Biography

Donavan "I-taweh" Cunningham was born in the hills of St. Ann, the same parish in Jamaica where the great Marcus Garvey, Burning Spear and Bob Marley all rise from. Like most successful artists, he comes from humble beginnings. Raised in the farming community of Prickly Pole, just a few miles from the home where Bob Marley grew in Nine Mile, he spent most of his childhood farming alongside his father and four siblings. As a young child he and his siblings played music on handmade instruments crafted together from bamboo and sardine tins. The guitar was his first love, which he learned to play by ear, with the combined efforts of his mother and sister to buy him one. In 1992 a move from St. Ann to Kingston, jump-started his musical career where he began playing guitar with the legendary backing band High Symbol. Struggling to survive, and living between the communities of Mall Road, Grants Pen, Portmore, Rockfort, and Duhaney Park, I-taweh found comfort in the ghetto at the Community Center of the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari. He quickly became the youngest member and bassist of the group, which was extremely influential for his music and his mission, where he was amongst some of the greatest musicians in the industry including, Dizzy Johnny Moore, Earl Chinna Smith, Nambo Robinson, and Bongo Herman. His skill and reputation as a musician began to grow, and the legendary Sugar Minott took him under his wing as his guitarist and harmony singer.