Buju Banton's Long Walk to Freedom concert: Anticipation

Members of the Jamaican diaspora, and Reggae fans from around the world, poured into Kingston, Jamaica for the first concert of the Buju Banton Long Walk to Freedom Tour. This one-time event brought thousands of fans from around the world to Jamaica to venerate and lift up this fallen warrior who once stood astride the Reggae throne but was unceremoniously hauled into the shadows when he ran afoul of the law. Paul and I made that journey with fellow fans; a journey I will recount in this post. But first, context.

Buju Banton -- born Mark Anthony Myrie -- rode a career, beginning in 1987, to the top of the Dancehall and Reggae charts and, ultimately, a Best Reggae Album award at the 2011 Grammy Awards for his 2010 album Before the Dawn. Focused, as they were, on his music, it came as a shock to his fans when it was announced that he had been arrested in 2009 by US authorities on drug-related charges.

After a couple of trials he was found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to 10 years and 1 month in prison. He was released in December 2018, after serving approximately 7 years and 7 months behind bars, and immediately returned to Jamaica.

Prior to his release, word had begun to circulate that he would hold a number of concerts in the Caribbean once able to do so. Speculation was rife as to where the initial concert would be held with the front runners seeming to be Jamaica and Trinidad. There was a strong feeling that, regardless of where that initial concert was held, fans would turn out in full force to welcome him back after the long absence. He had apparently done the crime and had most definitely done the time. We wanted to say welcome back. We missed your music, we missed you, and we want to be there in person to let you know that.

When the Buju team finally announced, we learned that the tour would be called Long Walk to Freedom and that the initial concert would be in mid-March at the National Auditorium in Kingston, Jamaica. Tickets would be sold on the Buju website only, beginning on a soon-to-be-announced date. Paul and I checked around our close-in circle to see who wanted to go. No takers. Fine by us. We were going.

We got our first indication that this would be a giant event when the ticket site crashed early on the first day of sale due to the demand. It did not fully recover until the following day. In addition to the server issue, other "ominous" indications were: (i) our inability to get a direct flight from Orlando to Montego Bay and (ii) no availability of hotel rooms in Kingston for the day of the event (Both of these searches were initiated within a week of the announcement of the concert date.). We eventually found a connecting flight through Fort Lauderdale and left the room open to a later solution.

We had a 6:00 am flight on the Friday of the concert weekend and compounded the short night by getting to the airport in enough time to have a sit-down breakfast at Cask and Larder. We went to the gate after breakfast and there began to see the stirrings of the exodus. Paul ran into a number of friends and, yes, they were heading to the concert.

When we disembarked in Fort Lauderdale it seemed as though the entire plane walked over to the terminal and gate from which the Montego-Bay-bound flight would launch.

We had spent a lot of time laughing and talking and our throats were becoming parched. We consulted about the propriety of alcohol at 8:30 am and decided that we were not hurting anyone. So we went for it.

We landed safely in Montego Bay and spent the remainder of the day fortifying ourselves for what we knew would be a hard concert day on the morrow. I will cover the concert (and the day of) in my next post.

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