Yesterday (July 5) World Music Views reported that dancehall DJ Popcaan was detained in the U.K. allegedly due to information received from the Jamaican government according to Popcaan.
Popcaan, real name Andrew Sutherland took to Instagram to share information about his holdup in a U.K. airport on Tuesday July 5.
Sitting in a room wearing a Nike hoody sweatshirt, the Family DJ said, “yes so I am being detained right now, as you know I am in the U.K. they gotta give me this paper, and detain me, because of information that was sent by my country, that i should be stopped every time I am here.”
The OVO artist also called on Jamaica’s Prime Minister by tagging @AndrewHolness in the second video shared on his instagram stories.
“I wonder why?” he says somberly. “Mr. Prime Minister of Jamaica, I would like to draw your attention to this, once again.”
In January Popcaan faced a similar detention in the U.K. and tweeted, “I would like to know why someone with authority in Jamaica send information to England immigration that I’m a gang leader and I got charge with firearm, this is not cool at all from my own country, why I have to be sitting in immigration for over 3 hours??”
In a statement provided today July 6 to World Music Views by the Jamaica Constabulary Force, they have sought to set the record straight on why Popcaan is detained in the U.K. each time he travels to that country.
The J.C.F is distancing itself from being the source of information that may have caused the DJ to be detained, but says there are international matters relating to the DJ that could cause him to be detained.
The statement said that a “Green Notice” was placed on the Family DJ as far back as 2015 and renewed in 2018.
For their part the Jamaican Police communication department stated that, “No Stop Order was placed on Mr. Sutherland by the Government of Jamaica.”
Interpol has 8 categories of notices according to their website, and each notice comes with specific criteria. For Popcaan’s category, the Green Notice is to provide warning about a person’s criminal activities, where the person is considered to be a possible threat to public safety.
The website also states that Interpol’s member countries may also request cooperation from each other through another alert mechanism known as a ‘diffusion’. All Diffusions and Notices must also comply with INTERPOL’s Constitution and the Rules on the Processing of Data.
Last November the DJ was fined a total of $10,000 after pleading guilty to traffic offenses in the Yallahs St. Thomas Traffic Court.
He was fined $2,000 for driving without insurance coverage, $2,000 for driving without a helmet, $3,000 for having no valid certificate of fitness and another $3,000 for driving an unlicensed motorcycle.
Following that guilty plea Popcaan, 33, made light of the situation on twitter “I said guilty” he wrote along with laughing emojis.
In 2019, Popcaan had to address rumor reports of him losing his U.K. visa by the BBC 1 Xtra.
The U.K. media company, posted the inaccurate information on their website stating that the Unruly artiste was unable to perform at the 1Xtra Live event which was scheduled to take place on October 5.
He then posted a video on his Instagram page, chastising the BBC for misaligning his name and that they were being cheap.
“Yeah, mi just waan clear up something real quick enuh. BBC me nuh want unno feel like unno can tarnish me name, innu uzeet. Me want unno tell the people dem say unno cheap and unno doh wah pay fi weh unno fi pay fah,” Popcaan rants.
Popcaan signed to Drake’s OVO Sound in late 2018, and one year later, he released his third album Vanquish on the Drake owned label. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Reggae Albums Chart, just as its predecessors did.
The deejay has also released two EPs; the first was Link Up – a joint effort with labelmate Preme that was released in November 2020. In February 2021, his Gyalentine’s EP was released with four tracks.
His upcoming album Great Is He is scheduled for later this year.
