Jessie Jendah, the fiery Jamaican deejay and marijuana advocate, died in the Bronx on Monday, August 7. He was 58 years old.
No official cause of death has been announced, but the Rastafarian artiste had been blind for several years. He continued to record music and was passionate about the legalization of marijuana, or ganja as it is commonly known in his native country.
Social media posts from popular dancehall/reggae personalities such as Irish and Chin and Ricky Trooper hailed Jesse Jendah for his uncompromising lyrics which challenged the system and championed Rastafari.
Jesse Jendah infamously offered a parcel of ganja to Jamaican prime minister P. J. Patterson during a meeting with music industry officials in 1999. That session took place at King’s House, the prime minister’s official residence, and was attended by acts such as Tony Rebel and Buju Banton.
Patterson refused the offer which was generally considered disrespectful by Jamaicans. While he was not surprised by the reaction of conservative Jamaicans, Jendah was taken aback by the reaction of some of his colleagues.
“Some wanted I dead…saying that I dis dem boss,” Jesse Jendah said in a July, 2016 interview with the Jamaica Observer.
Known for hard-hitting songs like Mark of The Beast and Missa Prime Minister, Jesse Jendah was from Clarendon, a rural parish in central Jamaica. During the 1990s, he was a member of Xterminator Records, a label run by producer Philip “Fatis” Burrell.
His label-mates at Xterminator included acts like Luciano and Sizzla with whom Jesse Jendah collaborated on songs.
In recent years, he worked with labels in the US such as Mightyful13 Records, which produced Starz of The Orion. Other tracks, notably Kween of The Morning Star and Hempress of The Nile, hear him paying tribute to the Afrocentric woman.
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