Admiral Tibet & Droop Lion (2023)

​@LeoOReggio

I shot this footage at the recently held Bob Marley Day concert, held at the Emancipation Park on February 6, 2023.

Droop Lion has emerged as one of the leading voices of a new reggae-soul movement in reggae music this year. Known for his breakout hit, ‘Freeway’, Droop Lion is revolutionizing reggae music with his soul-searing voice, inspirational songs, and awe-inspiring live performances.
Born in the parish of St. Mary Jamaica, to Inez Aikens and Vivian Brown, Andrew Brown aka Droop Lion grew up in the tough, gritty shanties of Kingston. He lost his mother to gun violence when he was just nine months old, a savage act that robbed the young man of a mother’s love.
He turned to music to express himself and make a spiritual connection with the universe. At a young age under the guidance of his grandmother, he vowed to stick to the conscious path and not compromise in order to achieve success.
“My music is down to earth and cultural. There’s always a message in it. It’s like a medicine to society’s sickness,” Droop Lion says of his particular brand of music.
While attending Port Maria Comprehensive High, he says he would always seize the opportunity to perform at school concerts and community events. He would also use his spare time to visit recording studios “to build a vibe around what he loved”.
After leaving high school, Droop Lion met artiste Mallory Williams who introduced him to musician Seretse Small. He returned to Tower Hill, in Olympic Gardens where his mother had died in the political violence that gripped the nation in 1980.
“After leaving high school, I came back to Kingston where the stronger part of my family de, my auntie, and my uncles and that is Olympic Gardens, my father come from Waterhouse, mi come from this region. Due to how I was young when my mother died, it didn’t have a big effect of me that way in violent, negative manner, mi find out say mi more spiritually sound, mi calm and love, mi can’t take the wickedness and violence,” he said. Under his guidance, Droop started recording in 1998 under the name Droop Dog. Success eluded him, but he kept putting out positive records.
On the advice of a radio announcer who demanded a name change which she thought was reflective of the fiery passions she saw buried deep in him, he changed his monicker, transforming from a dog to a lion. Not long afterward, his music began to take on a new resonance, as Droop Lion began to turn his considerable writing skills toward social commentary. He did poignant brilliant songs such as Mama Soon Come Back, a song he wrote about the mother he never knew, and the powerful ‘Freeway’ which was inspired by the cataclysmic Tivoli Gardens incursion in 2010 where over 70 persons were killed.
The constant gun violence and macho street theatre that dominate the nation’s newspapers and electronic media coverage are issues that are close to Droop Lion’s heart, especially since that sort of violence has touched his life intimately.

Admiral Tibet (sometimes Tibet), also known as “Mr. Reality” (born Kenneth Allen, Freehill, Saint Mary, Jamaica, 1960) is a Jamaican dancehall singer known for his “cultural” lyrics.
Tibet was one of the few artists from the early days of digital reggae to focus on “conscious” themes in his lyrics. A member of the Twelve tribes of Israel since his youth. He has been described as “the most consistently conscious singer of his age”. Allen described how he got his nickname: “I was going primary school and my cousin, both of us were sitting together looking into an atlas and saw the name ‘Tibet’. My cousin took it as a mockery and seh ‘Tibet! Tibet!’ and it stuck.”
He began performing in Jamaican clubs and with sound systems during his teens, including his local Torpedo system. He made his first recordings when he was in his 20s; a reluctance to move to Kingston played a part in this. He eventually made the move in 1982. In 1985, Tibet made his first recording for producer Sherman Clacher, entitled “Babylon War”. Shortly after this, he began recording for Winston Riley where he recorded the song “Leave People Business”, Redman, King Jammy, where he recorded songs like “Chase Them Jah” in 1986 and other songs like his Biggest hit song “Serious Time” In 1987, and Bobby Digital. His debut album Come into the Light was produced by King Jammy and released in 1987. He recorded several more albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He appeared at the Reggae Sunsplash festival in 1989. He was less prolific in the 1990s but returned with more albums in the 2000s, and is still performing in the late 2000s.
His hit “Serious Time” was later issued in remixed form with contributions from two-time Grammy winner Shabba Ranks and Ninjaman, signaling a reconciliation between the two deejays who had been bitter rivals for some time.
His voice has been described: “at its best has a convincing, vulnerable quality entirely suited to sufferers’ laments.”