The unconventional Louise Frazer-Bennett
With her unconventional dress and in-your-face personality, Louise Frazer-Bennett fit like the proverbial glove in the outrageous dancehall arena. For over two decades, she was one of the genre’s perennial figures, helping to nurture the career of a number of artistes.
Frazer-Bennett died at age 50 on October 12 at the University Hospital of the West Indies. On Saturday, there will be a thanksgiving service at 10:30 at the Pentecostal Gospel Temple on Windward Road. She will be buried in Dunn’s Hill, St Ann, her mother’s birthplace.
Frazer-Bennett passed away four days after she was admitted to the UHWI. Jamila Ellis, one of Frazer-Bennett’s four children, says her mother complained of severe headaches one week before seeking medical attention, and her condition deteriorated rapidly after she went to the hospital Wednesday evening.
Ellis, 22, told All Woman that doctors at the UHWI said Frazer-Bennett had excess blood in her head and was also experiencing kidney complications. According to Ellis, they said that her mother had been brain-dead since Friday.
“I still can’t believe it, she went to the hospital in good spirits. She walked in strong…talk to everybody,” said Ellis.
Frazer-Bennett had had medical problems in recent years. In 2001, she underwent successful heart surgery and apart from a nagging knee ailment, Ellis says she had been in good condition and was excited about breaking her latest act, the Ready Fi Buss Crew.
Desmond Young, president of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians, who knew Frazer-Bennett for “many years”, said she was passionate about improving the lives of persons from hardened communities.
“She was a champion of the downtrodden,” said Young.
Having grown up one of six children in the tough Kingston community of Jones Town, Frazer-Bennett could identify with the struggles of life in the inner-city. Like her younger brother, former Jamaica and West Indies cricketer, Richard Austin, she was rarely out of the spotlight.
In an interview with Ian Boyne for his Profile programme on Television Jamaica last month, Frazer-Bennett spoke openly of her early years toughing it out in Jones Town, and surviving in west Kingston during the turbulent 1970s when she befriended enforcers affiliated to the People’s
National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party.
She had given a peek into her private world with I Will Survive, a book of poems published in 1999 by LMH Publishers. In it, Frazer-Bennett covered diverse topics: from the infamous “Zekes” incident in downtown Kingston to the Reggae Boyz qualifying for the World Cup in France in
1998. But to contemporary music fans, Frazer-Bennett was best known for her role as manager and mentor to artistes like Bounty Killer, Ghost and Culture and Ninja Man. She was a founding member of the Sound Systems Association for which she was public relations manager at the time of her death.
Louise Frazer-Bennett is survived by daughters Jamila, Latoya, 30, and Ayanna, 13 and a 27 year-old son, Che Quevar. She had four brothers: Mark, Oliver, Bobby and Richard and a sister, Elizabeth.
