Your Playlist: Informer by Snow

Have I got the jam for you. Informer by Snow is the best-selling reggae single in US history. Don't remember the 1992 mega hit? Give it a listen:

Yeah, you know it.

Ok. So you've got a Canadian singing reggae, which he got into after Jamaican immigrants moved to his childhood neighborhood. Is that the immigration angle? Nah.

This is an INA § 212 song.

How?

The singer, Darrin Kenneth O'Brien -aka- Snow has a Canadian criminal record. He has a late-80s conviction related to beating a person with a crowbar during a bar brawl. He served 8 months of the 1 year sentence for that offense. He spent another 8 months in jail awaiting trial for attempted murder before being acquitted. He actually wrote Informer during that second stint behind bars.

As this TikTok-er, known for his musical deep-dives, explains, O'Brien was unable to get a visa to come to the U.S. to promote Informer or later musical endeavors.

@patrickhicks82 You better listen for me now #music #musicstory #musichistory #90smusic #hiphop #reggae #dancehall ♬ original sound - Patrick Hicks Music Stories

Have your students play around with 212 and figure out his inadmissibility. 

-KitJ