(Barbados Nation) Monday’s fatal shooting of entertainer Irvin Fatman Weekes has raised new concerns about the senseless violence in Barbados.
Fatman was shot around 2 a.m. yesterday while at Londy’s Bar, Wharton Gap, St Michael, and died at the scene. Some men reportedly fired shots, causing patrons to scatter. Two other people suffered non-life threatening gunshot injuries and were taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Veteran entertainer and promoter Richard Stoute questioned why people had to resort to violence and nothing was being done about it.
He said influential people like entertainers and other professionals needed to step up to help bring about change in the “trouble areas” especially, before things got out of hand.
“Entertainers, the writers and so on need to write songs that educate and fill people’s lives with looking at themselves. I want to see more motivational things happening musically. We have a big role to play, because people listen . . . . We have too many issues affecting people that we cannot write songs that reflect what is really happening in our country,” Stoute stated.
Geoffrey Biggie Irie Cordle concurred. He is the only survivor of A Thousand Pounds Of Blubber, a trio which also included Fatman and Mighty Whitey, who died on September 23 last year.
Biggie Irie said something drastic had to be done because “this li’l rock fading fast”.
“We [entertainers] need to lobby and get behind whoever we got to get behind to let them know that we are not happy with what’s going on,”?he said. “Almost every week now there is some sort of violence, some sort of gunplay. People are being killed, people are being robbed and it’s not right.
“. . . The people of Barbados need to bond together and get these people who are doing these things and get rid of them. Fatman was innocent. Fatman never do nuhbody nutten.”
Both Stoute and Biggie Irie got the sad news within hours of Fatman’s passing.
