Ex-gangster opens up about the power of pain

Tapping into the purpose he knew he had for his life, Andrew Folkes is hoping to reignite the spirit of community through his charitable works and inspiring story.

At a tender age, Folkes developed a deep-seated resentment for his father, who was a farmer, and stepmother.

"I grew up feeling rejected. I felt hated, I felt out of place. I grew up in a time where if you didn't share the interest that your Pops (father) did, it was deemed to be less than masculine. But my interest from a tender age has always been music. It was never about agriculture. So I was never the favourite son, and then growing up with a stepmother who had differences with my biological mother, it spilled over on me," Folkes said.

The young Folkes, searching for a sense of belonging, turned to a school gang to try and fill the space. Not long after this initiation, Folkes held a gun for the first time. Using that gang as a surrogate family, Folkes got involved with their affairs and soon had to leave his home and school in Clarendon to live with his mother in Kingston to evade the consequences of the gang's actions.

"During the summer my mom cried. She was saying to me, 'Nobody nah expect you fi come out to nothing. Mi wah you go Excelsior (High School) and nuh badda with the foolishness, just go do some work'."

Moved by his mother's tears, Folkes decided to turn over a new page in grade nine, refocusing on his first love; music.

"When I went to Excelsior, I never joined a gang. But music was always a part of my thing. So the anger that I felt, I transitioned that into writing clash songs. I became the clash artiste in the school," he said.

While his mother was initially against her son doing anything but 'traditional' schoolwork, she switched gears after hearing a song he wrote for her. Now with his mother's blessing, the 16-year-old was soon making money from selling his song sheets on campus to pay his mother's electricity bill as well as send himself to school.

Resting comfortably in his reformed life, Folkes graduated with nine grade ones and began pursuing a career in music. Little did he know, over the course of the next few years, he would have to survive homelessness, debt, being locked up on six separate occasions for gang-affiliated offences, and suicidal ideation.

"The day that I started writing the book I was going to kill myself that day," he explained. "Mi siddung pon di verandah and me say 'yeah, me a go kill miself' and me just take up a notebook and me start write, and that's how the book came about, The Power of Pain (which was published in 2021)."

While still struggling financially, Folkes said he used the writing process as a form of therapy and once he was finished, he recognised that through his story, he could reach youth who are faced with similar struggles.

"I think I've always been a very optimistic person. I've been through a lot, some of the stuff weh we go through, people kill themselves for less than that."

Attempting to fulfil these goals, Folkes started the Shell Shell Save a Youth Foundation where he travelled to several schools to deliver motivational speeches.

"My aim through the school tour was supposed to be going into the different schools, you know the school that you have all the fights and all a the different stuff a gwaan, and just share my story with the students, reach out to the youths. But then [I] asked the teachers to support [by buying] a copy of the book. So if 20 teacher can buy one book, now that a how I make my likkle money," he said.

Quickly becoming attached to the students at each school, Folkes started giving away books for free. Soon he realised that he had donated more than $800,000 in books, while owing his landlord close to $300,000 and having no furniture in his home.

Maintaining that he has no regrets and plans to continue his brand of altruism, Folkes told THE STAR, "A whole heap me go through mentally. Mi have some days when me frass, enuh. But me just understand my journey and know seh if me a guh be the person who a guh can save some youth, one youth at a time, mi affi just look past my pain and my struggles and me a guh do it."

"Mi nuh beg people nothing, me nah ask nobody fi forward and gimme this fi go help dah school deh, mi just a try fi do it. Mi book dem a dwindle down now and me wah some sales, but at the end of the day, if a that me affi do and the sacrifice weh me affi make fi reach out to the youth dem, mi just affi do it."