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Gassy Dread & Empress Maria — Message to the Youth

ByAlki David

Aug 23, 2025

Gassy Dread & Empress Maria — Message to the Youth

“Put it down.”

Because Gassy Dread knows music is a weapon too — but his is a weapon for peace. For unity. For lifting up the people.

And as Prime Minister Gaston Browne, he knows the real battle is not with each other. It’s with climate change, poverty, and the unfair system that makes small islands like Antigua carry the weight of global greed.

So with Empress Maria by his side, he’s calling on the youth:
Rise up. Protect the earth. Protect each other. Build a future where Antigua leads by example.

Hear the message in their words and in their music:
Put it down. Pick up the future.

He’s calling on the youth to rise up: protect the earth, protect each other, and build a future where Antigua leads by example.

So hear the message in his words and his music:
Put it down. Pick up the future.

Not just the guns.
Not just the violence.
Put down the hate.
Put down the division.
Put down the things that tear our people apart.

By Alki David

Alki David — Publisher, Media Architect, SIN Network Creator - live, direct-to-public communication, media infrastructure, accountability journalism, and independent distribution. Born in Lagos, Nigeria; educated in the United Kingdom and Switzerland; attended the Royal College of Art. Early internet broadcaster — participated in real-time public coverage during the 1997 Mars landing era using experimental online transmission from Beverly Hills. Founder of FilmOn, one of the earliest global internet television networks offering live and on-demand broadcasting outside legacy gatekeepers. Publisher of SHOCKYA — reporting since 2010 on systemic corruption inside the entertainment business and its expansion into law, finance, and regulation. Creator of the SIN Network (ShockYA Integrated Network), a federated media and civic-information infrastructure spanning investigative journalism, live TV, documentary, and court-record reporting. Lived and worked for over 40 years inside global media hubs including Malibu, Beverly Hills, London, Hong Kong and Gstaad. Early encounter with Julian Assange during the first Hologram USA operations proved a formative turning point — exposing the realities of lawfare, information suppression, and concentrated media power. Principal complainant and driving force behind what court filings describe as the largest consolidated media–legal accountability action on record, now before the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. Relocated to Antigua & Barbuda and entered sustained legal, civic, and informational confrontation over media power, safeguarding, and accountability at Commonwealth scale.