The entertainment community is still reeling from the violent death of US-based actor Brian ‘Ras Ajai’ Boucher who was killed over the holiday weekend in Waterford, St. Catherine. 
Award-winning saxophonist Dean Fraser called Ras Ajai’s death ‘a great tragedy’.

“Ajai has been working on his craft for all the 12 years that I know him. He was ready to take on the world not only as a singer, but as an actor … the only two other Jamaican singers that I know of who succeeded in doing this are Jimmy Cliff and Bob Andy. He was in that league,” Fraser said.

Ras Ajai, a 47-year-old reggae artiste and actor whose real name was Brian Boucher, was shot and killed by armed assailants in Waterford, Portmore, St. Catherine, on Saturday night on Emancipation Day, August 1.
Armed with message songs which he labelled, “ghetto gospel”, he officially launched his music career in 2012. In 2018, he signed with Sean Paul’s Dutty Rock Productions and has toured with him to various places across the globe.

Reggae artiste Izrehl the Cotton Pikker hailed his “great friend” Ras Ajai as a remarkable man and a great father.

“You see Brian Boucher aka Ras Ajai aka The Giraffe aka Paul, Pablo, aka Red, bredda, ah mi bredda that. Mi miss a great warrior, we love dem yute de, down to the ground dem walk pon, Pablo ah real yute, him no deserve fi dead so, a good father, a good human being, the man love him daughter, Jazarra Boucher, and she love him,” 
Izrehl said that he checked with Ras Ajai’s entire family, “daughter, the mother, Mrs. Brown, Mr. Brown, Kim…ah just sadness”. He hailed Ras Ajai’s commitment as a father. 
“Dem yute a real parent, ah come him come down to deal with the back to school, He could have sent money from foreign and no do it. He came here and dead inna less than three hours. Ajai dem a real yute, a good personality, him no pass elder a road. Ajai ah bright boy, an accountant who drop the nine to five cause him love music and try deal with music,” he added. 
He said he wanted people to remember Ajai as “a good writer, a good artiste, a great father, a great friend”.
“This touch me to the core, we love you, mi a try do this without cry, sorry yu gone, we love you. Giraffe the dwarf miss you, yu hear?” Izrehl closed, his voice breaking up.   

Reflecting on their time together on the set of the biopic, Ziggy Marley described Ras Ajai as “humble, down-to-earth, positive and progressive.”

Fraser described the entertainer as “one of the smartest and most talented artistes he knew with a vision of becoming a superstar”.

Boucher was also known for portraying Claudie Massop in the ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ film. Claudius Massop was the West Kingston enforcer who was a close friend of the reggae legend, Bob Marley. By all accounts, Ras Ajai enjoyed playing Massop, who was controversially killed by police in Kingston in 1979. 
He had no professional acting experience going into production, and initially auditioned for the role of Alvin “Seeco” Patterson, the percussionist who was a member of Marley’s band.
It is sad how often art imitates life as Ras Ajai was cut down in a hail of bullets, in an act symptomatic of the violent-gun toting culture that defines the Jamaican underworld.. 

Preliminary reports indicate that at about 9:00 p.m., Boucher was sitting along Kendal Road in an area of Waterford known as ‘Third World’ when he was approached by armed men who opened fire, hitting him multiple times before fleeing the scene. Another man was shot and injured in the incident.

“Ras Ajai did just fly in from foreign and say him ah go link him daughter, and him stop at a bench outta Third World and ah siddown ah talk to the warrior dem and ah show them some videos inna him phone,” one source said as he narrated the grisly details. 

“Then gunshot start fire, ah so Ras Ajai pick up one inna him head, the little boy who was there run off, tun fool, lick up inna garbage bin, but he got away and never get shot. Another warrior, the one the man dem come for get shot inna him hip and him foot did a dangle. Six shot fire, and Ras Ajai dead first, one side of him head mash out, jah jah and the other warrior pick up some. Ras Ajai no deserve that,” the source shared. 

Born Brian Todd Boucher, the Waterford-reared artiste has been recording music since 2008. His previous songs include Di Ras Hot, Vice Grip, and Buss A Bubble (with Sean Paul).

Raised by his adopted parents in Waterford, Portmore (St. Catherine, Jamaica). Being adopted by a pastor, Ajai had to go to church every Sunday and that was how he first got involved with music.

Ras Ajai is known for songs like Need You Now, Want Me Too, Who Feels It, Rukumkum and Let’s Be Honest.

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