‘Bobby Digital’ paid it forward
Foundation assists dialysis patients in tribute
In his final stages of treatment for kidney disease, music producer Bobby “Bobby Digital” Dixon was putting things in place to assist others facing similar medical challenges.
The Digital B Foundation, established by his family in 2021, one year after his death, has honoured that wish.
On March 14, it made three financial donations to help individuals meet dialysis payments and surgery.
The presentation took place at the Renal Unit of the University Hospital of the West Indies in St Andrew.
Craig Dixon, Bobby Digital’s son and a member of Digital B Foundation, told the Jamaica Observer that his father was adamant his family help those in need.
“This is important because my Dad was a giving person, and to see what he went through to live longer; the process is nothing easy. He could afford it, but money can’t buy life, so anybody we can give to in that aspect, it’s necessary,” he said.
The Digital B Foundation made its first contribution in 2023. That sum of $100,000 went to two patients at the Spanish Town Hospital, where Bobby Digital received his final dialysis treatment.
Craig said, of the 15 people who underwent dialysis sessions with his father since he was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2013, only two are alive.
Bobby Digital passed on May 22, 2020.
In a 2022 interview with the Observer, the Kidney Support Foundation of Jamaica disclosed that most patients receive dialysis treatment as many as three times a week. A session costs $15,000, which accumulates to $180,000 a month.
Bobby Digital was one of the architects of modern dancehall. He started his career as an engineer at the recording studio of producer Lloyd “King Jammy” James, working with acts such as Shabba Ranks, Admiral Bailey, and Pinchers.
As a producer, he had success with Shabba Ranks on songs such as Just Reality and Wicked inna Bed, Garnet Silk’s It’s Growing, Just One of Those Days by Sizzla, and Don’t Haffi Dread by Morgan Heritage.
There are six members of the Digital B Foundation. The others are Merva Dixon, Bobby Digital’s wife and Craig Dixon’s mother; his son and daughter Sheldon Stewart and Trudy-Ann Dixon-Smith; Michael McFarlane and Kadeem Petgrave.
