Dizzle Lab Productions

Gully People Cry – Prodigal Son

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A little about Prodigal Son
Calvin Curtis Whilby better known as ‘Prodigal Son’ was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica. He was raised by his grandmother, a Godly woman who made sure he grew up in the Christian church. Accepting Christ at age five (5) he followed the Lord until the age of thirteen (13), unfortunately his grandmother died. This was the turning point for Calvin who moved to Kingston and found residence in the community called Rema, one of the toughest inner cities in the Caribbean.

Calvin rebelled from his Christian upbringing and against God choosing the lifestyle of Gang and gun violence. Surrounded by negative influences, this rebellious ghetto teenager found protection and family in his gang, called Fatherless Crew the same would later be called Lock the City Crew.

He gave up his guns and girls and accepted Christ. Similar to the parable of the Prodigal Son, Calvin returned home to his spiritual Father, what was once lost had now been found. As he humbled himself before the Father and asked for forgiveness, he surrendered all to Jesus. Like any love story, the Prodigal Son got baptized on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1998 and has never looked back. Inspired by the parallels in his life, he copped the name Prodigal Son and although he had no previous secular experience in music, he soon realized he was blessed with a gift he decided to use it for the glory of God.

He was introduced to fame producer Danny Brownie who soon became both mentor and friend. Brownie guided Prodigal through his musical career and continues to his ministry partner. Prodigal has performed at sold out venues spanning crowds as huge as 150,000 at events such as Antiguan Governmental Celebrations (Caribbean), International Reggae Festival of Life (Chicago, USA) Fun in the Sun, Recharge, and Sting (Jamaica), France World Cup Qualifier Match (Jamaica vs. Mexico) Air Jamaica sponsored UK Tour, Israel & New Breed Tour (Jacksonville, USA) and many other International events.

He has received several mainstream awards including: Jamaica Federation of Musicians, best new gospel artiste for 2001, the Xnews award, artist of the year 2001, Jamaica Federation of Musicians best male gospel vocalist 2002 and Irie FM’s Gospel Artiste of the year (‘06), and more.

His debut album Radikal Prodigal produced by Danny Brownie featured crossover hits ‘I Wish’, ‘Woe’ and ‘Radikal Style’, all three songs were the first dancehall gospel songs to be played on mainstream radio in Jamaica such as RJR, Irie FM and Hot 102.  Prodigal recently received 4 Reggae Academy awards, Irie FM gospel artiste of the year again, Youth View award, Best gospel Artiste 2 MGA awards.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 9:38 am. It is filed under Music Videos and tagged with Calvin, Calvin Wilby, Church, dale, dale virgo, Dizzle, Dizzle Lab, Ghetto, Gospel, Gospel Reggae, Gun man, Killing, Police, Prodigal Son, Roots Reggae, Violence, Wilby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.