seven boys, seven girls with seven different women, one of whom, Maxine Stowe, became his wife.

“This is a painful time for the family, but we will get through it,” Minott said.

It is reported that about 2:00 pm, Minott was among a group of people who went swimming. He was last seen alive sitting on a rock shortly before lifeguards found his body below the surface of the water. The lifeguard administered CPR, but Minott did not respond. He was transported to hospital where he was pronounced dead in the car that brought him there.

Minott was well known at the school. He served as the Public Relations Officer for the Inter-Schools’ Christian Fellowship and was also a Passion and Purity rep at the institution.

“The principal of Wolmers’ called me, and he said to me, ‘David is a child who will never be forgotten, we are going to erect a monument at Wolmer’s in honour of David Minott’ ,” Ms. Miller said.

This is not the first such incident at the popular Somerset Falls in Hope Bay, Portland. In July 2012, 13-year-old Sanekey Holding of Pleasant View district, St Andrew was at the park on a community excursion. She was standing on a rock when she lost her balance and fell in the water and got into difficulty. She was later rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead.