Buju Banton underlined his status as perhaps the most iconic reggae artiste of his generation when he pulled out tens of thousands of fans for back-to-back sold out shows over two legs of his Long Walk To Freedom Tour in New York.<\/p>\n
The first show was on Saturday, July 13, at the UBS Arena in Queens. Gargamel\u2019s first performance in New York City in 15 years created such a significant demand that a second show had to be added after the first one was sold out in hours.<\/p>\n
There was palpable excitement around the show as fans were shuttled to the venue in buses as early as 6:00 pm ahead of the concert\u2019s scheduled 8:30 pm start.<\/p>\n
And when it did start, was it spectacular!<\/p>\n
The first notes of\u00a0Buried Alive<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0struck up while the stage was bathed in blue lights, then a few seconds later, Banton appeared, transported on the stage from below, like a man emerging from the pit of hell to be reborn. Dressed in a resplendent orange outfit, he struck a Black Power pose with his left hand holding the microphone aloft. The audience screamed its approval.<\/p>\n He then performed\u00a0Buried Alive<\/em><\/strong> and segued into\u00a0Over Hills and Valleys<\/em>.<\/strong> Inspired by the addition of Lenky Marsden to his Til Shiloh band, Gargamel took the eager audience on a romp through his timeless reggae catalogue peppered with hits like\u00a0Untold Stories<\/em>,\u00a0Wanna Be Loved<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Love Sponge<\/em><\/strong>. When he belted out the opening words of\u00a0Destiny<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by singing \u201cThe rich man\u2019s wealth is in the city\u2026.\u201d, the crowd sang the next line \u2018destruction of the poor is his poverty\u2019, a particularly poignant moment knowing that New York is one of the richest cities in the world, a glimmering city built by the tireless labour of its underclass.<\/p>\n At one point during his performance, the lanky Banton told the audience of over 19,000, \u201cThey said to me, you will never come back to the United States of America, and I said to them let\u2019s see what God will do.\u201d<\/p>\n He declared \u201clet\u2019s have some fun tonight\u201d as he showed off his impressive dancehall catalogue reeling off hits on the Showtime rhythm:\u00a0Waistline<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Bongo Cart<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Champion<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Over Mi<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Singer Nadine Sutherland joined the party to sing What Am I Gonna Do<\/em><\/strong>, her duet with Banton, and then turned up the volume with a wicked rendition of another collab, Wicked Dickie<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Minutes after 11 pm, Gramps Morgan, who also gave a tribute to his deceased brother Peetah Morgan, blessed the venue with their spiritually uplifting Psalm 23<\/em><\/strong>. Regrettably, there was no Beres Hammond who had a previous engagement.<\/p>\n An ebullient Sutherland later wrote: \u201cLast night was epic for Jamaica music and culture. Buju Banton\u2019s LWTF concert corked the arena in NYC. I\u2019m really proud to be a part of this historical event. I\u2019m still levitating.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellow deejay Bounty Killer added: \u201cThey buried him alive, and he rises from the ashes which sane thinking Jamaican could not be elated about this for our music, it\u2019s culture and a man that was buried alive. Historical moment, when last has (sic) we seen reggae looking so powerful in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n American record producer and reggae lover DJ Khaled wrote, \u201cCongrats to my brother @bujubanton and then again \u2018God Did\u2019,\u201d posting a snippet with Buju singing Buried Alive<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Buju\u2019s previous New York City performance was 15 years ago at Madison Square Garden, the last of four sold out Mother\u2019s Day shows between 2006 and 2009.<\/p>\n The second leg of the LWTF tour in New York, which was also sold out, took place at the UBS on Sunday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Buju Banton underlined his status as perhaps the most iconic reggae artiste of his generation when he pulled out tens of thousands of fans for back-to-back sold out shows over two legs of his Long Walk To Freedom Tour in New York. The first show was on Saturday, July 13, at the UBS Arena in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-9055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-breakingnews"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9056,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055\/revisions\/9056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}