Beenie Man doesn’t hand out the word “inspiration” lightly, but that’s the word he chose for Lt. Stitchie. The self-styled King of the Dancehall took to Instagram to mourn the veteran deejay, writing that he was “deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Lt. Stitchie.”
The post was short and personal. He was one of my inspirations, and I’ll always have respect for the path he helped pave in Jamaican music,” Beenie Man wrote.
He closed with a message to those closest to Stitchie. “My condolences to his family, friends, and everyone who loved him,” he said. “Rest in peace, Lieutenant. Your music and your legacy will live on.”
That phrase about paving a path carries real weight coming from Beenie Man. He came up as a child performer in the dancehall scene and went on to win a Grammy for Best Reggae Album with “Art and Life.” That’s the kind of mainstream success the genre’s earlier generation had to fight to make possible.
Lt. Stitchie, born Cleveland Laing, belonged to that earlier wave. He was one of the first dancehall deejays to sign with a major American label when he joined Atlantic Records in the late 1980s.
That came at a time when the international industry was still working out what to do with the sound coming out of Kingston.
His story also has a second chapter that many younger fans may not know. Stitchie later turned away from secular dancehall and became one of the best-known names in Jamaican gospel music. That shift means his passing is being felt by two different audiences at once.
Beenie Man’s tribute leans toward the dancehall side of that history. He talks about the path Stitchie paved in Jamaican music broadly, not about any single song or era.
Gospel listeners who followed Stitchie through his faith-based work will likely remember a different Lieutenant than the one who shaped a young deejay’s ambitions.
There’s also the generational angle. Beenie Man is now a veteran himself, and tributes like this one read as a torch being acknowledged rather than simply passed. It’s one established artist publicly naming the shoulders he stood on.
Beenie Man’s post didn’t include details about when or how Stitchie died. As of now, the Instagram message stands as one of the first high-profile reactions from within the dancehall community.
Given how many artists came through the era Stitchie helped open up, it’s unlikely his will be the last. Fans across both his secular and gospel audiences are now waiting to hear more from his family and peers.
