Buju Banton Drug Trial To Start

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Why do so many people blessed with great talent find so many different ways to squander it?

It can be an out-of-control but gifted raven-haired actress who can't stop partying or a Super Bowl-winning wide receiver who carries a gun in to a club and shoots himself in the leg. It just seems there is no end to the ways people will take gifts most of us would give a body part to possess and flush them down the toilet.

The latest entry to this list is reggae artist Buju Banton, who is facing trial on federal cocaine dealing charges and faces a possible life sentence. Banton is proclaiming his innocence, saying he was a victim of entrapment.

Banton's case hinges on which two associates of the singer come across as more believable during the trial.

Banton, 37, and an associate allegedly met with an undercover officer to buy coke. An old friend of the singer, Ian Thomas pleaded guilty to conspiracy to purchase and sell at least five kilograms of cocaine and now faces a life sentence.

On the other hand, a third man in the case, James Mack, signed a statement that he never met Banton before the arrest and that the singer didn't know about the gun in Mack's car at the time of the arrest. Mack is also facing a life sentence in the case.

Regardless of the trial outcome, Banton has shown a knack for derailing his own success. The Grammy-nominated singer saw several concerts canceled in the past because of protests to his violent anti-gay lyrics used in his early dancehall days.

He was also later acquitted of beating a group of gay men in Jamaica.

In his defense, Banton's attorney has said that the confidential informant in the case has been paid more than $3 million for working with law enforcement and more than $35,000 in the Banton case alone. If so, that will weaken the government's case against the singer.

But that doesn't excuse Banton for getting mixed up in this mess to begin with. Whether it was his idea or not, Banton knew that buying and selling big packages of cocaine comes with risks.

It will be interesting to see if Banton has put his name at the top of the wasted-talent list.

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