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So this snack shop. So it's owned by somebody you know and it's so dangerous here now that he's just locked it up and he's just abandoned it. Okay, so we jumped out the car downtown. I'm not going to lie, it feels like on edge here, no? Doesn't it? You can just hear constant sirens in the background all the time and just police convoys. This is crazy. So somebody broke in here and robbed you? Just today? Just today. So is this area one of the most dangerous in the city? Jamaica, music, beaches, and gang violence.
Government of Jamaica declared a state of public emergency to combat rising violence. It seems to have a split reputation. I've always wondered what Jamaica is actually like on the ground. Jamaica has an astronomically high murder rate and some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. Let's see what it's like for ourselves, shall we? Shooting and war, violent war in Jamaica. Gunfire still echoing out around the city as darkness falls. Welcome back to Kingston, Jamaica.
Today, we're heading all the way to the other side of the island to the second biggest city of Jamaica called Montego Bay. It's about a 3-hour drive. Montego Bay is famous for its resorts and its tourism, but it's also got the other side as well. It's a really interesting situation there with the locals access to the beautiful beaches. Let's jump in the car and head to Montego Bay. Okay, so we've arrived in Montego Bay. We've come into one of the ghettos here. This is mainly scammers, right, that live here? The military and police presence here is pretty insane. It seems calm, but then there's military and
soldiers everywhere, so it's obviously not calm, is it? It is calm now because of the presence of the military and the police. The government is trying to do their best to get the violence a minimal level because it is very close to the tourist section. Right, cuz there's lots of like big resorts by the beach, but you just come up and you can see behind me there's a military checkpoint and uh, you know, we were checked by the military and the police and things, right? Pretty wild. Around here, these big houses and compared to Kingston, these ones are more expensive cuz there's much more money in here because of scammers. And when you say scammers, you mean internet scammers and
things like that. Yes. Right? The famous scams where they write to somebody and say you've inherited money or girlfriend scams and things like that. Yes, so they are more likely to have more financial power to buy guns and to pay off some persons and buy vehicles to commit crimes. The crime in Kingston, there's a lot less money there and so there's leaders of gangs and the turf wars, one guy is leading it, but here there's so many people with so much money that everybody's kind of trying to get each other, right? Sorry. So, is this area one of the most dangerous in the city?
Yeah, man. All of the murders on this street, on average one per day or every 2 or 3 days right now. But, the gangs know who they are targeting. So, people go about their business on a regular. Cuz people have to traverse this road right here. Every day all these street sellers run inside and hide and then come back out. Normal for them to just be living in an area where there's bullets flying around all the time. After a while it just becomes the norm. You have to live. You have to make an income. So, there's less police and military presence here, which means that there's obviously more of violence.
Whereas the neighborhood we just came from has, you know, more security, so it's been more secure, even though there's still killings there a lot. But, down here it's a bit more wild west. Kevin just told me the words, "If you hear a gunshot, don't run. Just get low." Okay, so we jumped out the car downtown. I'm not going to lie. It feels just like on edge here, no? Doesn't it? Yes, most of the time. If you notice, there's there's police presence Okay. in this part. Right. Because of the same issue, violence, murders. It just feels like we're teetering on the edge of anything happening. Like it seems calm, but I'm just feeling this atmosphere of not okay at all.
Without the police, you'll have a lot of robbers and sometimes murders. Guaranteed. So, that's kind of good, right? Because that means that the police are doing good things here. Yeah, yeah, man. The government tries a lot. Cuz that means that the place is like Haiti, for example, where when you see a police it means problem for you. I felt more safe around gang members in Haiti than I did around police, but here I feel like when I see a police or a military it's a good thing, right? Well, that's a really good sign of your government, I think, no? I don't know what to harass. Harass is most of the time. Most of the time, yeah. And you can have your kind of freedom and peace.
Rastafarian So, we've come we met up with Snapchat boy, right? Snapchat boss, not boy. Boss, sorry. Snapchat boss. And what was your name? Slicker Dan. Slicker Dan, okay. And what are you guys doing today? You know, we just the pioneers are going on with our good vibes, you know? Good vibes? Chilling, yes. Chilling, right, right. Just hanging out. Yeah. How is this area because I've seen lots of police and stuff? Is it safe? Yeah, you know how we are. In your own way? You know how we are. Because you don't know a lot of working
people. Actually, honest. Working people. What do you mean? Working class. Oh, working class, right. Just make a tailor. Hustling. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Making money. Nowhere is not safe. It's not safe here. Nowhere is not safe. Nowhere at all is not safe. Nowhere here is safe. Nowhere, nowhere at all Uh-huh. is safe. No matter where you're at Yeah. people come for you if you're involved in wrongs. Right.
Yeah, but if you are doing the right thing and you know say you are just a regular You would do nothing. Uh-huh. You can go anywhere you feel like. How often is somebody killed around here? Every day? Regular day people get robbed, people get killed. I even me just get robbed. You just got robbed? Yeah, and the police does get broke and thief out the box them out there. Yeah, you can't breathe in there. Police them That is the reason why I just see the police and Oh, the police is coming. on the front. Oh, wow. And I told them no them broke it. She grill there right there so it was a AC unit.
Somebody his air conditioning unit, right? Uh-huh. Gambling box. So somebody broke in here and robbed you? The thieves the box them thieves them. Just today? Just today. Wow. I have a lot of people that live over here. of people live here? Yeah. Also a lot of things. This was really a craft market for tourists. Right. For tourists? Yeah, for tourists. They would come and buy like little craft items.
Jamaican statues and the Key chains and yeah. I would have done those stuff. And what happened? Because of the violence and the new hotels all inclusive those things cut down. So the all inclusive resorts have really like They have shops with They've already got that and so people don't come here and then this place has just kind of been absolutely crippled by it and then you know they don't get the money from the tourists so now there's violence like every day. So you would say big international companies then? Yeah. So man start off a little business there so You really want to move. You want to leave. Yeah, but because he just started off his business Right.
Yeah, trying to do some business. So what he's saying that every time he And he to build up the same people in the area. I still try even when them break me down the first time I try again. We never try to do them nothing. Because you just got robbed this morning and you're staying so calm. I'm still there. If I was robbed this morning I wouldn't be as calm as you guys, you know. I'm strong and I'm either I'm a lion. You have to be wise you know because you see the place we are living you have to be wise. Everybody play a game you see what I say?
Yes. So you do you feel like you can't really trust anybody? No we really don't but I know everybody you can't trust. Like a dog eat dog world. Yes man. So I'm a musician still I build music go to the studio. Musician? Yes and I do hip hop I rap cities and I do tailor work. How can nice can you give me a rap now? Well not really rap I give like Jamaican style. Yeah I love that. Yes you want a style? Yeah I love it yeah. Okay all right I'm going to give you a style. Okay. This is me party yard and it not go over be a girl that she can't find a lover and when police come in it not go over be a girl that she wait a lover we party yard and it not go over be a girl that she can't find a lover and when police
come in it not go over be a girl that she wait a lover so we a party with creator and creator with faith crazy they look plus their shape and physique they all smile and they show me their white pretty teeth put the panties and cut them up on the beach in a the bends and the beam of the girl them come over they all put all them foot all over shoulder call it and Simone and one Nicola phone a ring no answer phone sir me party yard but it not go over be a girl that she can't find a lover you know a slicker than get girl faster and quicker than a master big up Snapchat boss you know what I think sir I take it up run and block it up girl look it up you know say gangster rock it up right there. Nice brother.
Love it. That song was about party and girls. Oh really? And when police come the parties, is not going to finish. I just want to take a quick second and say thank you so much to AG1 for sponsoring this video. AG1 is basically your all-encompassing go-to vitamin and nutrient drink. It's got over 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients. Every day I do my best not to go to sleep without having drank at least one bottle of AG1. Before I started drinking AG1 over 4 years ago, I used to take so many different little pills and you have to get the containers out of the cupboard and take each pill individually and such a hassle and it can be off-putting. But with AG1, it's
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wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. So a huge thank you to AG1 for sponsoring this video and keeping the travels going. Let's get back to the video. So people come in here and they'll just take the shops for themselves, like hijack the shops and then just do what they want. Yeah, because there's no country anymore. You can just hear constant sirens in the background all the time and just police convoys. It's just crazy. It's just like one of those neighborhoods that's so quiet and like desolate that it feels like anything could happen at every time anytime, right? So this snack shop, so it's owned by somebody you know and he it's so dangerous here now that he's just locked
it up and he's just abandoned it. Yeah, and it and he hasn't been here for years. Wow. Yeah. So, this is a really desperate time in history. in the community. Just doesn't want to come back here ever again. Yeah. And he's also contemplating to leave. If we don't have my box in my bar, it don't make no sense. Even if the bar doesn't make any money, the box make Right. So, they stole the whole gambling machine. Yes, it is. Oh, it was like a slot machine. Yes. Yeah, okay. The volume is $1 million. 8,000 in US. Wow. I mean, it makes sense like in this such a desperate place that somebody knows that there's $8,000 that they're going to do whatever they can to get it,
right? Basically, if you get one of those and try to run a business, you're pretty much guaranteed that somebody's going to try and rob you. Yes. Who owns such an expensive car in the neighborhood like this? As I said, um because there's no other source of income that will generate a certain living. The guy is turning to scamming. He's trying a business, right? Yeah. And if it's not working on the only option you're left with, which is trying to run to scam. Definitely cannot do a 9-5 cuz I've got kids. Right. And a 9-5 wouldn't work for me.
The hard labor jobs are just not worth it. And so, you try to start a business, but then that doesn't work, and so ultimately what else do Yeah, ultimately you have to join the scammers and stuff, right? Yeah, that is the only way out, right now. So, it's just a vicious cycle you can't escape. If it wasn't for scamming, trust me, there would be more crime. Yeah. Because a lot of youths that's not doing crime now and making money, if it wasn't scamming, what would happen? I want Snapchat boss. I don't know any man. Me I represent for myself and now I want to binge you. I mean, just want to get to you them for just wise up.
No matter what I break you down, just keep strong. Maybe you a jungle and poor more. Make we unite together as and support more cuz it's not pretty when you walk through the court door. Mama preach and teach until our throat sore more time. We wonder what the future thinking. Bullet and a yay them keep it blinking. Lift body in a bush rotten and stinking. I bend up them face like clothes wrinkling. Make we think positive and not negative. They merciless against them own relative. Them so heartless they not even make baby leave them. Should the baby them no respect the birth we should give. Say when the bus them gone smoke blue like cigarette. Make everybody in the country sick of it and sick of it. But the
almighty watching and that them figure it. I am a the big man I am up the bigger Make we a jungle and poor more. Make we unite together as and support more. Cuz it's not pretty when you walk through the court door. Mama preach and teach until our throat sore. Beautiful. Yeah, man. God bless. Positive energy, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's culture. Culture, yeah. The real culture. That's a positive song, right? You were saying that um it's not good to go through a court door. I've been there. That is the reason why I'm so calm and humble right now because I don't want to go back through the court door. Right.
Yeah, because I've been down there for about 12 months straight. In jail? Yes. Wow. What was that like? Terrible. It was a mess. Locking up behind bars. Trust me. It's not a good feeling. Can you explain to me the things that you saw in jail? From a going there and we get a bump. A bump? Yeah. Yeah, come in and man kick them on the bump. Really? Yeah. Like plastic on them. Burn them up. Really? Crazy things happen in a jail.
Everything that is outside is inside. If you want pizza, you can't get it. Okay, so you're saying like if you have money and connections, you can get whatever you want. Everything we want. What I saw that I didn't like you cannot locate a life sentence prisoner with a jailer which is coming Okay. So there's people that have committed like insane crimes in the same place as somebody who like stole a drink or something, right? So petty crime and serious all combined. And so you end with killers and murderers. and murderers and stuff like that. You just go in there for a slip. Right. Yes, you end up with some killers and them
frustrated. Yeah, they take it out on you. They end up taking it out on Right. You don't get the tourists here. No, we don't get tourists. How often do you see a guy like me show up? Once in a blue moon. Okay, right. Once in a sometime I saw like some tourists near me we will be walking through you know because you know they really want experience. They don't want to go where the tour guide are where the airport tell them to go. They want to experience the real Jamaica like how you want to experience the real what's happening in the garrison part of Jamaica. So we just met a cop and they said they're dealing with a case right now.
Yeah, a case right now. What does that mean? Complaint about what? Do you know? I'm I'm not sure. It could mean anything, right? Anything. Right. The police are on bikes. Oh, wow. Yeah. So they call it the police all these response police officers on bikes right now. So this is a quick response team. Quick Right. You would say that Montego Bay is more dangerous than Kingston? Two cities are dangerous, but the type of crimes that actually happen Right. Montego Bay is more organized in terms of crime because of the financial power. More money. Yeah. So, more sophisticated crime.
Yeah. Uh-huh. All right. But, in Kingston as you can see the ghetto areas are more poorer. Street crimes desperation and one man calling the shots in Kingston. But, down here everybody is calling the shots. Obviously, there's desperation around here, but it seems like the poverty is a lot more extreme in Kingston, right? And so, you were saying like the money filters down from the scammers and it comes to mothers and the family and stuff. So, everybody benefits. Right. In Kingston, the school provide holes in because you haven't seen not one tourist in this year. No tourists at all, right? Because the system encourage the tourists to stay within the resort and they encourage it. So, so that
financial spending stays within the hotel. Right. So, it don't filter down. So, the resorts are owned by big international multi-conglomerate companies and then none of that money gets into the city for the locals, right? It gets taken offshore. Yeah. And what how do you feel about that? Hm? I feel cheated. Yeah. Because we're we're not really benefiting from it. So, they're just using your land and then taking the money. The government earns a lot from it. The taxes. Yeah, and they use some of the funds to develop certain areas, fix roads, build community centers. But, I personally think they could do a lot more Right. to help communities. And so, you do you think that they're just putting the police in
these areas for the sole reason of tourism to keep that cash cow flowing in money because the more stabilized it is here, the better it is for the tourism and the resorts, right? yeah. The open sewer there next to the neighborhood. That was one of the most insane neighborhoods I've ever been. Not as extreme as Haiti, but definitely up there. So, this is like the more tourist side. So, there aren't that many tourists, but when the cruise ships come and the people that want to leave some of the resorts, this is where they'll come. Haven't seen that many, but there's a few around, but it's just amazing. Like it was probably about a 5-10 minute
drive max from that insane neighborhood we just were. Then round here just seems completely fine. Like here's a Starbucks just here. So, the beach is on the other side of all these resorts, which means that the locals struggle to access the beach. There's a few places, but it's very limited because these big resort walls are just blocking the beach. And so, you obviously have to pay a lot of money per night, hundreds of dollars at least I would say. So, you can see this is one of the few public beaches here and small it is. You can see there's some tourists behind me. This is the beach. There is a few more around, but you can see it's very limited. If you want to go to a really nice, well-maintained beach, you got to
have the big money. Tourists flocking in from on flights from America. It's an hour's flight to Miami from here, right? Hour and a half to Miami. It's like Disneyland out here. So, we're just driving through a really rich neighborhood here. An just absolutely beautiful area. There's a lagoon on one side and the beach on the other. Just massive, beautifully maintained houses. See there's a beach behind here, but it's behind a wall with barbed wire on top of it. So, we've come down to the coast here and we've come to this lovely restaurant and bar here. We've had lunch with Kevin's cousin and has grown up here in
Montego Bay his whole life. Now, he said that tourism is really bad. It's best time was I think 2015 up to that point and then it just kind of slowly got worse and worse. There's tourism in the resorts and things, but you know, as you've seen, the tourism's kind of slowly being pushed out of where the locals have access to and you know, there's just heavy military and police presence in the streets give that image of security and try to stop violent crime, but as you've seen, you know, there's killings every day and apparently would be significantly worse without the police. So, you know, that's that's a positive, I think, that the government are doing that, but
obviously, you know, with the resorts and things, they kind of have to if they want the business. His cousin was also saying that you're not safe anywhere in Jamaica, no matter where you are, if you're a wanted person, you can easily get killed. So, best to keep to yourself, keep your mouth shut, stay out of any trouble. Apparently, it's really hard trusting people here, even your friends and things. The violence here is just completely off the Richter scale. It's completely out of control. In Kingston, apparently, there's a war that's about to start in a neighborhood that we went to in the last video, there was a crime scene there, a murder scene.
It was actually a mother and a daughter killed. That has apparently started a war and they're telling everybody you better clear out because there's going to be nowhere to hide. Some of the neighborhoods in this country is so tense. I feel my chest, my heart beating like up here in that neighborhood we went to today. Anything can pop off at any time and it did. You saw the police like firing down there like in all their motorbikes for the rapid response. It's just absolutely bonkers. So I made it back to Kingston from Montego Bay there. Huge day. What a country this is, you know? Saturated in violence, turf wars and scammers and fighting amongst themselves and police trying to keep it together. That is one
big difference between Haiti and Jamaica. When you see the police in Haiti, it's not a good sign. Same with the military. But when you see the military or the police in Jamaica, it obviously means that the area is a bit more turbulent, but when you see them, from my experience and from what I've spoken to Kevin about, it means that area itself should be kind of a bit more safe, at least. Obviously, the people that live here day in day out can't afford to get out of these neighborhoods. They're the ones that are really suffering. When you're born into that kind of cycle of this turf and that turf and people on that side of the road are bad and incomprehensible, really.
I'll see you in the next video. We're going to explore more of Jamaica. Thank you so much for watching and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
