When Singing Melody got the call that his son, 34 year-old businessman Kemar Hardweare had been shot and killed in a drive-by shooting, the incident brought the singer’s biggest fears to nightmarish life.

The Want You Back singer had long dreaded such a dark revelation because his son had chosen to live in a tough inner-city community off Waltham Park Road in St Andrew, despite his father’s desperate warnings.

“This is the third time he is getting shot. If you don’t take the warning the first and second time…then what could be done. How could he not see this coming?” a devastated Singing Melody, whose real name is Everton Hardweare, asked in an interview with Observer Online.

“It was Saturday night, it was his brother’s birthday and he was there partying and drinking, and then, that’s what happened, the final drive by. They killed my son.”

Kemar Hardweare, 34, who owned a bar in the community, was one of three persons killed in a mass shooting Saturday on Bowens Road off Waltham Park Road. The other two victims were Steven Myers, 19, of Harvey Road and 63-year-old Ricardo Baker.

Singing Melody

Official reports from the police are that about 11:40 pm, the men were among a group of persons on the roadway when armed men travelling on foot opened gunfire at the group, hitting all eight persons before escaping.

“Kemar was a good youth, mannerable, kind, he really wanted to live in the area. I told him many times to leave the area but he had built a bar and was doing his business. He wanted to be there …Ah many sleepless nights mi have ah fret about him, 15 years of sleepless nights, and to see this happen now, it’s hard,” Singing Melody said.

The singer said this drive-by shooting was the third occasion that his son had been shot in that community.

“When he was 17, he got shot in his back, running away from some gunmen. It was the day after Sunsplash had just returned to Plantation Cove and his mother said he was in the yard and left gone with friends, and the man dem buck up inna gunmen and dem run left him,” he recounted.

Singing Melody said that during this attack, his son was shot in his spine and his neck, injuring the nerve in his right eye.

“He lost one of his eyes and the shot lodged in his brain,” Singing Melody recalled of that first incident.

He said Kemar was hospitalised for four months and returned to live with him. He set new rules and his son said that God had given him a second chance and things were good for a while. But afterwards, he and his son clashed verbally because his son chafed under the singer’s strict rules and craved more freedom.

“I would leave and go to studio, leave chores for him to do, and come home and can’t find him. My rules were too strict so he wanted to go to his mother to live,” Singing Melody said.

Singing Melody said that his son even turned down the opportunity for Kemar and his sister to live in a house in Portmore. Instead, the singer said he gave his son all the furniture from that home to give him a start in life. Kemar had lived in the Waltham Park Road area for the past 12 years, he said.

“Kemar was never raised in a violent community. He went there to live with his mom when she returned from the UK,” he said.

Singing Melody said he used every opportunity to encourage his son to seek a different path.

“We had a family reunion a few months ago, and I asked him again about the choices he was making now that he had his own son, William. He listened to me, and he was respectful, but he has always been challenging when it comes to choosing his own path,” Singing Melody said.

He said that his son, who went to St Catherine High at the same time as Chronixx, was popular among his peers.

“I see his friends all the time and dem ask me for Kemar. He wasn’t a bad youth, he was just stubborn,” he said.

Singing Melody said that this experience is a nightmarish scenario for every parent.

“This is just a struggle yu face with kids who don’t listen to parents, I just hope he gave his life to God before he passed. This really breaks my heart,” Singing Melody said.