Owner of longtime Tucson reggae shop loses battle to cancer

When his doctors told him four months ago that the colon cancer he battled a dozen years ago had returned with a vengeance, Dennis Francis knew he didn’t want to spend his last days in a sterile hospital room.

He also didn’t want to die at home, he told his sons, Jahmar and Jahron.

So Francis made a deal with hospice to visit him at the place he held near and dear to his heart: his Twelve Tribes Reggae Shop in central Tucson.

That is where Francis, who was best known as “Papa Ranger,” died on Monday, Aug. 22, surrounded by mementos of a lifetime spent championing reggae music and culture. He was 66 years old.

“I saw my dad on Saturday and ... he was like, ‘Don’t cry for me; be happy for me. I’m going somewhere else,’” said Jahmar Francis, a musician who goes by the stage name DJ Jahmar.

Dennis Francis was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on March 9, 1956, and immigrated to the United States when he was in his 20s.

His first stop was Detroit, where he worked at reggae shops and promoted reggae concerts. After a vacation in Tucson, he realized there were a couple of reggae bands playing locally, but no defined reggae scene.

“He was like, ‘I want to bring my culture to Arizona,’” his son recalled. “At the time, Detroit had a lot of reggae shops, but it didn’t exist out here. You had bands like Neon Prophet that were playing reggae, but you didn’t have any shops selling reggae music and reggae T-shirts.”

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The elder Francis opened his first Twelve Tribes Reggae Shop in late 1989. The store moved several times, landing at its current location at 708 E. Ninth St. three years ago. Since the pandemic, the shop has been open by appointment only, which Jahmar Francis said will continue.

Over the years, Dennis Francis promoted local and national concerts, including bringing in artists from Jamaica. His son estimated Francis must have produced at least 1,000 concerts over the past three decades under the 12 Tribes Entertainment umbrella.

Jahmar Francis said his father made a pretty good living with the shop and concerts.

“My dad will tell you, ‘I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t poor, but music supports my lifestyle,’” he said.

Jahmar Francis said he and his brother are hoping to lobby for their father’s inclusion in the Tucson Musicians Hall of Fame and plan to turn the shop into a museum of sorts to showcase their father’s collection of reggae concert posters and photographs with legendary artists.

In addition to his two sons in Tucson, Francis is survived by 16 other sons and four daughters, most of them living in Arizona; and nine grandchildren.

The family planned to hold a private celebration of Francis’s life at Twelve Tribes.

For more information about the shop, visit tucne.ws/1l7v.