Sizzla reflects on the incident with Norris Man on stage in 2007

Reggae and dancehall artist Sizzla Kalonji recently revisited the controversial 2007 incident with Norris Man onstage at the Capleton-directed “St. Mary Mi Come From” concert.

According to a 2007 article in the Jamaica Star, the altercation broke out just after 4am, after hours of short performances that left the crowd hungry for top acts. However, excitement turned to confusion when Norris Man, who was scheduled to perform later, interrupted Sizzla’s performance and said: “Jah Cure has left to come on stage. I’m rehearsing with the ban.”

He then appeared Big, long gun/Hard movementhis song on the Red Bull and Guinness Riddim, which also serves as a countermeasure to Sizzlas Run out, Pon Dem on the applause Riddim (2005). This prompted Sizzla to ask: “Mek sure a no me yu a talk”, followed by a more forceful: “come off a de b* stage.” In response, Norris Man defied Sizzla and said: “…k yu mumma.” Shocked, Sizzla replied: “wha? a dat yu sey?”

A physical altercation followed, during which Norris Man was hit hard by several people on stage, but Sizzla did not take part in the violence.

In a new interview on The Fix Podcast Solid as a rock The artist stressed that he neither supported nor directed the attack on Norris Man. “On a stage like this, you shouldn’t say that to me, you should walk up to me and say, ‘Dad, give me the microphone, I’m going to make you explode, and you can tell me that.’ It was the other way around, so he said that unexpectedly,” Sizzla said.

Sizzla noted that the atmosphere of the event was tense even before his arrival, partly due to a disorganized process that left the artists impatient and frustrated. He agreed that Norris Man’s appearance on stage was a deliberate act of disrespect towards him.

“Yes, he shouldn’t be on stage,” he said.

“Lady Saw was performing, so the other person who should have gotten the microphone should have been the person who was handling the audience. So you took a different microphone and you were not introduced to the audience… no, you were not introduced. Sizzla was not introduced either. Honestly, when I got backstage, I thought: what time am I performing? I thought: what time am I working? Nobody knows what time. I looked at the promoter and it was like the promoter was mad at me, but I said, ‘Why are you mad at me when I’m not doing anything? And I should be mad at you for not paying me?'”

According to Sizzla, the disturbance was the reason he intervened and took control of the situation himself, with the aim of restoring order and performing without further problems.

“So as one of the leaders, I took it upon myself to break that spell…everyone was a little hesitant to go on stage so I was about to go on stage…same case now, this artiste was drawing a song on the Anger Management riddim and at that point I had to control my anger so I said look like you have to call me mama because it looks like we are not going to get on stage unless we fight it out,” he explained.

“It was a struggle for the artists to get on stage, so the arrangement was that I would take the stage and whenever someone wanted to come up they’d say ‘I’m making progress, we’ll go up first’, so I’d say ‘all right, go ahead, but watch me’, so we kind of planned it out there, so you guys have a plan of what we’re not doing, so we have a plan of what we’re doing, so when the artists go up and sort things out I’d say ‘well, now it’s my time and I just have to take care of things, and the big railing is coming, which nobody wanted, and to disrupt and distract from that, then there’s trouble, but we’ve already seen that from the ground,'” he added.

Sizzla reiterated that although the altercation was regrettable, it was not staged by him: “People laid hands on people, but I did not order anyone to do that.”

He said that Norris Man apologized to him after the incident and that the matter was long behind them.