The Truth: How Sizzla Went From Reggae Icon To Crime Headlines

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]August Town, St. Andrew, Kingston, Jamaica. A community carved into the hillside east of the city, where the university campus sits just a few miles away, yet feels like a different world entirely. A place of deep tensions, political lines drawn in blood, and a constant hum of violence beneath the surface. Out of this community came one of the most iconic, most prolific and most controversial reggae artists Jamaica has ever produced. A man who sang about love, black empowerment and ja, but whose name repeatedly appeared in police files, gun seizures, and witness statements. Today we take a deeper look at the life and controversy surrounding Miguel Orlando Collins, the man the world knows as Sisla Colanji. To understand who Sizzler became, you first have to understand where he came from.

[00:01:00]He was born on April 17th, 1976 in the rural parish of St. Mary on the northeastern coast of Jamaica. But St. Mary would not be where his story unfolded. As a young child, his family relocated to August Town, a community in the hills of St. Andrew on the eastern edge of Kingston. This move would define everything about his life, his music, and his reputation. August Town in those years was not a quiet place. It was a community split by territorial lines where different sections had different loyalties, different crews and different levels of tolerance for outsiders. The guns were always close by and the politics were always uglier than they looked from the outside. His father, known in the community as Father magnet, or Daddy Sizzler, ran a garage in August Town, that was supposed to be the path for young Miguel, learned the trade, fix engines, and build a simple but honest life. He even studied mechanical engineering at Denon High School. And for a while, that plan seemed like it might actually work. But August Town had a different pull. In the 1980s, dance hall was exploding across Jamaica. And with the music came the lifestyle, the guns, the energy, the fast money, the reputation. The young Miguel watched all of it carefully, soaking it in like a sponge while finding his footing. He later said himself in his own words that growing up in that ghetto, he saw friends being killed, people suffering poverty, diseases, political warfare, and parents who could not find food for their children. That was the world that shaped him. He found his anchor in music and in Rastafari. An elder named Homer Harris became a mentor, guiding the young boy through the spiritual discipline of the Bobo Ashanti order. a strict branch of the Rastafari movement that demanded total commitment from the way you dressed in turbans and robes to the way you conducted yourself. Harris is the one who gave him the name Sizzler because as the elder put it, the youth was simply too hot. He started performing on the caveman hi-fi sound system in August Town, testing his voice, sharpening his delivery, building a reputation block by block. His first professional single came in 1995.

[00:03:39]Cut for the small Zagaloo label. It went mostly unnoticed, but it was enough to get him through the door. He then linked up with producer Philip Fattis Burl of the Exterminator label. And that connection changed everything. By 1997, Sisler was not just a local vice. He was a national sensation. His album Black Woman and Child produced by Bobby Digital Dixon and released that same year became one of the most celebrated conscious reggae albums of its era. The title track resonated across Jamaica and into the diaspora. It was a tender, deeply felt ode that made even conservative Christian churches play it on Sunday morning. He was nominated for the best international reggae artist award at the 1998 mobile awards and was being compared to the greats. In the same year he released praise a ja another critically acclaimed effort. He was touring with Luchiano performing across the Caribbean and in Europe and his output was relentless. Over the next decade, he would release dozens of albums, more than almost any other reggae artist in history, with some counts placing the total at over 70 solo albums by the mid 2000s. By any measure, this was a man at the absolute top of his art. But there was always the other side of Sisla, the side that August Town shaped, the side that never fully left the street. The place known as Judgement Yard sits at 40 August Town Road. Sisla established it as his residence, his recording studio, and what he publicly described as a community space for the youth of the area, steering them away from gangs and toward music and Rastafari culture. The studio was equipped with professional recording equipment. His label, Coloni Records, operated out of it. Young men from the area came true for guidance, for music, for somewhere to belong. That was the face of Judgment Yard that Sizzler wanted the world to see. But Judgment Yard was also something else. The people on the street in August Town knew it by another name before Sisla gave it its current identity. It was known as color red corner and it sat at the heart of an ongoing territorial feud with other sections of August town including the Vietnam section, the jungle 12 section and the river section. These were not small misunderstandings.

[00:06:22]These were sustained violent conflicts that had been going on for years and Judgment Yard sat right at the center of the storm. The first major public incident to shake his image came in early 2005. The year had barely started before Sisla found himself standing before a Jamaican magistrate, not for anything to do with guns or gangs, but for something that seemed almost comical by comparison. On the night of January 2nd, 2004, at Eastfest, a Christmas concert held in the parish of St. Thomas Sisla took the stage and proceeded to do what came naturally to him. He used profanity repeatedly. Despite being warned by police at the event before he went on, he apparently could not help himself. He was arrested at the end of the show and charged under the Town and Community Act, a British colonial era law that prohibited indecent expression in public. When the case came to court in February 2005, the magistrate convicted him and gave him a choice.

[00:07:30]Perform 20 hours of community service or go to jail. Sizzler refused to do the community service. Some who knew him said it was a matter of principle.

[00:07:42]Others said it was simply pride.

[00:07:44]Whatever the reason, the magistrate sentenced him to 15 days in prison. He became the first entertainer in Jamaica to be sent to jail specifically for using profanity on stage. He was released pending appeal and when the court of appeal heard his case in May 2005, they reduced the entire sentence to a fine of just $2,000 Jamaican, about $33.

[00:08:11]The whole ordeal ended with a $33 fine, but the headlines were already written.

[00:08:18]While that drama was playing out, something far more serious was unfolding back in August Town. In March of 2005, investigators from Operation Kingfish, the specialized anti-gang unit of the Jamaica Constabularary Force descended on August Town with a joint police and military operation. What they found inside Judgement Yard stopped the nation cold. In a foul coupe close to a house on the property known to locals as Sizzler Carner, officers dug up from beneath the earth a large rectangular black leather bag that had the pattern of a piano keyboard on its surface.

[00:08:58]Inside that bag were 13 highpowered weapons, automatic militarygrade firearms. Alongside the weapons, police also recovered multiple magazines for various weapons, a quantity of ammunition and bulletproof vests. 13 guns buried in the ground at Sisla's yard. Police moved quickly, arresting 33 persons in total in connection with the seizure. Sisla was among those arrested and was taken in for questioning by Operation Kingfish investigators. He was held and questioned for 3 days straight.

[00:09:35]He denied any knowledge of the weapons and was eventually released without charge. But the investigation was not over. Police reportedly expressed a specific interest in speaking with the owner of the fall coup where the weapons were found. According to sources in the community at the time, that person was said to be a close relative of Sizzler.

[00:09:58]No charges were ever brought. No one was ever prosecuted in connection with those 13 guns. The case went cold, but the questions never quite went away. By July 2007, under mounting international pressure that had already cost the Jamaican dance hall industry an estimated 2.5 million pounds in canled bookings across Europe and North America. Sisla was among a small group of artists who signed the reggae compassionate act. The document was brokered between activist groups and reggae promoters and pledged that the signatory artists would in their own words respect and uphold the rights of all individuals to live without hatred and violence due to their religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or gender. Sizzler signed it. The music community breathed a cautious sigh of relief. Concerts were rebooked, but that relief did not last long. Just months after the signing, reports came in that he had already violated the act by continuing to perform the exact songs he had promised to drop. His US work visa was revoked in 2008 officially and he was denied entry to 29 European countries after a German LGBT rights organization the LSVD successfully appealed to the German interior ministry. By 2010 he had released a song called n apologize which left absolutely no room for misinterpretation. The hook said plainly, "Raststam man, don't apologize to no batty boy. He was not walking back anything." Then came January 27th, 2010, a Wednesday evening in August Town. Around 8:15 in the evening, a group of people were down by a river in the community gathering water. According to those who were there, an armed man approached the group and opened fire, shooting several rounds in their direction. No one was struck, but the witnesses who were present gave a consistent account to the police. They said the shooter was Sizzler Kangji. St. Andrew Central Police responded and moved quickly. Crime chief for the division, Deputy Superintendent Derek Cowboy Knight confirmed that within about 15 minutes of the shooting being reported, the entertainer was placed under arrest. Knight confirmed to the press that Sizzler had been taken into custody and was being interrogated. His hands were swabbed and the samples were sent to the government laboratory for gunpowder residue testing. DSP Knight was direct about the environment that had produced the incident, stating plainly that there was constant friction among the areas of Judgment Yard, Goldsmith Villa, and Hermitage, and that police were factoring all of that into their investigation. The tests were conducted, the questioning was done, and then, as had happened before, Sizzler walked. No charges were filed. The case did not proceed, but for the people who were down at that river that January evening, the night was already burned into their memory. Less than 2 years later, in the summer of 2011, it was not a bullet, but a bus that almost killed him. On the evening of August 25th, 2011, Sizzler was on his motorcycle traveling along the Salem main road near Runaway Bay in Saint Anne. He had reportedly just left the rehearsal for an upcoming concert. A bus attempting to overtake him struck the motorcycle and did not stop. The collision was devastating. Sisler suffered broken arms, broken ribs, a fractured collar bone, a ruptured liver, and extensive internal bleeding. Emergency surgery was performed at the Saint Ans Bay Hospital.

[00:14:02]The injuries were so severe that after he was stabilized, he was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Kingston for continued care. His family was present and reportedly wept as the helicopter lifted off. Thousands of fans converged on the Saint Ans Bay Hospital that night to hold vigil. The man who had been shot at, arrested, questioned, and banned from multiple countries had come closer to death that night on a rural road in Saint Anne than in any of the incidents the police had ever documented. He recovered. He always recovered. But Judgment Yard continued to draw attention it did not need. In June of 2012, police raided the compound after reports of gunfire broke out in August Town. What officers found when they arrived was a shooting scene inside the yard itself. Four persons had been shot.

[00:14:58]Two of them were pronounced dead at hospital. The dead men were identified as 39year-old Rohan Simpson, known to the community as Troy and Bat of August Town Road and a second man known only as Moses Francis. Sisler was not at the yard when police arrived. His phone rang without answer when officers attempted to contact him. The raid on Judgment Yard placed Sizzler's name back in the news cycle and it reignited all the old questions about what exactly was happening inside those walls when the cameras were not rolling. The audacity of the man became more apparent in March 2015. Police in the town of Falmouth, Trilani, invited Sizzler to perform at the Falmouth Police Station as part of an entertainment event organized by the Community Safety and Security Branch, a community outreach arm of the Jamaica Constabularary Force. The invitation was extended in good faith. Sizzler accepted. When he stepped onto the stage, his opening words were reportedly a string of expletives directed at the very police officers who had invited him. He did not ease into it. He opened with it. Police stormed the stage and arrested him on the spot. He was charged and fined. $1,000 Jamaican dollars.

[00:16:21]People who were there that night later told reporters that they had tried to warn the organizers. Everyone in August Town, they said, knew what would happen if you invited Sizzler and expected him to behave himself in front of police. By June 2022, Judgement Yard was in the headlines again, and this time, the story was darker than any raid or arrest had produced before. On a Sunday night, gunmen invaded the compound at August Town Road and shot a man dead inside the yard. The victim, a rustapharian man known in the community by the stage name Culture, was described by police sources as a bodyguard of Sisler and an artist in his own right. At least 11 spent shells were recovered at the scene by officers from the St. Andrew Central Division. Sisler was not present at the time. His phone rang without answer when police tried to reach him. He was not at Judgment Yard that night. He eventually met with investigators in the days that followed. No charges were filed in connection with the killing. The case remained open and the dead man's family was left looking for answers that the streets of August Town rarely give up freely. Through it all, Sizzler Cologi has never been convicted of any violent crime. He has been arrested, questioned, swabbed, raided, and investigated more times than most artists would survive with their careers intact. Yet, his music catalog continued to grow. His US visa, revoked in 2008 and reinstated in 2016, was reportedly revoked again for a period before being reinstated again in 2024, allowing him to return to American stages for the first time in years. In 2019, the government of Jamaica honored him with the reggae icon award at the National Stadium Grand Gala. He rode to the ceremony in a convoy of 120 motorcycles. That same month, he crashed his bike on Mona Road in Kingston and shattered his ankle, returning to hospital for the second time in less than a decade with serious injuries. He recovered again. Miguel Orlando Collins is now nearly 50 years old. He is one of the most decorated, most banned, most arrested, and most beloved reggae artist Jamaica has ever produced. The same hands that wrote Thank You Mama are the same hands that police swab for gunpowder one January night in August Town. The same yard that houses a recording studio, mentors youth, and broadcast Rustafarian culture is the same yard where guns were found buried in the earth and where a man breathed his last on a Sunday night with 11 spent shells scattered around him. That is the real judgment yard. That is the full story of Sizzler Kanji.