Dancehall and Reggae star Buju Banton is free.

Banton, who was convicted in a Tampa courtroom in 2011 on federal drug charges, was freed Friday from Georgia's private McMcRae Correctional Institute, a prison official told the Tampa Bay Times.

The 45-year-old music star was to return to his native Jamaica. A video of a man reported to be Banton boarding a plane was published on Twitter on Friday and #freebuju hashtags were all over social media.

Born Mark Myrie, he served seven years in federal prison in one of the most high-profile cases tried in the Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse in downtown Tampa.

The Guardian wrote that Banton would be the "most eagerly awaited arrival in Jamaica since Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie touched down in April 1966." Jamaican officials confirmed to the British newspaper that the artist was expected to return to his native country.

The newspaper described Banton as "perhaps the most famous Jamaican artist whose name isn't Marley."

Reared in Kingston and nicknamed "Buju" by his mother, he rose to prominence at a young age in the 1990s as one of the premier dancehall artists. He overtook Reggae legend Bob Marley's record for No. 1 singles on the Jamaican charts in 1992, according to the Guardian.

But Banton was also the subject of international condemnation for a violently homophobic song that "openly incited the killing of gay people," according to the Guardian. As a result, 28 of his shows were cancelled from 2005 to 2011. In 2007, the newspaper said he vowed to never again incite "hatred or violence."

His legal troubles started on a 2009 flight from Spain to the United States. Banton was seated next to an informant who federal agents had paid $3.3 million over 14 years. The prosecution said Banton boasted of his role in a large cocaine smuggling ring, and talked to the informant about setting up a deal.

The trial started on Feb. 14, 2011, the day after he won a Grammy for best reggae album, Before the Dawn, recorded before his arrest.

At his Tampa trial, federal prosecutors showed the jury audio and video recordings of Banton that they said proved he was involved in the deal to buy 11 pounds of cocaine for $135,000.

One video showed the performer tasting cocaine at a Sarasota warehouse on Dec. 8, 2009, though he was not present when the deal was finalized.

Banton told the jury that he was just boasting to impress someone who he believed could help his music career.

The defense emphasized Banton's musical career, displaying his album covers, telling jurors about his Grammy award and even calling one of Bob Marley's sons to the stand.

"This is not about Buju Banton, the reggae singer," a prosecutor told the jury. "This is about Mark Myrie, the drug defendant."

In June 2011 he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

During the trial, while Banton was being held in the Pinellas County jail, he wrote this letter to the court:

"The days that lie ahead are filled with despair, but I have courage and grace and I'm hopeful, and that is sufficient to carry me through. The man is not dead. Don't call him a ghost."

Banton's case and appeals would drag on for years in federal court, however, and even one of the jurors in his 2011 conviction would end up in serious trouble years later.

Former juror foreman Terri Wright was found guilty in 2015 of contempt for researching the case outside of court. U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr., who also presided over the Banton trial, sentenced her to five months of probation, 40 hours of community service and ordered her to research and write a report about the cost of Banton's high-profile trial.

Former Miami New Times reporter Chris Sweeney wrote a story in 2012 that suggested Wright ignored the court's order and researched the case on her own. The reporter even testified the juror.

Times staff writer Anastasia Dawson contributed to this report, which uses information from Times files and other news organizations.</s>The most eagerly awaited arrival in Jamaica since Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie touched down in April 1966 might just be this weekend’s return of Mark Myrie, better known as Buju Banton.

Myrie, perhaps the most famous Jamaican artist whose name isn’t Marley, has served seven years in a US prison after being found guilty of intent to deal more than 5kg of cocaine. On 8 December, the gravelly voiced rastafari artist will be put on a plane in Florida and flown to Kingston to a nation that has been eagerly awaiting this moment.

Jamaica’s culture minister, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, reports that Banton “is now really about, from what we understand, employment of young people. If he can help shape and resocialise young people, that is something we should embrace.”

That said, the government isn’t pulling out any stops. “We can’t give him a hero’s welcome,” says minister of national security, Horace Chang. “He committed a crime.” And yes, Grange agrees, “There’s no getting over the fact that he was convicted, but Buju was loved long before he was convicted and he will be loved just the same, even if he comes home in handcuffs.”

Raised in Salt Lane, a poor area of Kingston, the man nicknamed Buju by his mother honed his craft as a child, performing live with soundsystems under the name Gargamel aged 12 and recording by the following year, 1987. Jamaica fell for Banton in the early 90s, when he established himself as arguably the most significant dancehall artist in the country.

Banton was beloved for his baritone grit, raunchy songs such as his ode to short shorts, Batty Rider, and his responsiveness to his audience. When some fans felt excluded by his hit Love Me Browning, about a penchant for lighter-skinned women, he followed it up with the equally catchy Love Black Women.

Reggae artist Protoje says: “There is nothing that he cannot do musically. He’s a prodigy. He was awesome from 18 years old. He is one of the greatest artists to ever do it in Jamaican music, so I would never count him out.”

In 1992, he overtook Bob Marley’s record for No 1 singles in Jamaica and signed with Mercury Records. Less happily, he also released the most infamous Jamaican song ever recorded, Boom Bye Bye, which openly incited the killing of gay people. It received local and international condemnation, culminating in the the Stop Murder Music Campaign, organised by UK group OutRage! in collaboration with Jamaican LGBT-rights group JFLAG.

The campaign ultimately led to concert cancellations – 28 of Banton’s were cancelled between 2005 and 2011. In June 2007, he signed the Reggae Compassionate Act, which meant he agreed “to not make statements or perform songs that incite hatred or violence against anyone from any community”.

Banton wrote Boom Bye Bye when he was 15, and has since found other lyrical topics. In 1995, he released the critically adored ’Til Shiloh, which embraced rastafari consciousness and demonstrated his versatility, as fluent in hardcore dancehall as roots reggae.

Since his imprisonment in 2011, a new generation of reggae artists have gained global success, and Banton will have to compete with with likes of Jah 9, Raging Fyah and Kabaka Pyramid; Chronixx and Protoje drew 10,000 fans to London’s Alexandra Palace only last month. “The last album he released prior to his incarceration was Before the Dawn, for which he won a Grammy,” notes Sonjah Stanley Niaah, author of Dancehall: From Slaveship to Ghetto. “What’s interesting to me is that Buju will have to come to terms as a stage presence with a reggae revival.”

Artist of the moment Spice, real name Grace Hamilton, is excited about what might accompany Banton’s return: “It is extremely significant to the genre because his music uplifts our roots and culture. His first concert in Jamaica will prove that. I’m sure mass amount of tourists will travel to our island just to see the great Gargamel.” Banton’s Long Walk to Freedom tour (named after Nelson Mandela’s autobiography) will reportedly begin in Jamaica on 23 March.

It’s rumoured that Banton has been writing songs and reaching out to potential collaborators. There is at least one album that is ready to go. UK producer Blacker Dread released the tantalising Stumbling Block single last year, one of a range of tracks recorded in the early 2000s, put off due to the death of Dread’s son in 2004 and then Banton’s imprisonment. “Man is a king,” says Dread, “I have tracks with Buju that are timeless.”

Unlike the similarly revered dancehall artist Vybz Kartel – whose 2014 conviction for murder led to a life sentence that will see him serve at least 35 years, yet who still seems to be able to release track after track – Banton has been all but silent. In a statement to the Guardian, he described the impact of imprisonment and his means of coping. “Prison can be traumatising not just on myself, but on my family as well as emotionally draining,” he explained, “For me, I drew strength from immersing myself in my situation. Do not live in yesterday but live in today. And education was the only thing that kept me up and alive. I immersed myself in reading so much – theology, philosophy and other subjects.”

Human rights activist and former member of OutRage! Peter Tatchell is confident that Banton will continue to put the past behind him, stating that “it would be even better if he could acknowledge and apologise for those violently homophobic lyrics, but the main priority is that he doesn’t continue and repeat them.” Dane Lewis, former director of JFLAG, states that “the reality is that [in Jamaica] the most vulnerable continue to face some extreme forms of homophobia ... but in the last 10 years we have seen some shifts regarding homophobia and the ways LGBT in the region experience life.”

In many ways, Banton is coming home to a vastly different Jamaica. The Kingston he knew is now populated by shiny new high-rises; the economy is healthier with record low unemployment, and the music scene is always changing, with the UN designating reggae as an “Intangible Cultural Heritage”, soca-soundtracked Trinidadian-influenced Carnival exploding in popularity, and major radio stations blaring top 40 music from the US. Yet Banton, even if only musically, will likely slip back in with ease.

Rory Gilligan, a founding member of the famed Stone Love soundsystem, which helped establish Banton’s career, says the artist will have a relatively seamless transition, at least in comparison to other involuntarily returned citizens. According to Oswald Dawkins, president of the National Organization for Deported Migrants, about 1,500 people are involuntarily returned to Jamaica from the US, the UK and Canada every year. “I think he will adjust very easily. He has no financial problems. He has the resources,” Gilligan says. “There is nobody who has anything bad to say about him.”

DJ Agent Sasco might agree, especially when it comes to the airwaves and dancehalls, which are crying out for fresh Banton tracks. Sasco – whose first recording was produced at Banton’s Gargamel studio – insists that the star will likely bring a sound that is unique to the present. “Don’t expect that it is going to be 2006 or 1994, but just to take him in 2019 and wherever he is at as a person and an artist,” he counsels. Then again, in the rush of enthusiasm for his return, whatever Banton releases is due a rapturous reception: “He could put out a single of him singing the ABCs and it would be a huge success.”

In one of Banton’s most memorable songs, Destiny, he speaks of wanting to chart his own future, singing “my destination is homeward bound … I know I must get through no matter what a gwaan”. As the prodigal son returns, finally his destiny is back in his own hands.</s>Buju Banton was released from CI McRae Federal Prison in Georgia on December 7, a prison officer confirmed to Heavy.com. Banton served seven years of a 10-year sentence on drug charges. Banton, whose real name is Mark Anthony Myrie, 45, was found guilty in February 2011 and sentenced in June of that year for conspiracy to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute. On December 8, Banton is expected to fly home to Kingston, Jamaica, from Miami.

Among those welcoming Banton home will be his father, Benjamin Myrie, who told Loop on December 7, “It’s a joy for me, joyful, to know that the Lord had blessed me that I live to see him come back. I can see his face, talk, eat, drink and move around. He’ll be able to take care of all of his business now.”

Banton is arguably as famous worldwide for his homophobia, epitomized in his 1992 song, “Boom Bye Bye,” in which Banton wrote about murdering gay people. In 2011, Banton signed the Reggae Compassion Act, a government action in Jamaica in which artists promised to not “incite hatred or violence” through songs or statements.

Banton said in a statement to the Guardian that he has new material that is ready to record. The singer said in a statement to the Guardian that his prison stay was “traumatizing not just on myself, but on my family as well as emotionally draining. For me, I drew strength from immersing myself in my situation. Do not live in yesterday but live in today. And education was the only thing that kept me up and alive. I immersed my self in reading so much – theology, philosophy and other subjects.” In the same feature, Jamaica’s minister for culture, Olivia “Babsy” Grange said, “Buju was loved long before he was convicted and he will be loved just the same, even if he comes home in handcuffs.” The article also described Banton’s homecoming as being the most anticipated in Jamaica’s history since Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie visited the country in April 1966.

READ NEXT: Michigan School Teachers Admit to Being Porn Stars on the Side</s>Buju Banton received a warm welcome from adoring fans in Jamaica following his release from Georgia’s private McRae Correctional institution after serving eight years.

The 45-year-old reggae star– born Mark Myrie — was freed Friday, a prison official told the Tampa Bay Times, and video of Banton boarding a plane was published on Twitter. He was expected to return to his native Jamaica and various clips online show him greeting fans near his Red Hills Road studio in Kingston.

The Guardian wrote that Banton would be the “most eagerly awaited arrival in Jamaica since Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie touched down in April 1966.”

The Grammy award-winning icon was convicted in a Tampa courtroom in 2011 on federal drug charges and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He was reportedly the target of an undercover federal informant for more than a year. Prosecutors required two trials to convict the Dancehall star. His initial release date was February 2019, but was later revised to December 8, 2018.

Buju recently released a statement saying that upon release he plans to focus only on his artistry.

“Having survived, I want to share the good news and strength of my music. I just want to continue making music, which I’ve devoted my life to. I look forward to the opportunity to say a personal thanks to my fans and everyone who supported me,” Buju said.

Jamaica’s culture minister, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, says Banton “is now really about, from what we understand, employment of young people. If he can help shape and resocialize young people, that is something we should embrace.”

But the minister of national security, Horace Chang, cautioned against giving him “ a hero’s welcome.”

“He committed a crime,” Shang added. And Grange agrees, “There’s no getting over the fact that he was convicted, but Buju was loved long before he was convicted and he will be loved just the same, even if he comes home in handcuffs.”</s>Legendary Reggae and Dancehall superstar Buju Banton officially released from prison. After his release he has returned to his home country of Jamaica, video footage below courtesty of Vladtv.
Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton (Mark Anthony Myrie) is released from a U.S. prison and deported back to Jamaica, after serving 7 years of a 10-year drug charge conviction.