REGGAE STAR GETS HERO'S FUNERAL IN JAMAICA

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Thousands of people danced and cheered to reggae music
Saturday as Dennis Brown, the man known as the Crown Prince of Reggae, was
given a state-style funeral.

Despite a national outpouring of grief after Brown's July 1 death from
pneumonia after years of illness, the tribute was more dynamic than dour.

Brown, who died at 42, was buried at Kingston's National Heroes Park, an
exclusive cemetery reserved for such notables as Marcus Garvey, who became
an international black nationalist leader, and independence leaders
Alexander Bustamente and Norman Manley. Brown is the first entertainer at
Heroes Park.

Crowds jammed the National Arena for the tribute, cheering on as musicians
played.

Brown's five sons were among the performers, as well as reggae artists Maxi
Priest and Shaggy, and gospel singer Carlene Davis. The concert was
broadcast live on Jamaican television.

During the three-hour funeral, both Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and
opposition leader Edward Seaga gave tributes to the late singer, Patterson
calling his music ``a sweet song and soothing balm for our nation.''

Afterward, a funeral procession led by hundreds of people on bicycles
waving red, yellow and green-striped flags drove through downtown Kingston.
All along the route, people poured out of their homes to pay their respects.

The mood was much more somber Thursday, when more than 10,000 mourners
spent hours under a broiling sun to file past the casket where Brown lay.
Many sobbed and wailed.

Historian Roger Stefans attributed the immense reaction to Brown's death to
reggae's function as ``Jamaica's true daily newspaper.''

``It's not a bookish country. Its traditions are more oral than printed,
and the people who most eloquently describe the island's conditions become
heroes,'' Stefans said.

Brown's religion was Rastafarianism, whose adherents worship former
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and smoke marijuana as a sacrament.

Brown rose to prominence in a 1970s wave of reggae singers that included
Bob Marley, who introduced the catchy rhythm with its social-minded lyrics
to listeners around the world.

Brown released more than 50 albums and a string of hit songs beginning with
``No Man is an Island,'' which he recorded in 1969 at the age of 12.