Jah Cure Victim Speaks Out: “I Forgive Him, But I Will Never Forget”

Dutch concert promoter Nicardo ‘Papa’ Blake says he has “forgiven Jah Cure” following the October 2021 incident in which the Reggae singer stabbed him over a disputed performance fee. However, Blake maintains that while he harbors no malice, the memory of the attack remains vivid.

“Because mi is a God-fearing yute, mi forgive him, but mi no forget,” Blake told DancehallMag.

Recalling the horrific incident, Blake noted that it was sheer luck he survived the altercation in Amsterdam’s Dam Square.

“The doctor told me that if Cure did only stab me with more power and him hand go up inna the air more, then him woulda stab mi direct inna mi heart. Him coulda kill me, I will never forget what he did, me and him can never be friends. I don’t sorry for him, everything him ah face, ah him put himself inna it,” Blake stated.

The Dispute

Blake is speaking out to clear his name amid allegations that he engaged in “shady business” regarding the Love Is singer. He categorically denied owing Jah Cure €500 as a balance for a performance at the Melkweg, a cultural center and music venue in Amsterdam, days before the incident.

According to Blake, Jah Cure initially approached him for help securing bookings. “At first, I didnt want to do it because Cure a problem, everytime him come, is always something,” he said.

A mutual acquaintance, ‘Collieboy,’ eventually helped secure a show at the Melkweg for an agreed fee of €5,000. Blake and his partner delivered the advance in cash.

“We met up with him and gave him 5 five hundred Euro notes. When me and Collieboy carry the money to him, he said ah long time him ‘no see dem money ya’, and he wasn’t going to spend the money, he was going to bring it back to Jamaica go put it down safe,” Blake recounted.

Blake claimed that the agreement soured once the singer realized the prestige of the venue. “He said ‘if you’re going to put me in the Melkweg, yu caan pay me 5000, yu have to pay me 10,000 because dem venue ya ah big venue’. Then he told Collie boy that we would have to pay him band and dem ting de,” he said. 

The promoter said he felt the singer was trying to “stick him up,” noting that Cure had just performed solo at a Belgian festival for 3,000 patrons. “He just did that in Belgium, and now you’re going into a club with a bands? Cure was saying ‘but this, but that’.”

Despite initial thoughts of canceling, the promoters proceeded to protect their reputation with the venue. “Once you book, they design the flyer, just tell them the name of the artiste, and price. So when that venue puts the ticket on sale, if it’s a good venue that the people dem waan, within a hour, you can sell 500 to 600 tickets. So when Cure wanted to switch now to bands, we the promoters would have to change the price of the ticket (to recoup their investment), but the venue was already selling at an arranged price already,” Blake explained.

Eventually, all parties involved hammered out an agreement to pay the band a fee of 500 euros, and the promoters, to preserve their reputation, agreed to the additional cost.

However, tensions rose after the show when the band demanded €1,500 instead of the agreed €500. The promoters transferred €2,000 to an account to cover the band and a final deposit for Cure. However, Blake claims Cure continued to insist on an additional €500 cash payment and later demanded €2,000 the following day for travel expenses, claiming the bank transfer was inaccessible.

The situation reached a breaking point when Blake threatened to cancel four upcoming shows in Kenya and Ghana—bookings that would have earned the singer an additional US$100,000.

“I told Cure that even if I have a million dollars, I would never give you and as a matter of fact, I am going to cancel the Africa shows, that was when he got pissed off,” Blake said. 

He alleged that Cure sent numerous threatening voice notes, which Blake says he has never released to the public or used in court because he “was leaving this case alone.”

“Him a send himself to prison. When they first arrested him, he said he didn’t do it. Then he changed that and said he did it in self-defence,” Blake added.

The Stabbing

Blake described the subsequent meeting at Dam Square as a “daylight ambush,” and claimed that the singer lulled him into a false sense of security.

“He called me and ah talk to me normal and mi say ‘yu calm down now’ and him say ‘yeah come link me and mek we talk and if yu nah come, say yu nah come, memba say we have business  to handle’, and mi say mi soon forward. He then made a video and showed me the Dam Square,” Blake explained.

Blake said he ran an errand with his son and went to see the singer in the Dam Square hours later. 

“When I reach, him stand up behind two man and me stand up in front of ‘Penco’, that was the man whose account I had transferred the money in the night before. I said Penco why yu don’t just give Cure the money and mek him gwaan? And before I could finish the sentence, him push him hand between the two man and said ‘pussy papa’,” Blake recounted.

“I never felt the stab, is like dem garlic the knife, ah look mi look pon the jacket and see the cut , and him start make noise and the whole excitement start and him start run offa the scene and one thing to the next,” Blake added.  

He said ‘everything that happen to Cure, him do it to himself”.

He also revealed that Jah Cure tried to get people to contact him to change his version of events but Blake refused. 

“I have never attended any of his court dates. The only time dem see me in the court is when his lawyer ask  the prosecution to summon me to question my credibility,” he said.

Blake said the surgical team was forced to perform ’emergency surgery’ because of the extent of his injuries. “The man dem cut from under mi chest plate to all the way down to my belly button. The knife go through mi stomach, so yu know the amount of work…is weeks and months later, mi see how God spare mi life,” he said.

The Netherlands Court of Appeal laid out in excruciating detail the bodily harm Blake suffered, “including perforation of the retroperitoneum and a perforation of his stomach”.

“The anterior and posterior walls of the stomach, retroperitoneum, and left rectus had to be surgically closed, resulting in a large, disfiguring scar running from under his chest to his lower abdomen. This injury also had significant consequences, in that the injured party required treatment after his surgery for persistent pain from the stab wound and underwent further surgery in 2024 due to complications,” the Court of Appeal said in a recent ruling.

Despite all that, Blake said there is no malice directed at Jah Cure and none of the voice notes that Cure sent to Blake’s personal phone threatening him have ever been released or used against him in court.  

“Everybody know his ways, at the end of the day, whatever him get, is the hole weh him dig, him fall into,” Blake said pointedly.

He said the the whole incident stemmed from Cure’s warped perspective.

“His argument is that me rob him and don’t pay him, and that itself is a lie. the only reason me and him in contention is because him ah ask me more money and me said ‘no, and mi nah work with yu no more and cancel the Africa show dem’ and he got pissed,” Blake recounted.

During the initial trial, judges in the lower court had ruled that Jah Cure’s actions were not a premeditated act of attempted murder, and he was acquitted of the more serious charge. He was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for the offense proven in the first instance, less time spent in pre-trial detention.

Dutch prosecutors appealed the acquittal of the attempted murder charge, arguing that the attack was premeditated. Evidence presented included threatening voice messages sent by Jah Cure to the victim hours before the attack.

In October 2025, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal agreed with the prosecutors, overturned the previous verdict, and found Jah Cure guilty of the more serious charge of attempted murder. The appeal court increased his sentence to eight years and four months in prison. Prosecutors had initially requested a 9.5-year sentence.

The lower court had also ordered Jah Cure to pay Blake €9,452.49 in material and non-material damages.

“He is a Victim”

Blake’s lawyer, R Bouwman, said he was pleased with the outcome and that it was not unusual for Dutch prosecutors to push for a conviction on the more serious charge of attempted murder. “It (the stabbing) was very violent, it happened in a public space and during the daytime, so that makes it even more scarier,” Bouwman told DancehallMag.

He appealed to reggae fans to be fair in their assessment of the case and not to denigrate his client, Nicardo Blake.

“Take into consideration that my client is a victim, he is not here to put blame on the singer, on someone who is famous and done a lot for Jamaica. He is a victim…the award doesn’t cover the full range of his costs,” Bouwman said.

He said it was not unusual for the court to grant a sum of money to the victim of acts where they have suffered injury.

“This is basically what happens in Holland, it is not like a country where you can have big claims regarding money which is lost but in general, what is important here is that he (Blake) was hurt. He has endured a lot of operations, he still has a lot of medical problems due to what happened to him, so therefore, this was more than normal to request a sum of money,” Bouwman said.

Bouwman said that the gravity and nature of the attempted murder conviction would not increase the sum awarded. He explained in the Dutch lower court, there was an initial sum requested and that sum is the ground for the ruling in the higher court, “so you can’t add money in the higher court”.

Still, Blake is yet to receive payment.

“The singer went for an appeal in the higher court, and therefore, the money isn’t paid over. It all depends on the system in the higher court and he is not voluntarily paying the money, that’s for sure,” Bouwman said. 

This will be Jah Cure’s second eight-year stint behind bars.

The singer previously served eight years of a 15-year sentence in prison in Jamaica for illegal possession of a firearm, rape, and robbery with aggravation.