Meeting Mentona K: A Bangkok Hustle Gone Silent
The Lost Soul of Lamai Beach, 1999
Some Stories Fucking Haunt You
Some people leave an impression, then fuck off into the ether.
Some stories get under your skin and never let go.

This is one of them.

Back in January 1999, I was tearing through Thailand—chasing noise, chasing trouble, chasing something I couldn’t name. I didn’t know I was about to meet a singer with a voice that could’ve blown the doors off the world.

His name was Mentona K.
A Liberian reggae man.
A walking heartbreak.

We met on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, under the sickly flicker of neon, beer-soaked sand, and the low hum of hustlers and burnouts.

This is how it went down.

Lamai Beach – January 1999
Neon. Diesel. Sweat. Fucking Magic.
Lamai was buzzing that night.
Scooters screaming. Tuk-tuks farting out black smoke. Fat lads are getting roasted on Chang and sunburned. The air reeked of salt, fried fish, petrol, sweat, cheap rum, broken dreams.

The kind of place where you lose your wallet and maybe your mind.

I’d heard a rumour.
A Liberian singer.
Voice like fire and dirt.
Name: Mentona K.

Didn’t take much to find him.
The dive bar is halfway to collapse, the tin roof is sweating, and fans are spinning like they’d had enough.

The “stage” was two beer crates and a cracked mic stand.
Didn’t matter.

There he was—
Gregory John Karkor.
Tall. Wire-thin. Shoulders carved out of hard times.
Voice like Bob Marley if he’d been dragged through a warzone.

When he sang, the place shifted.
The locals felt it.
The backpackers? Too pissed to notice.
But I fucking knew.

A Cigarette and a Deal
Shoved through the stink and heat, pulled out a battered pack of smokes.

“Mate, you’re a star,” I told him, chucking him a cig like gold.

He lit it—one drag.
Half a grin.
Didn’t trust me yet.

We talked, yelling over the clatter of empty bottles and the shit karaoke next door.

Born ’77.
Monrovia kid.
Sang through Liberia’s civil war.
Dodged bullets. Buried mates.
Ran to the Ivory Coast. Drifted east.
Now stuck in Thailand.
Playing for scraps. Playing for survival.

His passport:
OR/0018668-98
His ticket out-or his dead weight.

“You need out,” I told him. “I run Zodoa Records. I can get you heard. I can get you to London.”

He gave me the side-eye like I was just another chancer.

But there was something there.
A crack in the armour.

“Be my manager,” he said, his voice low, like he didn’t want to hear himself say it. “Get me to London. I’ll make Liberia proud.”

We shook on it.
Hands rough. Sweaty. Real.
In that piss-soaked dive on Lamai Beach.

The Hustle: Bangkok’s Back Alleys
We went all in.

Found a Bangkok studio that stank of rat piss and fried rice.
The mic barely worked. Cockroaches tap-danced on the soundboard.
Didn’t matter.
Mentona blew the walls off.

He sang like the world was on fire and was the last to put it out.

Laid down tracks about war, running, home, and heartbreak.
Shit that mattered.

Pressed the CDs.
Planned the UK gigs.
London. Dunstable. Wherever we could tear the roof off.

He told me George Weah was a fan.
I believed him.
Because when he sang, you fucking believed.

We were ready.
So ready.
About to light the fuse.

Gone. Just Fucking Gone.
May ’99.
Bang. Silence.

His number? Dead.
His bars? Empty.
His trail? Cold as shit.

I tore Bangkok apart looking for him.
Called everyone.
Bar owners. Tuk-tuk lads. Dodgy promoters. Some bloke in Patpong who’d sell his mum for a fiver.

Rumours.
He’d been nicked.
Locked up.
Dead.
Gone.

I emailed the Liberian Consulate. Mr Dowanna. Begged for answers.
Got fuck all.

Like he’d just slipped through the cracks.
Smoke. Gone.

Still Waiting. Still Listening.
I still hear him sometimes—Mentona’s voice, raw and ragged, bouncing around my skull when the nights stretch too long.

I still check my email.
Still think maybe he’s out there somewhere.
Still fighting.
Still singing.

If you’re out there, Mentona—
Get in touch.



Tommy Kennedy
ZodoA Records