‘Winning Sting clash was the worst thing for Merciless’ career’
DJ ‘killed’ Ninjaman, Bounty and Beenie Man all at once
Published:Friday | July 22, 2022 | 12:06 AMYasmine Peru/Senior Gleaner Writer
At the end of what was arguably the biggest ambush in Sting’s history, Merciless walked away with the spoils, having annihilated a fearsome trio of Ninjaman, Bounty Killer and Beenie Man in the year 2000. Years later Bounty Killer called it his “most embarrassing clash moment”.
He told The STAR in a 2017 interview that Merciless gained sympathy votes because it was a case where three deejays ganged up on one. “Ninja is the one who made me enter the stage at Sting. I was not booked for Sting and didn’t go there to clash. A because mi see Merciless a dun Ninja mi a seh, ‘Merciless a go tek weh Ninja title’. So, mi go there to defend mi father,” he said.
The STAR noted that, “Bounty Killer said the clash was just about to get exciting when Beenie Man decided to join, thereby helping to form a self-destructive trio.”
“Merciless seh, ‘Beenie yuh want piece a this?’ And Beenie fi just go pon Merciless side and mek me and Ninja tek dem on, but Beenie ran and join us. Mi a seh to myself, ‘Afta a nuh wi did call yuh, Beenie?’ The man come mek wi look like three big waste man a fight one likkle artiste ... what Merciless really wanted was for Beenie Man to join him,” Bounty explained.
Back then, victory at Sting, dubbed the greatest one-night stage show on Earth, was the elixir for an artiste’s career, but Merciless’ former manager and producer, Harvel ‘Gadaffie’ Hart, said that “winning Sting clash was the worst thing” for the deejay.
“The clash did nothing good for Merciless,” declared Gadaffie, who spoke to The Gleaner one day after Merciless’ sudden passing last Tuesday. “It just create more enemies for him. Because Merciless come in the business sounding like Bounty Killer him get a big fight. But look how many other artistes sound like somebody else before dem find dem own sound. After the clash, I called a certain radio disc jock and asked him if he could balance up the thing and play a Merciless tune just as much as he plays Bounty or any other big artiste and the man tell me that he will never play another Merciless song because I was out of order to tell him that,” Gadaffi recalled.
He noted that Merciless was never billed as a “clash artiste” and once he entered that ring he was viewed differently.
“Merciless was known for songs like God Alone, Greedy fi More, Mama Cooking and Mavis. We use to get some nice shows, even family [oriented] concert, but after the clash, those shows dried up. But even before it was a struggle, because although Merciless bad like that, him just never get that embrace from the music business. Merciless was always treated like a underdog. Now that him dead everybody a talk bout how ‘Leonard bad’,” said Gadaffi, who discovered the artiste in 1994 and had co-signed Merciless as his “son”.
He blamed Merciless’ death on a “broken heart”, and said it was repeated rejection from the business that led the deejay into depression and alcohol abuse. Gadaffi, who said that his own trajectory would have been the same if he had stayed in Jamaica around the music industry, appealed for “more love”.
“Merciless feel that he wasn’t getting any justice in the business. Merciless leave it and come up here [the United States] and get caught up in other things. The biggest rumour was that Merciless was up here driving taxi, and everybody was laughing at him. You can see that in his song, Letter to Mama, he makes a promise to stop drinking when him leave prison, and talks about ‘heavy thinking’. That is depression,” Gadaffi said.
He noted that there are many more talented artistes like Merciless out there who need to be supported before they take a path to damnation.
“So I am just saying, can we be more loving in the business? I am sorry that I wasn’t in Jamaica to help Leonard. We spoke on his birthday, July 1 when he turned 51. My mother who is up here with me and my daughter spoke to Merciless because he is family like that. We just waiting on the autopsy to come down and give him a good send-off,” Gadafffi shared.