The Colonel cares for his casket - Red, green and gold coffin made after Sugar Minott's death

Deejay Josey Wales, popularly called 'The Colonel', knows the casket he will be buried in when he dies - which he does not intend to be anytime soon, although he is prepared - very well.

Wales not only had the casket "made locally by some professionals in my community", complete with the red, green and gold colours of his Rastafarian faith, but also keeps it at his Olympic Gardens home in an air-conditioned room.

"It is inevitable, so if it is so why am I scared? I am ready any given time. We would like to live forever, but I no see no man do it before. Them say Methuselah is the longest liver and I don't even know any of him grandson. The Bible say three scores and 10, that is good enough for me," he said.

Josey Wales said he decided to have his casket made to his specifications "three days after the great Lincoln 'Granulated Sugar' Minott's became a deceased" on July 10 last year.

"Sugar Minott is a man who make a lot of cash. If him was alive him would have buried himself for $10 million. He would have prepared his thing like that. We would have helicopter with him carry to bury and everything set and appropriate."

However, Wales says when he visited Minott's studio, "everyone was confused. Not that they did not have the money to bury him, but they were confused. This one was pulling that way that one was pulling that way, is a tug-o-war".

"I use every section of my life as a learning process. I realise that a dead man can't make no decree, this is why I made my casket," he said. So when his time comes, Josey Wales said, he wants things to be orderly - "see that thereso, pick up him suit there".

Josey Wales has been close to a violent death twice before. On February 3, 1978, he was shot seven times at 83 Waltham Park Road. He still carries a bullet in his shoulder from that incident. On February 5, 1997, he was again shot in the back in St Ann. He did Buswhacked out of the second experience, declaring "it was coward who shot the Colonel in his back", and also bought and donated an ambulance to the Kingston Public Hospital.

The Sunday Gleaner asks Wales how he justifies putting red, green and gold on his casket and about the view that Rastafarians do not attend funerals. He expounds on the various vows, including the cutting of locks, and the impracticality of not dealing with death.

"Not that we are dissing the law of God or going against the Old Testament, but in reality you have to live on Earth before you live in heaven," Wales said.

"For every Rastaman who dead for the last 40 years a funeral keep. Is a fact of life. What if we say we burn him with some tyre and send up a sacrifice? That would not be nice and the government would have an objection."

Facing reality

And Wales says "if no Rasta went to the great Bob funeral, how would that look? I think we need to get out of that system and jump into this reality".

Regarding the colours, Wales said "whatever religion you consider yourself a part of you need to be buried. If I think I am a Rastafarian, even though I am not locks-wearing, it is my desire to be buried in my colours. Even if it was not of my faith, it is my desired colours anyway".

The Sunday Gleaner asks Wales if he has also picked out his suit and organised the order of service and he says "no. I did not go that deep. It is not like I'm going overboard. But I am making the most essential provision, so when the time comes it won't be no running up and down like is wild ants".

Neither was he measured for the coffin, as Wales says there is a standard size, which should fit although he says "I never go inside it yet. I don't want to soil the silk". He does consider what will happen if he puts on weight, saying "maybe by the time I am ready to go, obesity may overtake me. But I am not such a loose person to let myself go. I watch my diet. I don't overeat, I don't drink too much".

Made of cedar, Josey Wales says the casket "can preserve and stay a long time. And I hope it does. I hope I not ready to go into it yet".

One element of the casket is missing, though, Wales leaving that detail to his children.

"I think my portrait is going to go on it. The portrait will go on after I have gone home. I have made that request," he said.