Bull Bay, Saint Andrew, a community nestled along the rugged coastline east of Kingston, where the sea breeze mixes with the smell of zinc fences and open fires. It is a place where people work hard just to survive, where the streets have a rhythm of their own, and where, if you are talented enough and hungry enough, music can be a way out.
It is here, in the community of 8 Miles Bull Bay, that a young man named Ryan McFarland was trying to build something, a career, a name, a future. The world would come to know him as Rittikal, a dancehall artist with a raw, aggressive delivery and a song that was impossible to ignore.
But before the stages, before the hit songs, before the spotlight, there was struggle, hard labor, and a life that most people would not believe if you told them. Ryan McFarland was born in 1995 in the parish of Saint Thomas, one of Jamaica’s most rural and overlooked communities. Saint Thomas sits on the eastern tip of the island, far from the noise and glamour of Kingston, a place where farming is a way of life and opportunities are scarce.
Ryan grew up watching his eldest brother make music. From as young as 4 years old, he was already absorbing it, already loving it. By the time he was 7, he was DJing his brother’s lyrics as if they were his own. The seed was planted early. He attended Saint Thomas Technical High School, and from all accounts, he was that kid the school would call on for every event, every performance, every function where a mic needed to be touched.
He had the gift, and he knew it. But knowing you have a gift and being able to live off that gift are two very different things. When Ryan left school, survival came first. He did construction work, rising to contractor level without ever having a certificate to his name. When construction was slow, he farmed. He raised goats. He grew marijuana. He planted bananas.
He would travel all the way to downtown Kingston to sell jelly coconuts on the street. And when the season was right, he went up into the mountains of St. Thomas to pick coffee on Dr. Lynn’s farm. Deep in the bush, earning whatever he could. This was not a man sitting around waiting for an opportunity. This was a man grinding through life with his hands, holding onto a dream of music while the reality of poverty pressed against him from every direction.
He would later say it plainly that he always went out there for the money as a go-getter. And that through all of it, he never stopped thinking of himself as an artist. He was just waiting for the right door to open. That door opened in 2017. Ryan McFarland made his way to Bull Bay and linked up with EastSide Records, an independent label that was quietly building something special in the dancehall space.
EastSide was also home to a young artist named Skillibeng, born Emwa Warmington from Listen’s in St. Thomas, the same parish Ryan called home. The two men shared more than geography. They shared a hunger, a raw ness, and a sound that was rooted in the streets without being disconnected from artistry.
Under EastSide, Ryan began sharpening the craft he had been holding inside since childhood. He recorded. He learned the business. And he waited. For 3 years, he was building in the background while Skillibeng began to attract serious attention both locally and internationally. But Ryan’s moment was coming.
On May 27th, 2020, East Side Records and Dynasty Entertainment dropped a riddim called the Private Jet Riddim. And on that riddim was a song that changed everything for Rygin McFarland. The song was called King in a war. And from the moment it hit the airwaves, Dancehall knew that Rytikal was not just another artist on the label.
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His flow was aggressive and animated. With a militant cadence and a lyrical style that stacked rhymes three and four times within two bars. The hook alone was enough to make heads turn. The UI may beat the old .38 landed with the force of something real, something lived in. One fan online said it was their favorite track on the Private Jet Riddim.
Another said Rytikal’s performance on the song even superseded Skillibeng’s contribution, though they acknowledged there was room for both. The song climbed to 1.5 million views on YouTube and kept climbing. His other songs like Galaxy Brain, My World, and Cookie Jar added fuel to the fire. Kranium, the US-based dancehall singer, was watching and the two eventually linked up for a collaboration called Block Traffic, which pushed Rytikal further into the international conversation. He was on his way.
But, there is something about the dancehall world in Jamaica, something about the pressure and the culture and the environment that surrounds these young artists that can pull a rising star sideways before they even realize what is happening. And what happened to Rytikal on January 28th, 2021 is the kind of story that has ended careers and changed lives permanently.
It was a Thursday, around midday. Police officers from the Elston Road division were on routine patrol in Eight Miles, Bull Bay, Saint Andrew. Eight Miles is Rytikal’s yard, a place he knew well, a community where he was known. That day, officers observed a young man acting in what they described as a suspicious manner.
They approached, they questioned him, and then they searched his car. What they found inside that vehicle was a Taurus .380 pistol loaded with 12 rounds of ammunition. Ryan McFarlane, 25 years old, rising dancehall star, was taken into custody immediately. He reportedly told the officers on the scene that the firearm was a prop, that he had been doing music video shoots in the area, and that multiple people had been in and out of the vehicle during that time. The officers were unmoved.
He was transported to the Bull Bay police station and spent the night in a cell. The news moved fast. By the next morning, January 29, 2021, the story was everywhere. A source close to Eastside Records told media, “It’s like a set up thing. Them surround the car, search it, and find a strap in at the DJ car.
” The label confirmed Ryan was still in custody, and that a lawyer had already been secured. Their representative gave only one line to the public. “We already have a lawyer in place to deal with the situation.” That was it. Short, tight, and careful. But the streets were talking. People close to the situation maintained from day one that the gun was not his, that the car was a rental, and that any number of people had access to it during the video shoot activity happening in the community that day.
Whether that was true or not, Ryan McFarland was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. Charges that under Jamaican law carry a penalty of 10 to 15 years in prison. For a man who had spent years grinding from coffee farm to construction site to the recording booth, those numbers were devastating to consider.
He was remanded. What followed was a period behind bars that not many people spoke openly about at the time, but that Ryan himself would later describe in honest and raw terms. He shared a cell with Tommy Lee Sparta. Now, Tommy Lee Sparta, born Leroy Russell, was already a big name in dancehall. A protege of Vybz Kartel and known for songs like Spartan Soldier, Psycho, and Blessings.
Sparta had been arrested on December 14th, 2020 by the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Specialized Operations Unit after a Toyota Mark X he was traveling in was intercepted on Holborn Road in St. Andrew. When searched, a 9-mm pistol containing 18 rounds of ammunition was found in his waistband. He had been on remand since.
So, two of Jamaica’s dancehall names ended up sharing the same confined space inside the system. One who had pleaded guilty and was looking at 3 years, and another still fighting to prove his innocence. Rytikal would later say that Sparta looked out for him in there, that it was Sparta’s presence that provided a kind of grounding during a frightening time.
Ryan later opened up about those days with the honesty that hit different because you could hear it was real. He said he never cried at first, that he actually smiled when they locked him up. That initial shock where the body has not yet processed the reality. But then he thought about his mother, and that is when the tear came.
He described a woman who was both mother and father to him and his five siblings. A woman who carried the entire weight of the household on her own. To be in a cell while she was outside dealing with that reality broke something in him quietly. He said there was nothing nice about jail. He said he would not eat the food they gave him inside.
When his mother, his baby mother, his auntie and his friends came to visit, he would take whatever they brought and give the jail food away. But he did not waste the time, either. The prison gave him a book and a pen. He wrapped the pen top in tissue to make it comfortable, and he wrote songs in that cell while waiting to find out if his life was about to be taken by a 10-to-15-year sentence.
Rexton Rhikal was still writing music. On February 8th, 2021, while he was still inside, he was formally remanded again. The dancehall community continued to track the case. Then on March 4th, 2021, his attorney, Abal Don Foot, made a bail application on his behalf before the Gun Court. The court considered it.
And on March 24th, 2021, the same day Tommy Lee Sparta appeared in the High Court Division of the Gun Court and pleaded guilty, receiving a 3-year sentence. Rexton Rhikal was granted bail in the amount of 1 million Jamaican dollars. That same day, the nation was watching both men’s cases unfold simultaneously. One man accepting his fate in that courtroom, the other walking out with strict conditions attached to his freedom.
Rittikal was ordered to surrender his travel documents. A stop order was placed at all ports, so he could not leave the island. He had to report to the Bull Bay police station every Wednesday and Saturday, and he had to abide by a curfew running from 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the evening. His trial date was set for April 28, 2021.
The charges that could end everything were still hanging over him. There is something worth noting about the timing of all of this. In a span of just 4 months, from October 2020 through to February 2021, no fewer than four dancehall artists had been charged with illegal gun possession in Jamaica.
Laden had already pleaded guilty and received 4 years. Chakra Lime, who had been caught with a Ruger P10C in his waistband on the Hellshire Road in Greater Portmore on November 25th, 2020, had also pleaded guilty and was awaiting sentencing. Tommy Lee Sparta had just received his 3 years, and now Rittikal, the youngest and least established of the group, was the one still fighting, still maintaining his innocence, still saying it was not his gun.
The dancehall world was watching closely. Each of these cases was sending a message to an entire generation of young artists about the environment they were operating in and the dangers that came with it. The legal process stretched for nearly a year. Rittikal maintained his position throughout. His defense team, led by attorney Able Don Foot, built their case around the discrepancies in the prosecution’s account and around Rittikals own testimony.
In his defense, Ryan told the court plainly that he was not in possession of the firearm or the ammunition. He explained that the vehicle he was driving was a rental car. He pointed out that other people had access to it. He stood by the same story he had given from the very first day that the gun was not his. Whether you believe that or not, the court had to weigh the evidence on its own terms.
On February 4th, 2022, Ryan McFarland walked out of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston a free man. The judge had agreed with the defense submissions. Able Don Foot confirmed to the media gathered outside that his client had been acquitted, that the judge had come to the position that the demeanor of Mr. McFarland was consistent with his testimony, and that the prosecution’s case carried discrepancies that the state had not been able to resolve.
Ryan stood outside that courthouse and said what he had been saying since January 28, 2021. The judge says I’m innocent, but I was always innocent. And the fact that I have gotten the chance to prove that I was always innocent makes a big difference. He was grateful. He smiled. After more than a year of curfews, court dates, bail conditions, and the kind of anxiety that would crush most people, the case was done.
Coming out of that experience, Ryan McFarland was not the same person who had walked into it. The time inside had changed him. The year of fighting the case had changed him. He became a father during that period, his first child on the way, and that too had reshaped how he saw everything. He announced a new chapter publicly.
He adopted a new alias, Buju Banton, a play on purity and his name to signal that the music going forward would carry a different energy. He told Winford Williams on the Onstage program that fans would be getting better lyrics, a more positive person, a cleaner energy. He promised that the raw aggression that had built his name was not gone, but that it would be channeled differently.
He also formed his own label during this time, Rittical Music Group, stepping outside of Eastside Records into a management structure that he had more control over. He invested in a bottled water business. He was thinking beyond music. He was thinking about legacy. Rittical’s story is not one of a criminal or a villain.
It is a story of a young man from St. Thomas who picked coffee in the mountains, sold coconuts on the street, and poured everything into a talent that was always real. The gun case was a moment that could have destroyed everything, and for many who came before him, it did. But he came through it, walked out of that courtroom, and kept building.
The dancehall will always have room for a man who can tell the truth about where he came from, and Ryan MacFarlane has never had a problem with that.
