MONTEGO BAY, St James – With the shuttering of the entertainment sector due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, veteran reggae singer Major Lloyd has turned his focus to his second love— farming—these days.

Prior to the spread of the disease, the seasoned St James-based entertainer mostly made his living from composing dub plates for various sound systems, as well as live performances.

But the pandemic changed all of that.

“I am indulged in my second trade right now. The dub plate thing and stage show turn down, but to be truthful, I am able to survive from the farm. I am now reaping pineapples, I sell a couple hundred pounds of pineapples, a man ordered a couple dozen sugar canes and I am going to bush to take them out now,” the reggae performer said recently, while on his way to his farm in Sunderland, St James, about nine miles from the resort city of Montego Bay.

“My father is a farmer, something that we grow up come see. I am good at farming because I was one of the first students in the Heart (HEART/Trust NSTA) programme when it was launched in 1982. It was all about planting bananas at the time.”

As far back as 1998 Major Lloyd recorded a song, entitled Plant and Chant, which epitomises his marriage of music with farming, his first and second loves.

“I am a singer and I am a farmer. I chant and I plant. So the food go with the music. Right now I am on the farm every day. I don’t have no problem, I just need my book and my pen,” said Major Lloyd, whose given name is Errol Lloyd Gordon.

“I am now working on two songs and while on the farm the brain is open easily to the music. The farm also creates the music, it come in like I am addicted to the farm because it work with the music. I identified that from Plant and Chant, recorded in 1998, which was a big song in Texas.”

Major Lloyd started out singing on sound systems in 1979, then went on to recording six years after. His vast catalogue includes songs such as Fire, Rhyne Stone Cowboy, Never Ending Love, Red, Red Wine, Plant and Chant, Morgue, Don’t Let Your Mouth be Your Enemy and Stone.

The unassuming crooner, who has performed on Reggae Sunsplash, Rebel Salute, Reggae Sumfest and other stages in America, Canada and Colombia, had his sights set on a European tour later this year, which now seems unlikely, due to COVID-19.

“The COVID-19 has put a setback on things…slow up the thing. We can find food, but it slow down a lot of things. We were putting something together for a tour of Geneva,” he told the Observer West.

Among his greatest wish is to get a gig in Africa when the COVID-19 has passed.

“My dream is to go to Africa. I am pleading for somebody to send for me,” he said.