Author: Boomshots

Sevens Clash Pays A Visit To The Man Who Started Sting

Isaiah Laing is the originator of Sting, Jamaica’s premiere one-night live music event held on Boxing Day (December 26) annually since 1984. His preternatural ability to consistently populate the lineup with a perfect balance of talent has helped the show keep pace with constantly shifting tastes over the course of the past 28 years… Before Sting, Laing was a policeman. Active between 1976 and 1996 he was widely known as a rogue in the mold of men like Trinity, Tony Hewitt and Bigga Ford. A brush with mortality during a gun battle on Matches Lane early in his career led him to embrace a philosophy of duty based around a version of moral equivalency that would conveniently justify any activity outside the parameters of normal police protocol. Much like Texas Ranger John Coffee “Jack” Hays adopted the war tactics and fighting techniques of the feared Comanches along the North American frontier, in wild-West Kingston Laing became a bad man with a badge and a nine. Despite the potboilers overflowing with lurid tales of shootouts and battle scars (starring Laing as valiant crime fighter) that tend to litter the local news cycle around this time of year, his reputation on the street as a ruthless vigilante who has caught more bodies than bullets is deeply etched in popular memory. In 1991, when Tiger asked, “Whe di bad boy police name?” on his hit call and response record, When, everybody, including schoolchildren, knew the answer. Today, fully sixteen years since he turned in his badge, the proper reply remains the same, “Laing!”  (more…)