Ruff Kut drummer surprised by artiste’s diss track

Ruff Kut drummer Ricardo 'Drummy' Davis is disappointed at a leaked diss track by up-and-coming artiste JQuan, which references an incident at Sharkies Seafood Festival in Runaway Bay, St Ann, on Heroes Day.

"To be honest, what I was expecting was an apology. But that's the power of the mic," Davis told THE WEEKEND STAR. Videos of the incident show JQuan getting annoyed with the band and calling them out. He and Davis subsequently got into a shouting match with expletives traded back and forth until the microphone was cut. One of the artiste's managers, Emanuel Wung, said that the song was done by JQuan "in the heat of the moment".

"But since that, we and Drummy ting quash and everything is good. Drummy ah do nuff interview still but JQuan just a hold it. The song sounds a bit heated because JQuan did vex about the whole thing at the time and he want to tell his side of the story, but somehow the song leaked," Wung told THE WEEKEND STAR.

Co-manager Tameka Reynolds said that JQuan "will not apologise because he has nothing to apologise for".

Chronic Law, Skippa, Armanii and Yaksta were also on the line-up of the festival. Davis said that he had no idea who JQuan was, but he knew and liked one of his songs. He said all of the artistes turned up for rehearsals except JQuan.

"We reached out to his people and were told that he was coming ... at one point we even heard that he wasn't doing the show. The last day of rehearsals Nigel [Staff, keyboard player] got seven songs for JQuan. We, being the professionals that we are, booked an extra hour to go through the songs. We also decided to play the TV track and play over it the night of the show," Davis explained.

He added that there had been some audio issues during the night beyond their control "But, we a work with it".

"However, from the artiste get the mic there was an attitude in him voice. Then he started to diss the band. Man like Sizzla and Bounty ... dem will sometimes seh a one ting bout the band, but dem nuh prolong it. And, he's cursing for something that wasn't our fault," said Davis, who has been playing drums for 30 years and has won several awards with Ruff Kut. "So, I said, let's stop playing and allow the TV track alone to play ... and him still cursing the band. I was standing on my drum riser and I fan him off." That's when things descended, but Davis heeded the promoter's words to "calm down".

"Alvin Brown is a wonderful businessman and I have a lot of respect for him. After the show a lot of artistes reached out to me. I'm in this business from I was 18 and I don't diss artistes ... we build artistes. Ask Skippa. When he came to rehearsals, it just wasn't happening for him and so we showed him some pointers. You know what he did? He gave his phone to his manager to record all that we were saying, went home, studied it and came back the following day a different person. I couldn't believe it ... and he gave a great performance on the show," Davis said.

He recounted a recent incident with Chronic Law who said something disrespectful on stage to Ruff Kut, but apologised in person the following day.

"He even told me to call the band leader and he apologised to him too," Davis said.