Reggae singer Horace Andy recently shared some harrowing experiences during his five decade career. He recalls two terrifying incidents in Miami and Washington DC where a promoter left him stranded at a hotel and another pointed a gun at him and refused to pay him for his performance.
“I always member a bad experience, I hope the producer a listen, me nah go talk bout it,” he said on the Entertainment Report Podcast.
Despite his initial reluctance to discuss the incident, the Skylarking singer delved into the details. “Somebody send for you, put you in a hotel, it was in Miami, the promoter come look fi we, give we a box food, we nuh see him till the next day. Then the next day we di the snow anthem drop we at the hotel, Sunday come we don’t see him, Monday come we don’t see him, Tuesday come we don’t see him, the people them talk to ask where them money? What happen to the room?”
Andy recounted how a woman helped him escape the precarious situation. “That’s why me love woman so, Is a woman come to mi rescue, me just make a call and she just drive come and park round a back and me make a escape,” he said laughing.
Reflecting on the frequency of shady dealings with concert promoters, the 73-year-old singer spoke about another dangerous encounter in Washington, DC, which turned more violent than he had anticipated.
“I get a plane ticket ride to Washington and when I finish the show is gun Inna me face and me never get a ticket back I have to go back to Miami Inna the truck back with the sound(system).”
The Ain’t No Sunshine singer was keen to point out that these exploitative acts were often perpetrated by his fellow Jamaicans. “It’s our own Jamaican doing it, that make it so sad, we own kind.”
He added that the impact these experiences had on his family, highlighting his responsibilities as a father. “And we have children and we have to support them and that’s why we have to come and travel, work me a work, me get 20 daughters and 10 boy Pickney, my youngest child is four years old.”
Andy previously complained to WMV that he has sought legal representatives to get royalties owed to him by Trojan Records over 40 years.
