David 'Ziggy' Marley says he never experienced any pressure from being a child star.

"It felt unfair that I was put in the position of being popular. Nobody told me the things that would follow."

- Christopher Daley

MOSES DAVIS' stage name is not the typical Jamaican indication of an outstanding physique. His wiry frame has danced its way into the hearts of millions worldwide, complementing more hit songs than even a double-CD release can compile, and innumerable standout performances.

Beenie Man, as Davis is much more widely known, is a childhood name which he has not adjusted since deejaying on sound systems when he was hardly taller than the banks of amplifiers and he hit the Billboard charts with Sim Simma. He informs us lyrically, "Me a chat microphone from about '79 - from Lee's Unlimited an' all Volcano time."

Beenie Man will be honoured on Dancehall Night at Reggae Sumfest 2009 for his 30 years in the music business.

In a society where children, especially from inner-city and rural communities, often cannot escape the presence and influence of sound systems, and where music presents an alternative to the classroom and working in the 'system', Beenie Man's early performance involvement in a decidedly adult arena is not an aberration. In that regard, his post-2000 contemporaries include QQ, who wiggled his way into the dancehall massive's heart with a pre-teen Stookie, and Mumsie, who at nine years old, got an onstage hug from deejay Lady Saw as she performed at the Saw's 2006 Celebrity Walkout concert in Nain, St Elizabeth.

Beenie Man's voice hadn't yet broken into the resonance of manhood when Michael Jackson, who died on Thursday, June 25, reset the world's musical axis in 1982 with Thriller. And the King of Pop and physical metamorphosis may be a legend, or an obscure old man to the shrill-voiced near toddlers who continue to pop up at concerts across Jamaica.

public scrutiny

Beenie Man was hardly taller than the banks of amplifiers when he hit the Billboard charts with 'Sim Simma'.

However, depending on the intensity of public scrutiny proportionate to their success, and the technology available to present their images to the public, Jamaica's child stars would have experienced the good and 'Bad' (the title track from Jackson's 1987 album) of fame at an early age.

David 'Ziggy' Marley, Bob Marley's eldest son, never experienced any pressure from being a child star, although he led the Melody Makers in taking Marley music to Tomorrow People (a track from their Conscious Party Grammy-winning album). He told The Sunday Gleaner he first performed publicly with brother Stephen, sister, Cedella, and the Melody Makers at one of Jamaica's Independence celebrations, where they did Hol Him Joe.

Ziggy never considered himself a child star. "I don't think I did really think about it at all. With my family and my parents, it was never really a big deal to think about," Marley said. "We never see it that way deh. Probably now it is that way, but then, it was different,' Ziggy said about child stardom.

He says, "Junior Tucker was more a child star than we. Him used to sing the Earth, Wind and Fire song Reasons. Nadine Sutherland was around at the time. I never really see myself as a child star."

super-human qualities

Nadine Sutherland, who won the Tastee Talent Contest in 1979, tells The Sunday Gleaner that it did not really hit her then that she was popular. However, she says, "I know there was definitely a difference in how people treated you.

"All of a sudden, your humanness is taken away from you. All of a sudden, it is like you have super-human qualities."

Sutherland said: "People project their insecurities on you. You become a vehicle for other people's dreams, and a target for somebody's insecurities. You are larger than life, a myth they have in their heads about what a celebrity should be like."

Compounding the situation was her gender. "When you are an 11-year-old girl it is even worse," Sutherland said. You are dealing with the angst of adolescence, how you look, trying to fit in with your peers, trying to please the adults in your life. When you are an 11-year-old, you are trying to hear that you are a good girl."

The change in perception and treatment sometimes left her isolated. "There were pangs of loneliness. You are now a star. Your peers view you as a star," Sutherland said. Then she chuckles as she says, "But me did have one and two peers and family who keep it real."

Part of the loneliness, she said, was that "I did not understand I was a star and boys saw me as a star."

She's not sure who first called her 'Teen Queen', but Sutherland clearly remembers when someone at St Andrew High kicked at the throne she didn't even know she was sitting on.

"Someone at school came up to me and said 'You are no Teen Queen. Who do you think you are?'. I was just being goofy me," Sutherland said. "I never suffered from 'Queen, my head is in the clouds'. It was just a name."

Not comprehending her child celebrity did not stop adults from attacking Sutherland verbally. "You had people who had daughters who attacked me. As a singer, the first thing they attached to me was promiscuity. You hear who you are supposed to be sleeping with - big man - and you are smoking ganja because you are at Tuff Gong," she said.

"I was supposed to be some freak, and I was just singing."

Then there was the financial pressure. "People wanted money from me," Sutherland said. Going through, I was trying to keep everybody happy. One of the things they use on you is 'Don't forget us'."

One of the child stars from the earlier period of Jamaican music, Errol Dunkley, (best known for Black Cinderella), did his first recording, My Queen, at 11 years old, for Prince Buster in 1962. He became really popular with his first hit, You're Gonna Need Me.

He had no doubts about how the public saw him, literally and figuratively. "I was a child star. Anywhere I go, crowd would gather. I was small," Dunkley said.

There weren't any negative spin-offs, as Dunkley said "it was all good. People love me. People treat you different. You are an exceptional kid. Other kids want to be like you."

the love of it

When The Sunday Gleaner asked Dunkley about envy and attacks, he quickly said: "No man, it wasn't like that in them day. I was a kid, singing and love to sing. It was not about money or anything like that. It was just singing for the love of it. The producers were the ones making the money."

Errol Dunkley was closely associated with two child stars who died relatively early. Delroy Wilson, who had his first hit for Lee Perry in 1963 at 15 years old, and whose hits include Dancing Mood, Conquer Me and Rain From the Skies, died at 47 years old in March 1995. And Dennis Brown, the Crown Prince of Reggae, died in 1999 at only 42 years old. He recorded Lips of Wine and No Man is an Island when he was in his pre-teens. His first overseas performance was in 1972, when all three performed in Canada, along with deejay Scotty.

"All three of them gone. Somebody have to live to tell the tale," Dunkley said.

"I was a child star. Anywhere I go, crowd would gather." - Errol Dunkley

ZIGGY MARLEY was at a performance in Central Park, New York, when he heard about Michael Jackson's death. He says: "I was really sad. Me just feel like me as a person who do the arts, we have a connection with other artiste who do the arts. Me feel like our group of artistic soldiers lose one of our soldiers."