Gully & Gaza Peace?

Mavado's manager, Julian Jones-Griffith, yesterday said he wanted to publicly invite Kartel to make peace once and for all. "Basically we want to invite him to the show at Temple Hall Estate as a show of unity for the nation," Jones-Griffith said.

Jones-Griffith and Mavado have been in discussions with Bishop Herro Blair and other prominent figures to come up with a solution for the Gully/Gaza issue, which people have insisted is dividing Jamaica. Vybz Kartel is supposed to be appearing on Bolt's SuperParty in St Ann on the same night as Mavado's bash.

Jones-Griffith said: "We just want to put it out there, Mavado has been coming under pressure for this Gully/Gaza thing and I'm sure he wants a better Jamaica. I'm sure Vybz Kartel, as a Jamaican, wants the same thing. For the sake of the Jamaican youths we're inviting him to come on stage to show the people it's all about the music and dat we can live good. We want him to come and participate, its something that needs to be done and we need a big stage to do it."

According to Jones-Griffith, Kartel or his representatives can contact them before the show, through the media or simply come to the show on the night. He says Mavado is 100 per cent behind the initiative. Efforts to speak to Kartel were futile up to press time.

This will not be the first time that the two have tried to make peace. In March 2007, the deejays met with DCP Mark Shields to call for an end to the feud, however, weeks later the two were at it again. Jones-Griffith says that will not be happening again: "We've been down dis road before and we don't feel good it ended up going back to the feuding. This is not a publicity stunt, we want to explore how we can do this - reach out to di youths in schools and make it permanent. The war is in no way beneficial to anybody's career and it's bringing a lot of negative energy to the country."

The two have been feuding since 2006 and last year faced off at Sting. Since then they have come under increasing pressure garnering nationwide attention due to the negative effects of the feud.