The Story Behind The Song: Alaine Says Tivoli Gardens Incursion Inspired ‘You Are Me’

Reggae singer Alaine Laughton says the song You Are Me is her personal favorite creation and was a direct response to prejudiced remarks she heard being made about residents of Tivoli Gardens in the aftermath of the 2010 incursion by the security forces.

Noting that she has several favourite songs in her repertoire for various reasons, Alaine said that she finds it hard to choose between Rising Love and No Ordinary Love in terms of love songs.  However, she highlighted You Are Me, the debut track from her 1Thirty1 Record label, as her favorite song from her catalog in a recent interview with The Gleaner newspaper.

“..If you remember, the whole country was shut down and we were so afraid and in the midst of that, I remember seeing people on social media saying that ‘bad things can happen to people from places like those,’” she said of the incursion, in which 70 civilians and three members of the security forces were killed.

“And I remember being so upset that anyone would have that ability to judge someone based on where they were born. I was like, ‘how dare you have this superiority because of where you were born?’  And I remember I ran to my piano and You Are Me just poured out of my soul and I felt it was something special because that message will always be relevant. We have to love each other like how we love ourselves,” she added.

The Tivoli Incursion began on May 23, 2010, after then-Prime Minister Bruce Golding declared a state of emergency in Kingston. This saw 800 Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers and 370 police officers storm Tivoli Gardens. 

Their mission was to restore state authority in that part of Kingston and to capture Tivoli strongman Christopher “Dudus” Coke, who was wanted for extradition to the United States on drug and arms trafficking charges.

There, the security forces battled with supporters of Coke, in what was described in the Academic Forensic Pathology Journal as “the culmination of nine months of national political turmoil”.

The evaluation of the incursion by a Commission of Enquiry, which took place years later, concluded there was evidence of at least 15 extrajudicial killings during the incursion.  The Commission of Enquiry was also highly critical of many other aspects of the operation and its aftermath.

Several Dancehall artists, including Bounty Killer, Sizzla, Beenie Man, Aidonia and Mavado, had their visas revoked in 2010, ahead of the incursion, supposedly due to their musical association with Dudus.   

After the extradition request was made, and months before the visas were canceled, several artists, foremost among them Reggae legend Bunny Wailer, had headed into recording studios to voice their support of Dudus, who was also known as Prezzi or the President.

In October 2009, Bunny Wailer had released the track Don’t Touch The President , which heaped praise on Dudus, describing him as a modern-day Robin Hood, whose only intent was to do good in his neighbourhood.

Bunny Wailer, in defence of the song, has described Dudus as “a man of peace who makes sure people in his Tivoli Gardens community don’t commit crimes”.   He had also said that he penned the song to warn of civil unrest that would take place in West Kingston if Dudus were to be moved “away from his people”.   

In April 2010, Billboard magazine, in an article titled Dancehall Acts Hit by U.S Visa Cancelations, had noted had that there had been “unprecedented en masse cancelation of U.S. visas” belonging to five popular Jamaican dancehall entertainers which had “led to concerns among the reggae community that it is suffering because of a dispute between the two” countries.

It said this arose from then-Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s refusal to acquiesce to the US’s demands for Dudus’ extradition.

However, unlike Bunny Wailer, the Dancehall artists whose visas were revoked had not recorded songs championing Dudus’s cause but had only performed at events staged by the Ardenne High School old boy.

Mavado had appeared at West Kingston Jamboree 2009, an annual stage show which was staged by Dudus’ company, Presidential Click, where peace between Vybz Kartel and himself was brokered by the don.

Beenie Man, Bounty Killer and Sizzla had also appeared on Dudus’ charity show Champions In Action weeks before the US made the extradition request.

On June 22, 2010, Dudus, who had been on the run after the Government signed his extradition request on May 18 that year, was captured by the police in the vicinity of Ferry on the Mandela Highway, on the border of St. Andrew and St. Catherine in the company of Reverend Al Miller, days after the incursion.  The clergyman had said he was taking him in to the US Embassy in Liguanea.