Professor Donna Hope grateful for Tommy Lee’s testimony
Published:Tuesday | July 25, 2023 | 12:10 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
Closing the show on Night One of Reggae Sumfest 2023, Tommy Lee Sparta gave a diverse performance, entertaining his fans, with his hits while delivering moving messages about his time being incarcerated.
Tommy Lee, whose birth name is Leroy Russell, was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition in March 2021. Having been released in March this year, after serving two years, he says he has no regrets about his time behind bars and has made several changes in his life since.
“Mi nuh regret go deh ‘cause guess what, a di best two year ah my life, yuh understand. Mi get time fi pree and find time fi mi family, find time fi mi self, yuh understand,” the performer said onstage. “Mi used to tek one whole heap a drugs and dem ting deh and a pop pill and yuh understand – ova dweet. And mi come off a mi addiction and nuff ting, [yuh] understand suh mi glad fi di likkle break. A God mek it happen suh.”
Expressing her gratitude to him for sharing his experience, Donna Hope, a cultural studies professor at The University of the West Indies, said: “I thought it was very important for him, especially in his first big performance since coming out of prison, to sort of interject that into his performance. I was very grateful for it actually and I thought that it made an important impact on people who were looking on. I mean he’s a big artiste. People know him and respect him and his work. I personally wanted him to reflect on it whether in song or in the way he did and I was very grateful for it.”
She continued: “At one point, it seemed like he was even close to tears because he was very overwhelmed when he began to discuss what happened to him in prison and really try to give a sort of cautionary tale, I think, to some people that might be considering a life that might lead them there.”
Tommy Lee also gave also an account of the hardships that accompany lock-up.
“Weh day me and Kartel, we have a ting called recreation, weh wi go down guh play football ... a di only time sun touch we ... one heap a lockdown a dem place deh. Weh day me and Kartel a reason, him over deh so, me ova yah so. Fence yuh know ... and the dog a seh Tommy Lee, youth, we a reason bout we youth dem and him a sey ‘Tommy Lee, when my youth a baby mi deh a prison, and now dem have baby and mi a seh God know dawg. It rough in deh bro’,” he shared.
While she was only able to watch is performance through the online stream, Hope said as a staunch defender of dancehall, she is grateful for the approach he has taken when speaking about his incarceration.
“I was grateful for that maturity and for the moments he took from the musical performance to give that testimony because it was a kind of testimony and I’m grateful for it. It shows a great maturity and also an understanding of what the fans were looking for.”
“We are talking about dancehall and dancehall gets a lot of flak for leading you astray for saying bad things and Tommy Lee himself, having come through that whole ‘Uncle Demon’ [phase] and being incarcerated and so coming to us, giving us this kind of mea culpa, speaking very deliberately to the journey and reflecting on it in a very mature way [not only] shows the kind of diversity that is inside of dancehall but also inside of an individual who is a dancehall artiste. So for me, all the work I’ve done with dancehall, standing up and many times defending dancehall, I was grateful that he was willing and able to be mature and show this transformation onstage for many people who were physically there and watching on the Internet.”