how Sting, Supreme promotion, Laing got started

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<span style="font-weight: bold">Promotion starts out of 'Supreme' car need</span>




Barrington Levy in perfoirmance at Heineken Startime, held at the Mas Camp, Oxford Road, New Kingston on Saturday December 3, 2005.

<span style="font-weight: bold">This is the first of a six-part interview with Isaiah Laing, head of Supreme Promotions which puts on the annual 'Sting' concert</span>.

He is not, of course, involved only in music, as he served in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) from 1976 to 1996, and he has a lot to say about the current crime situation. So along with the 'stinging' memories, The STAR will give you Laing's opinions on crime-fighting.


<span style="font-style: italic">The STAR</span>: How did you get involved in music business?


<span style="font-style: italic">Isaiah Laing:</span> From way back, from 1982. The same police business caused it too, y'know. I wanted to be different from the rest of police. I ended up down at Admiral Town, where I started getting this super-name. What happened is every time I go round and I am in a shoot-out with the guys, I have to be taking the bus to go home in the evenings. And I thought that was very, very dangerous. I happened to go on a bus one night and see some people from Arnett Gardens, from Jungle on the same bus. So I know them going back and tell them friends that this is how me travel. I thought it was too dangerous so I tried everything to get a car. So I put on a dance and made some money. And I did buy the car.



S: Your first dance?


L: No, the second dance.


S: So what was your first dance?


L: The first dance was a it was a party, over in Hopedale in St. Catherine. A guy from over Sydenham played. It was a small sound. The second dance now was over by Prison Oval. Real dance. That was Volcano and People's Choice. And that was the same dance where Barrington Levy lick the song Prison Oval Rock. He made the song right there. Because the prisoners came out on the rooftop and light fire, I don't know where they got newspaper and fire from, and start skank. So Barrington Levy start sing and watch them (Laing sings &quot;the prisoners are skanking some call it Spanish Town but a prison oval rock&quot. Yeah. And then he recorded it.


S: On Volcano.


L: Volcano label same way.


S: So what kind of car you bought them time?


L: It was a Corolla.


S: And you feel better going home?


L: Yeah. I could drive home by myself. Nobody could study where I go.


S: So when you were on the bus and you saw the people you were armed?


L: Yeah man, I was armed. I was a detective, so I had my nine millimetre. I was one of the first young police in West Kingston to get a nine millimetre. I got one in 1980. Two came to West Kingston. A next constable got one and I got one. Everybody else carried a .38.


S: So did you intend for this dance thing to be long-term thing, or you just wanted to buy a car, stop and come out of it?


L: Because of what transpired from the first one, I did not know what the end would be, so I just kept on keeping them. I ended up doing something at Cinema 2 in 1984 called the 'Four Sound Clash'.

S: Which four sounds were in that?


L: It was Jammys, Black Scorpio, Sugar Minott's Youthman Promotions and Black Star. Tenor Saw was on Youth Promotions and Jammys had Risto Benjie, Johnny Osbourne, General Trees was on Scorpio, Tiger and Brigadier on Black Star.

S: Who tek de dance?


L: The dance now, went down in the morning to Sugar Minott and Jammys. In the morning when Sugar Minott draw some tune and Tenor Saw walk out on that stage, the place flatten. Place gwaan bad man, with Tenor Saw a sing dem big song deh.


S: That wasn't the Ring The Alarm dance?


L: No no. That song was there. (He reminisces a bit). There was a dance that did mash up y'nuh man. Some security dog got away and run in the crowd, a policeman fire some shot in the air and that was the end of it. The people start run and say is Laing and Back Bush man in shoot-out. Girls went over the wall like men.


S: And you see your money go down the drain.


L: No, we made the money already. It was like 4:30 in the morning. We had about 14,000 people in the dance at $10. And later on that same year, here comes Sting.


S: 1984?


L: Mmm hmmm.



Tomorrow: Sting and more thoughts on crime.


<span style="font-weight: bold">Barrington Levy's dancehall standard Prison Oval Rock was created at a dance put on by Isaiah Laing at the Spanish Town Prison Oval. </span>- file

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Sting gets its name, Shabba cries

Sting gets its name, Shabba cries

Mel Cooke, STAR writer




This is the third installment of our multi-part interview with Isaiah Laing, head of Supreme Promotions, which puts on the Today, Laing speaks about the importance of clashing and gives us more Sting memories. Although it has toned down significantly over the years, Sting is still remembered for its epic deejay clashes.


<span style="font-weight: bold">The STAR</span>: So how is it that clashing became a part of Sting in the first place?


<span style="font-weight: bold">Isaiah Laing:</span> I like competition and you know Jamaicans are like that. Anywhere competition is, that is where they want to be. There were a lot of shows in those times, y'nuh, and I wanted my show to be different. And maybe the kinda power I had, I could ask the artistes to do certain things, and them do it for me, and then it becomes the norm for Sting to be the clash show. Even if you clash on other shows and certain artiste dead, is like yu nuh dead until yu come a Sting (he laughs). When you reach Sting, that's when you really dead.


S: Why you called it 'Sting'?


L: That name came through Michael Palmer (the singer of Dem a Lick Shot and whose name is mentioned by Tenor Saw in I Got To Be There). One day, I was patrolling. I saw him on Maxfield Avenue and Michael Palmer said &quot;boss, a we yu fe use pon de show y'nuh&quot;. Because we did not use him down at Damali (the concert that was kept in MoBay in 1984, before Sting). So he said &quot;a we yu fe use! A we a shot an a we a sting, y'nuh!&quot; (he laughs heartily again). So I just pick out the 'sting' and sey 'da sting deh soun' good, y'nuh'. And I went back to my office and thought about it and just called it Sting. I don't even think Michael Palmer remembers that conversation, why the show name so.


S: Eh-heh.


L: Yeah. Me nah hide it. Just like Elephant Man. He goes everywhere in this world and people call him 'Energy God'. I named him that. Let me see if I see the poster in here. (Laing looks around his Burlington Avenue office, the walls of which are filled with posters of Sting concerts past.) Right. On this poster, 2000, that's where him get that name. Everybody you see up there so. 'Warhead', Merciless, we name him like that. Beenie Man 'The Doctor' had the name before, we work with that. Ninja Man was dubbed as the War god. Bounty was the Warlord.


S: You dub him Warlord?


L: No. And there was a time, 1997, when he had the problem at Stadium there with Merciless. Him sey him no name Warlord, a we call him so. He said that in an interview on RJR. I heard him.


S: But him tek it after a while.


L: (Laughing) Yeah! Him tek it after!


S: So, Sting come down to the '90s now. The '80s was the two set of people clash.


L: '89 now, we never had a clash because of what happen '88 (when the microphone was turned off as the clash got out of hand). We tried to run from it a little, but then we never got the kind of crowd. We had about 20,000 people that year. So ...


S: You know what the people want.


L: Yeah. We know exactly what they want and it is not nice to spend your money and lose it, because them time you not getting any sponsor from anybody. You have to find the money from somewhere and borrow and then something's gonna be out. '89, we had the Fat Boys, brought in foreign act, the emergence of foreign act on Sting. 1990, we had the Bunny Wailer saga. And the Shabba Ranks saga.


S: I remember seeing tapes of the bottling of Bunny Wailer. What happened? He was going on too long or ...


L: No. He did four songs. He did four specials. Bunny Wailer get it wrong. Because it's a dancehall show, him come with what the sound system would normally play in the dancehall. People don't really want to hear that. People want to hear hits of Bunny Wailer over the years. So him come now, start sing some specials, him was singing about Silverhawk when the bottles were flung at him, the first set of bottles. So him tell them expletive and boom flick off the stage. (There is laughter all around.)


S: And Shabba?


L: Shabba now; Shabba's camp wanted the clash 'cause Shabba was the man who had the hit songs. We know that, right through. The clash was on, Shabba wanted the clash, everybody wanted the clash, until about two days before, we get word that Shabba don't want to clash again.


S: Ninja wanted the clash ...


L: Ninja wanted the clash, because Louise (Frazer-Bennett) was managing Ninja at the time and Louise go round and print up her 10,000 pamphlets and say 'Ninja Man for Sting - him a go kill Shabba'.


S: A war she a promote.


L: Yes, is a war. So the night when the people start - because the thing out there, the poster say clash, everything out there promoted as a clash. Shabba went on first and said him no want no clash. Ninja join him. Shabba walk off. Then Ninja start do him tune them, Shabba automatically had to go back out, tentatively, go deejay, not him real self. And Ninja Man start some things (Laing chuckles), point pon him pants and start say '.... pants, .... pants'. (He breaks into a laugh).


S: Shabba cry.


L: Yeah. Shabba cry. So now Ninja Man becomes the real gladiator. Nobody can defeat Ninja. So there comes the real bad bway, Supercat. 1991.

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Re: Sting gets its name, Shabba cries

mi memba wen di bakkle Bunny Wailer...nuff moaning an gnashing of teet did gwane bout how dem a disrespek a foundation of di music....nuff a dat gwane...but den yaad people no easy fi real....an afta dat, nuff more bakkling gwane a Sting

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Supercat didn't have the 'ting' on him

In the last chapter in our story on Sting through Supreme Promotions' Isaiah Laing's keen eyes and superb memory, he had go to the 1990 clash between Ninja Man and Shabba, which left the Grammy winner crying. Now it is on to another epic clash, Ninja Man vs Supercat, and the most famous 'fling back' of all time.

Isaiah Laing: Supercat joined Ninja Man onstage 1991, jump out there and start off very, very good until he made a mistake and do a song that Ninja counter right away with a song &quot;reverse the hearse and put in the dead&quot;. And right away Stadium no good again. So, Cat start get irate and somebody fling a bottle after him. And I want to tell you is one of Cat's fans threw the bottle because that Cat was losing the battle. And him just take it and fling it back out in the crowd. That was the end of that story.

STAR: So, him did really have the ting pon him?

L: He never had any gun on him. Him jus' a talk.

(<span style="font-weight: bold">Laing goes on to say that for the upcoming 25th anniversary show he would love to have Supercat and Shabba Ranks at Sting.) </span>

L: It (Supercat and Ninja Man) was billed as a clash. And before that, in the morning, we had Admiral Bailey, Papa San and Tiger. That is the nicest piece of show to look at if you ever look at that tape. Three of them, three the hard way. And when Papa San went out and did his crying song Tiger just answered him and said (Laing laughs) &quot;cry cry baby&quot;.

STAR: And the crowd loved it.

L: The place mash up. The three of them were so lively in that half-hour set that they got there. Very lively. Everybody said it was one of the best three the hard way they had ever seen.

(<span style="font-weight: bold">Laing goes on to 1992 when Kriss-Kross came and performed at the day show, where there were over 10,000 people, and then returned for the main night event where they were bottled. It was Supercat who came to their rescue.)</span>

L: There was in incident out of that bottle throwing, so the Stadium had a row with us. We decided to move away from the Stadium, so we went to Jamworld. (It was built as a show venue by Kemp Skeffry, the same person who did Cinema 2, the LOJ Shopping Centre in Spanish Town, as well as the Towers in New Kingston, Laing noting that it was an excellent venue, drainage and all. Work started in 1991, geared specifically towards Sting, Laing said.)

We went over there '93 and the first year we had 26,000 people over there.

STAR: So '93 was the Bounty/Beenie clash.

L: Yes

STAR: Did you anticipate a clash?

L: Yes. It wasn't billed as a clash, but that started from Stone Love anniversary. I think that show was like from December 7 or 9. The talk was on the streets and in the dances. So when you find it like that, the people on the streets know what they want. So when Beenie Man started performing, they started calling for Bounty. So, knowing the Sting fans, I know they will fling up there if they don't get what they want. So I give Bounty a microphone and said 'Bounty, go up deh'. Bounty run up there and said 'people deeeeeeaaadddd'.

STAR: He was happy to go up there.

L: Yeah man, Bounty glad. And trust me, that was the turning point of Bounty's career. Because he went up there and the way him hold it because Beenie Man was like the favourite, but Bounty go up there and hold him own, just like that. And they even think that Bounty won the clash.

STAR: Who you think won?

L: I think it was a draw. If anything I would give Beenie the edge because he was out there for like 10 minutes before Bounty went up there. So, he had to draw some of his material before. But Bounty is more the clash artiste. Beenie feels he can do anything that Bounty can do. At one stage, Beenie Man was trying to sound like Bounty Killer on the stage and it almost start a war.

STAR: On the same Sting?

L: On the same Sting over there! So Bounty said 'dat is my tune!. But it (the definitive clash) did not materialise. Somebody threw two Red Stripe bottles on the stage and we had to stop it.

STAR: Coming up now

L: '94 was a year of peace. We had togetherness as the theme and we had a picture with Garnet Silk and everybody And then Garnet Silk died.

Next: We fast forward through Sting of the 90s and get to the point where Laing almost gave it all up, the on-stage fight with Kartel and Ninja.

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Bad 'Vybz' almost end Sting





Ninja Man (back turned) and Vybz Kartel during their fight on stage. - File

Yesterday, we left off the Sting story with Isaiah Laing at 1994, when Garnet Silk was advertised but died before the concert. In 1995, Beres Hammond did Sting for the last time, the same year a clash anticipated between Beenie and Bounty did not materialise but Ninja and Cobra tangled. In January, 1996, there was a Sting, Part Two, show in MoBay, where the two put down nearly 15 minutes that Laing says &quot;was something for everyone to see&quot; and he calls a draw. There were skirmishes between Merciless and Bounty Killer in 1997 (on a night when Busta Rhymes made an impact). Then, in 2000, Merciless took on Ninja Man, Bounty and Beenie and won but lost the rematch the next year. In 2002, the Sting format was changed to the '10 Giants' and then came the 20th anniversary show.


Isaiah Laing: 2003 was our 20th anniversary now and there comes the 'passa passa' with Vybz Kartel bruck fight with Ninja Man, mash up me life, worst I have ever felt.


STAR: Yeah?


L: Yeah. Worst I have ever felt in my entire life.


S: Why?


L: Because we didn't expect something like this to happen on the stage, a real fight on the stage an him know me deh deh. Kartel is a man me bring (Laing points to a poster with a young Vybz Kartel's progress up the Sting poster rankings to a 'young giant' along with Assassin, Spice and Chuck Fendah in 2002). And he came the next year now and fight and disgrace the music. (Laing speaks about helping to secure Kartel after the show.) After that, he came back, begged his pardon and we said 'alright, we good'. Then, all of a sudden, he just started keeping wide

2004 now, we decided that we weren't going to put down the show. Because I had decided I wasn't going to bother going any further with the show.


STAR: You really were going to give it up?


L: It had me weak man! That is not what you want from the thing. It's reggae music and dancehall. We want to have the most positive dancehall show in the world. We don't need to have a show with people a fight. If we are clashing we clash and go bout we business. But you see the audience? If they could just stay out of the thing. Just listen some lyrics, accept defeat if you get defeat. No man, they don't take it like that. So we decided to build some artistes. That's how we came with the Magnificent 7. Turbulence mash up the thing. Turbulence go on wicked over there. Somebody said Turbulence gone with a piece of Sting and they don't know where he was going to put it. We promoted the show like it was them alone on it. People did not know that Capleton and those other people were on the show. We just highlighted the young people. So we got about 7,000 people and we ended up losing. We knew we were going to lose, so we cut back on the spending. But still every dollar that was spent that year was lost, but we anticipated that.

STAR: But these are people who would eventually rise.


L: Mmm hmm. (He goes through more Sting memories, with the early performances of Beenie Man, then Buju Banton and, last year, Mavado.) There comes the big one now, 2006, Buju Banton, the driver. That really bring back the spring inna de ting.


S: Buju was the one who really turn things.


L: Yeah, Buju. Bounty was hot, Beenie was hot, so we would always get a good show. Like in 1991, we had so many artistes that were big on their own. We had the Admiral, the Tiger, the Papa San, Ninja Man, Supercat. Almost everybody then on the show would pull a crowd, last year we had big names y'nuh, but we never really had a big song. We lost money last year. Mavado was there, but not big enough. Jah Cure too, but still didn't have the cutting edge we were looking for, like when Buju come with the one song, 'Driver'. Everybody wanted to come hear 'Driver'. When Buju's time came to work at 1:00 a.m., people run left them car, car light on, door open, just to see Buju's performance. We had to have guards go out and man people's car. The gate, is like they wanted to tear it down. People went on the rooftop to get tickets. Everybody wanted to go in one time. So what I had to do was hold back Buju for 20 minutes, let somebody else work, to ease off the pressure.


S: You think Sting lose it's sting last year?


L: I wouldn't say it lost its sting y'nuh. We tried our best to let the people come clean. And the more we try to let them come clean it's the dirtier it becomes. I got stung last year. (Laing speaks about matters of sponsorship.)


S: So, you think Sting get softer over the years?


L: Things kind of change and because of how things in the society stay People are getting hungrier and the angrier they become. So, some things that we normally do, we can't even do them. The clash vibes, we sort of want to cut it out. This year, the theme is back to basics. We really want to do a final clash. (There is a jolly laugh.) And what I would love to do, if I get sponsorship, I would love to bring the entrance fee back down to $999.


S: How much it was last year?


L: $2,000 at the gate, $1,500 pre-sold.


S: You still got a good crowd.


L: Yeah, we got a good crowd. But if everything is in my power this year I am going to bring it to $999 to give back to the people for 25 years of supporting me.


S: Who you want on the show this year, or it too early?


L: It sort of early, but I'm really looking to see if I could get Shabba Ranks and Supercat to come and bless back the thing. I would love to have the artistes who participated over the years to come through. Instead of having the early acts I'd rather start with them this year. Maybe a 10 or so really good young artistes, but I would rather work with Grindsman, Cutty Ranks.


S: The fight was your worst Sting moment. What was the best?


L: (laughing gleefully) Ninja Man and Supercat clash. I was at the back of the stage in the bleachers, the stage was facing the grandstand. I was watching from up the top when Ninja Man bus the crowd and you see the wave in the crowd look like the wave in the sea. You're looking at 40,000 people, everybody synchronised. Trust me, that was a very, very good feeling