Ricardo Singhh dedicates new single to his father

With Father's Day on Sunday, dancehall artiste Ricardo Singhh cannot help but reminisce about growing up with his father Victor Edwards, who passed away after a long battle with prostate cancer in 2022.

"I don't know the reason why, but my mother gave me to my father's mother when I was a baby. So, I spent my earliest years living in Grand Cayman with my grandmother. My father was a soldier in the British army, and I never met him until we moved back to live in Jamaica. I was around seven years old the first time I met him. I was so happy to finally, finally meet my dad and he was happy, too," said Singhh.

After his grandmother died, Singhh went to live with his father in Independence City in Portmore, St Catherine.

"Growing up in Independence City, we faced some tough times. Sometimes all we had for our meals was grotto bread and water, but that never fazed me. My father was a very good man; he taught me to read and write. He would always give me books to read and quiz me about them," he recalled.

"He didn't have much material wealth, but he made sure I went to school. He instilled in me certain principles and morals that I keep, up to this day. He was also very generous with what little he had; he touched a lot of lives in our community. He was a sports enthusiast. His favourite sport was table tennis. He had a table tennis table, and he taught a lot of youth in the area how to play the game," he added.

Still grieving his father, the Atlanta-based singjay recently decided to put pen to paper and wrote and recorded a moving tribute to him titled Father's Love, which was released earlier this year.

"I loved my grandmother a lot because she was very loving and caring to me. I never met my mother until I was 19, and I love her, too; but my father meant the world to me. When he passed away, I felt like my whole world was gone. I'll never forget him, he was a wonderful human being," said Singhh.