Mural of Prince Far I in Kingston Jamaica
The idea
Kingston, Jamaica, received the designation of a UNESCO Creative City of Music in 2015. The island’s reggae music has become a worldwide phenomenon and a gift to the rest of the world. Kingston depicts many of its well-known musical greats via large visual murals.
Artists like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Augustus Pablo, Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott, Toots Hibbert and many others are honored and proudly shown to the world in the form of murals in the streets, the same streets in which reggae music began.
One such artist we think also deserves to have his legacy defined in paint is Prince Far I, born on the 23rd of March 1945 and brutally murdered on the 15th of September 1983. By selling merchandise or receiving donations, we would like to raise the funding to create a mural of Prince Far I in Downtown Kingston, using the following image as a basis.
To make it happen, we will partner with Kingston Creative, an arts development organization and NGO, which has been starting to transform the streets of Downtown Kingston with public art aiming to create an Arts District, organically and inclusively.
We are still to confirm the final location for the Prince Far I mural and are currently looking at two possible locations. We have identified Junior 'Tamlins' Moore of the Tamlins fame as the muralist. Besides being an excellent and successful singer, Junior is a self-taught painter of which you can see a beautiful example below.
A mural done in collaboration with Kingston Creative, would create a well-deserved place for Prince Far I among the other artists in Kingston and also give support to the local community in Downtown Kingston and the artist community of Jamaica.
About Prince Far I
Prince Far I (23 March 1945 – 15 September 1983), was born Michael James Williams in Spanish Town, Jamaica. His first job in the music industry was as a deejay on the Sir Mike the Musical Dragon sound system, also working as a security guard at Joe Gibbs' studio, and later as a bouncer at Studio One, but after recording "The Great Booga Wooga" for Bunny Lee in 1969 (under the name King Cry Cry, a reference to his habit of breaking into tears when angered), he got the chance in 1970 to record for Coxsone Dodd when King Stitt failed to turn up for a session. Dodd was sufficiently impressed to release the resulting recordings, Williams now using the name Prince Far I at the suggestion of another producer he had worked with, Enos McLeod. With a unique deep bass voice and talking-over style, preferring to describe himself as a "chanter" rather than a "toaster", he became a popular reggae musician, styling himself "The Voice of Thunder".
https://facebook.com/princefariofficial
About Junior 'Tamlins' Moore
Veteran reggae artist Junior Moore is a member of The Tamlins, which was formed in the late 1960s. The popular reggae vocal group sang backup for reggae legend Peter Tosh. The trio also rocked a reggae rendition of Nina Simone’s hit song, Baltimore, and released several other tracks and albums.
While he gained popularity for knowing his way around notes, he is by no means a stranger to visual arts. The multi-talented musician also possessed other skills, like drawing, which he didn’t hesitate to explore. Starting out with pencils, Moore quickly worked his way up to painting. “I used to go around and look at other artists’ work to see which piece was the best work”. Today, he creates masterpiece murals for art lovers and newcomers to see.
About Kingston Creative
Kingston Creative is a nonprofit arts organization started in 2017 by a team of three co-founders who believe in using Art and Culture to achieve social and economic transformation. We want to see the city of Kingston leverage its creative heritage, and its world-class talent and reach its potential to become a Creative City, not just in name or by UNESCO designation, but for this to be a reality for all who live in Kingston. We envision a safe and vibrant Art District in Downtown Kingston, a Creative Hub that develops and trains people and long-term, a healthy creative ecosystem in Jamaica. We are a small, voluntary organization, and we recognize that this is a huge vision, but it is certainly a vision worth working towards.
https://facebook.com/kingstoncreativejm