The soca artiste who was jailed for robbery just as he was riding a wave of popularity in 2019 is warning other people to stay away from prison, which he described as “hell”.
“Jail is hell,” Bradley “Party Dawg” Huggins told Hot 97 FM in less than two weeks after his release earlier this month.
“We have all kind of thing to deal with in jail, from prisoner to officer, your health, no welfare,” the “Mrs. Jones” singer said.
In April 2019, Huggins, then 28, was sentenced to nine years 11 months and three weeks in prison for the Christmas 2015 robbery of a security guard.
He was jailed alongside Osborne Brudy, then 28, and Terron Prince, then 33, who were also found guilty of robbing Kevorn Skinner of cash and personal items valued at EC$1,100, at Kingstown on Dec. 25, 2015.
They were also charged with abduction of the security guard, but the jury returned a not guilty verdict on that charge.
During his sentencing at the High Court in Kingstown, Huggins had asked Justice Brian Cottle not to be too harsh on him.
He said that he wished his victim were there so he could apologise to him in person.
“I know it is hard because I myself was a victim of gunshot and it had me in a mental state for a while so I know it is something that is going to take a while to get over. I’m really sorry,” he had said.
Huggins’ 10-year prison sentence translated to over six years behind bars.
Prince had spent two months on remand and was therefore released two months earlier.
Brudy was sentenced to seven years and nine months and therefore served four years plus.
‘The national dish in jail — rice and stew chicken’
In his radio interview, Huggins accepted responsibility for his actions, but explained how friendships and alcohol had influenced his decision.
Describing the hell that is prison in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Huggins said, “Hell hot! You can’t sleep. You in torment even in the night, in the day, everywhere is problem, torment — your brain cyah rest.”
Huggins served his sentence at both the Belle Isle Correctional Facility, in Belle Isle, in western St. Vincent, and His Majesty’s Prison in the capital, Kingstown.
“Mostly, I was in Belle Isle and then I came up here the last part to work in the bakery for almost two years,” said Huggins, who explained how having a job in prison makes life easier for inmates.
Huggins explained that a typical day at Belle Isle Correctional Facility begins with warders opening the cells between 5 and 6 a.m.
“Nine man in a small cell. Sometimes it’s full. It might be seven or eight men,” he said.
Prisoners then go to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Breakfast would be bread and tea. Bush tea or milk tea. Sometimes bread and beef — well butter, mostly. You get white butter, peanut butter. … Sometimes they get tuna and sardine and them kind of stuff or cheese … But it’s so common; it’s like every day that’s what you are getting. Every day is a routine.”
He described meals as “diet”, adding, “After you get your diet, you go back to your cell until about nine o’clock.”
By that time, the prison officers would have completed their “parade” and will open the cell blocks.
“So, some guys could go in the rec (recreation), and some guys stay in the cell. Majority of time, people are staying in them cells because dem wah use dem cell phone,” he said.
Lunch is served at 11 a.m. “It’s rice every day. Rice ah kill yo,” he said adding that rice is generally served with stewed chicken.
“That’s the national dish in jail… — rice and stew chicken. Jail man fed up ah the food, me brother,” he said, adding that prisoners are sometimes served rice and stewed chicken all week.
“But sometimes they will try and get hard food (ground provision) or some sauce food. … Them call it R and B — rice and bread.”
He said that after lunch, prisoners go back to their cells and might be released against for about two hours later in the afternoon, ending at 3 or 4 p.m.
“So, they could go rec and get a little smoker or whatever. And then you get last diet now,” Huggins said.
In Belle Isle, the evening meal is always “bush tea” (herbal tea).
“Them doh do no milk in the evening. … or you could collect some hot water, if you get your own sugar and your own things to make your own tea.
“And then you get the bread too. You’re getting the same bread … same as breakfast with something in there, again. The majority of the time in the evening, it will be something light, as them say — butter, cheese…”
Huggins told radio listeners that lockdown would happen anytime between 4 and 6 p.m., depending on when the warders working on the shift arrive.
Prison a snake pit
As regards getting accustomed to prison life, Huggins said he “never really settle”.
Huggins explained, saying, “Prison is a snake place.
“Like everybody wearing some kind of mask, everybody pretending. Enemies does turn friends in jail, especially over smoke – weed,” he said, adding that marijuana is “a piece of comfort” to many prisoners.
He said some members of rival gang bury the hatchet in prison so as to ease the burn of their sentence and avoid additional punishment, such as solitary confinement.
He said he tried to keep to himself in prison because of the insincerity.
“… the fakeness does create a kind of tension pon my brain. Me don’t like fake people, and me can’t really pretend too much.
“But then I learn to pretend,” he said, adding that someone had told him that when dealing with snakes, you have to become one so that the serpents don’t devour you.
Huggins said that in prison, people help each other not because they are genuine but for kickbacks.
“… I might not like you [but] I go come every day, I go clean your shoes, I go sweep up your thing. So, when you’re ready fuh hand down your little whatever, you go say, ‘Here, you hold that.’ So that’s how I getting along. Try make it little easier.”
A place of growth; daughter, another reason to remain free
Huggins said prison has been a place of growth for him.
“I think it made me grow in a sense because the way how I does deal with situation, I does think different.”
He said it was not a matter of being rehabilitated “because nothing nah been wrong with me any first place.
“The time in there for more reading, and that is wah yo does develop plenty understanding from — reading.”
Huggins is decided that he will not end up in prison again.
“Me nah go back dey. Well, not so easy, boy; not so easy,” he said, adding that this daughter, who lost her mother when she was an infant, is now 11 years old.
“I get a nice little daughter there; she was supposed to come here and meet me. I really want to take care of she….
“And me wah dey ‘bout for she because it ha’ ah whole heap ah predators out dey.”
Huggins said that his daughter is in the police youth clubs and like football and sports and he want to support her dreams.
He said he maintained a relationship with his daughter during his incarceration as his mother used to bring her to visit him.
“I used to tell she sometimes doh bring her. I used to call she because I always ha’ my phone in jail, differently. I sent for my cell phone and I will use it and make sure I connect to she and know what she dealing with because at the end of the day, if me nah do it, I won’t know.”
Mistake made; lesson learnt
Huggins said taking part in the robbery was a mistake.
“Sometimes you make mistakes, and then dah robbery dey I been jail for now, is through influence from friends and things because normally, I won’t ah do them thing dey off ah my own,” he said.
“I don’t blame them, because at the end of the day, I had the decision to make for myself. And I still stay around them, and I still do it, which and while I could ah leave from them. Nobody ain’t force me. So, I blame myself.”
Huggins said he would never want to go back to prison.
“Never in my life! Never!” he said, adding that he would make a conscious decision to avoid prison.
“Me nah go down dem road dey again,” he said that certain people cannot bring certain talks around him because he does not want to hear about it.
He said intoxication is not an excuse for bad behaviour.
“Intoxication don’t really mean that you ain’t know what you’re doing and you can’t get control. … You could always come back and say, ‘Yeah, I was intoxicated.’”
Huggins says he still drinks.
“Me just ah drink with more control. Me nah drink fuh drunk. I like enjoy life. That’s me: Party Dawg. I like doing that stuff. I like drinking. And some people like me for that, no, I would like for party with you. I like how you does move eh.”
He said he sees Brudy and Prince as they live in the same community, but they do not really hang out together.
“We’re still normal,” Huggins said, adding that he cannot blame them for what happened to him.
“I ain’t going hold them malice,” he said, adding that Brudy, who used to walk around and sell food, is married now and has a family and operates a taxi.
And Prince “stop with certain ah the things he used to gwarn with”, Huggins said, adding that the prison sentence has been a deterrent.
Music ‘for sure, for sure’ this year
During Huggins’ time in prison, the superintendent obtained permission from the attorney general for the then-inmate to go to a studio and record music.
Huggins is planning to continue his music career now that he is no longer in prison.
“Well, I believe in the music. I believe I could actually do something. I going and push as hard as I could push.”
He said being in prison in Belle Isle during carnival was a lot easier than when he was in Kingstown.
“If I dey in town prison and I have to listen all the truck them every minute with the music, it’s terrorising, but in Belle Isle, me nah go through dah because out of sight, out of mind.”
But as to whether he could pick up from where he left off, Huggins said, “I definitely going and try and pick up. Have to.”
He said that “for sure, for sure” people will hear music from him for Vincymas 2026.
“Well, in prison too I learn that the roughest experiences are the best teachers. This was a very rough experience.”
Some of the inmates prefer to stay in the cell and use their cellular phones? Hmmm!
I am glad his term in jail is over and it has made a change to his life.
However I have a problem with his access to a cell phone.
There should be a phone for all prisoners to use, so the authority is aware of
ant communication from the prison.
Then they should not have access to cigarette or weed. Prison is not a hotel.