The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Christopher “Dudus” Coke was called many things — kingpin, fugitive, community leader, and President of Tivoli Gardens. But in 2010, one extradition request turned West Kingston into a battlefield and exposed the deadly connection between Jamaican garrison politics, organized crime, and state power.

In this full episode of Jamaican Gangster, we trace the rise of Dudus Coke from the legacy of his father, Lester “Jim Brown” Coke, to the creation of the Presidential Click, the political protection surrounding Tivoli Gardens, the failed extradition standoff, and the 2010 Tivoli Incursion that left 69 civilians dead and changed Kingston forever.

This is the story of how one man became more powerful than the institutions around him — how a community came to see him as protector, provider, and president — and how the battle to remove him left scars Jamaica is still living with today.

From the Shower Posse to the JLP, from Bruce Golding’s political crisis to the military operation inside Tivoli Gardens, this documentary-style true crime story explores the rise, reign, escape, capture, and sentencing of Christopher “Dudus” Coke — and the ending Kingston never fully recovered from.

Our latest exploration traces the origins of jamaican jerk, showing how indigenous knowledge and cooking traditions were foundational to this caribbean food. This video explores the historical context, suggesting the first meat was not chicken, and even mentions wild boar and jerk pork as early ingredients. It offers a fresh perspective on this iconic caribbean culture.

Our latest exploration delves into the origins of jerk, tracing its roots from a basic survival food to a revered culinary tradition. We investigate the historical context of jerk, the Taino people's influence on the cuisine, and how outdoor cooking techniques shaped its development. This video uncovers why the oldest pit stories point west, even as the famous Jerk Home thrives in the east, offering a fresh perspective on this iconic jamaican cuisine.

A powerful voice and rhythm emerge from a London flat in 1969, captivating listeners with a sound England had never heard before. This video explores the compelling history of music, showcasing how a single live performance can provide context and preservation for a country's cultural narrative. It's an educational video that tells the story of how music transcends borders and time.

Welcome to another episode exploring the history of food, specifically focusing on the origins of Jamaican cuisine. We dive into the story behind jerk chicken and pork, highlighting the evolution of this authentic jerk cooking method. Discover how smoke, initially a tool for concealment, became a signature element of Caribbean food.

Leslie Kong had no musical training, couldn't read music, and ran an ice cream shop on Orange Street Kingston. He also discovered Bob Marley's first recording session, launched Jimmy Cliff's career, produced the first Jamaican record to top the UK Singles Chart, and built a music empire that shaped reggae's international future — before dying at thirty-seven after ignoring a warning that became the most debated story in Jamaican music history. This episode tells the full story of Beverley's Records and the man at its center. From the History of the Caribbean series.

Before the verdict was read, the jury asked the judge for protection. That tells you everything you need to know about Delroy "Uzi" Edwards.

Born in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, Edwards was forged in the blood politics of Jamaica's 1980 election — one of the deadliest in Caribbean history. When the political violence ended and the government discarded its enforcers, Edwards followed the pipeline north to Brooklyn. What he built there would become one of the most violent and organized crack empires in New York City history.

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Edwards founded the Rankers — a ruthless Jamaican posse that allegedly controlled the crack market across Brooklyn, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Baltimore. At its peak, the operation generated up to $100,000 a day. Discipline was maintained through extreme violence. Loyalty was enforced through fear. Six people were killed. Seventeen were assaulted. One was kidnapped. One was maimed. A teenager was tortured to death.

When the DEA, ATF, and federal prosecutors finally closed in, what followed was one of the most significant organized crime takedowns in Brooklyn's crack era. Edwards was convicted on 42 federal counts and sentenced to seven consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole.

This is the full story — from Kingston's garrison politics to Brooklyn's crack corners to a federal courtroom where even the jury was afraid.

In April 1970, soldiers of the Trinidad Regiment boarded armed gunboats and sailed toward Port of Spain — not to suppress the uprising, but to join it. This episode of History of the Caribbean tells the full story of Trinidad's fifty-six-day Black Power Revolution: the marches of ten thousand, the forced removal of colonial statues, the historic army mutiny under Lieutenant Rex Lassalle, US warships offshore with classified orders, and the State of Emergency that dismantled the movement's leadership overnight. Within four years, the oil sector was nationalized. History of the Caribbean — the stories that didn't make it into the textbooks.

Lester Lloyd Coke — known as Jim Brown — was the most powerful gang don Jamaica ever produced. From the bullet-riddled streets of Denham Town to the corridors of political power in Kingston, he built the Shower Posse into a transnational criminal empire that flooded forty American cities with crack cocaine, left bodies across two continents, and operated with the full knowledge — and alleged protection — of Jamaica's most powerful politicians.

But Jim Brown was more than a gangster. He was a garrison don — the judge, the welfare system, the enforcer, and the government rolled into one man in Tivoli Gardens, West Kingston. He paid school fees. He settled disputes. He silenced witnesses. And he was allegedly present the night seven gunmen stormed Bob Marley's home at 56 Hope Road in 1976 — two days before the Smile Jamaica concert — in one of the most politically charged assassination attempts in Caribbean history.

He survived six bullets at nineteen. He walked free from three murder trials. He outran a federal manhunt across two countries. But in February 1992 — on the very day they buried his murdered son — Lester Lloyd Coke burned to death in a maximum-security prison cell in Kingston, Jamaica. The fire's source was never identified. No one was charged. No official investigation produced a conclusion that satisfied anyone who looked at it seriously.

He had reportedly told associates he would not go down alone. His extradition to Miami — where he was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury — was less than twenty-four hours away.

In this episode of Jamaican Gangster on the History of the Caribbean, we tell the full, fact-verified story of Jim Brown — the Don Dadda, the Shower Posse, the Bob Marley shooting, the Rema massacre, the political machine that built him, and the mystery of Cell 4 that has never been solved.

Before the recording studios. Before the international labels. Before the world knew what Jamaica was capable of — three men were running speaker systems in Kingston's open yards, competing for the loyalty of a working-class community that needed music the way it needed air. Tom The Great Sebastian. Duke Reid. And King Edwards — the foundational figure the written record has been slowest to reclaim. This episode tells the story of the man who helped build the world's first DJ culture, who disappeared from the documentation before the cameras arrived, and whose mystery — a record he played at every dance but never let finish — has never been solved. Part of the History of the Caribbean series. New episodes weekly.