BY BRIAN BONITTO—
Associate Editor —
Poet Malachi Smith in performance at Malachi Smith and Friends’ Bahamas Hurricane Relief Benefit Show in Florida last Friday. (Photos: Dreamy Riley)
Florida-based Jamaican poet Malachi Smith — conceptualizer of last Friday’s Malachi Smith and Friends’ Bahamas Hurricane Relief Benefit Show — is pleased with the outpouring of support showed at the event held at Krave Lounge in Sunrise, Florida.
“It was hugely successful; we got excellent support. Everybody was pleased with the turnout. We received at lot of supplies and collected over US$5,000 in cash and pledges,” he told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
The donation was handed over to the Jamaica Council representative, Cheryl Wynter, on the evening.
The event’s line-up included poet Judith Fallon-Reid, singer Hal Anthony, Taurus Alphanso, Empress Uneek, Marcia Ball, Novel-T, guitarist Eugene Grey and his band, Sons of Mystro, saxophonist Yishka, Bahamian singer Endel I, and Jay Shephard.
Smith gave the acts thumbs up.
“The performances were superb. Novel-T and Empress Uneek were fabulous, while Endel I did an awesome set. I closed the show. All and all it was a superb event and everyone enjoyed it,” he said.
This is not Smith’s first call to duty.
As president of the 27-year-old Jamaica Ex-Police Association of South Florida, he has refurbished police stations in Four Paths, Clarendon; Castle in Portland; Ocho Rios and St Ann’s Bay precincts in St Ann; Area One headquarters in Montego Bay; and the Falmouth Police Post in Trelawny.
He has also provided medical supplies and equipment for the Police Convalescence Home in St Elizabeth.
Born in Westmoreland, Smith grew up in Central Village, Spanish Town, St Catherine. He says he has been writing poems since elementary school, and in 1977 attended Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, where he rubbed shoulders with firebrand poets Oku Onuora and Mikey Smith.
He joined the Jamaica Constabulary Force after college, and migrated to Florida in 1983.
Host of the weekly radio programme, Strictly Roots Dub Poetry and More, which airs on WZOP and WZPP in Florida, Smith’s poems include One Population, How Yuh Mek Har Massa God, One Way and Wha Dis.
You must log in to post a comment.