Blak Ryno: “Don’t Mistake Fear For Loyalty”

Ex Gaza Empire member Blak Ryno is moving past his dust-up with Shawn Storm, but not before airing his thoughts on dancehall’s current buzzword: loyalty.

“Moving forward!!!” the Real Stinga singer wrote in an Instagram post on Friday. “Don’t mistake fear for loyalty!!!”

Storm has been touted as the most loyal figure in dancehall for his allegiance to Vybz Kartel, with whom he served 13 years behind bars for a since-overturned murder conviction. Ryno’s post subliminally hints that Storm is actually afraid of the ‘World Boss’, which garnered mixed reactions.

“Dem mistake fear fi loyalty fi real youth!” one comment read, which Ryno liked.

“Whatever, let it go and do the right thing,” another user wrote.

One netizen could already see a showdown between the former label mates.

“Shawn storm vs ryno would be crazy,” the netizen wrote. 

The Fight Fi War artist was quick to reply, “Nago happen.”

Ryno doubled down on this in another post.

“There’s no war. Every man entitled fi say what them want.”

His remarks came hours after Storm accused him of trying to ride the trending wave of his and Kartel’s freedom. 

According to the My Life deejay, Ryno wasn’t around to support him during his prison stint, so he isn’t playing hypocrite now that he’s in the streets. But according to screenshots from Ryno, he did reach out to him in 2017 to offer support, messages Storm dismissed during an interview with The Fix this week.

Both men formed part of Kartel’s once formidable Portmore/Gaza Empire in 2009. While Storm stuck it out to the finish, Ryno left the camp, a decision he believes was overblown by those in the circle. 

The men of the now-defunct Portmore Empire. From left, Notnice, Shawn Storm, Blak Ryno, Vybz Kartel, Popcaan, Jah Vinci and Dosa Medicine

“Everybody nuh keep one job fi too long; some people do, some people don’t,” he said last year. “That was Gaza; it was, to me, a job. If you have a label and you seh you waan sign me, you a sign me fi work fi you – it’s a job. Sometimes the worker and the boss have a fallout and a one a dem thing deh, and the people dem blow it out of proportion when it’s simply that.”

Curry-stained into his brand is the notion that he was disloyal to the Summer Time artist, though it has never been substantiated.  

“Mi a live wid a curse weh mi nuh do nothing…” he said. “Up to now, dem people yah cya tell me weh mi do. Not even the man weh tell dem seh, ‘Yow, him sell we out’, not even you tell the people weh mi do.”

Despite the continued dark cloud over his career, Ryno said he will “always rate Kartel”, evidenced by a post-and-delete which celebrated Addi’s freedom last month.