GUYANESE music lovers living in Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey are mourning the untimely death of  popular Guyanese-born, Delmar Griffith, proprietor of much-talked about Big `D’ Movement sound system. `Big D’, as Griffith was familiarly known, was on Saturday last riding his cruiser motor bike along Avenue `J` on Utah in Brooklyn, sometime between 1500 and 1600hrs, when he was hit by a SUV vehicle driven by a female.
Delmar `Big D’ Griffith would have turned 42 on August 20 next, and has planned an all-white party to mark the occasion, which will never be.
Reports are that the driver of the vehicle made a sudden illegal `U’ turn resulting in `Big D’ crashing into her.
`Big D’ the son of Elizabeth `Lizzie’ Griffith, and the late, former Sergeant of the Guyana Defence Force, Gregory `Danny’  Griffith, was rushed to King’s Country Hospital, Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Cousin Sherwin Griffith, of Brooklyn, with whom the Chronicle spoke via telephone yesterday, said  Delmar, as he called him, had just finished playing at a party in Brooklyn and was scheduled to play later the same evening at a `Multi Reunion Party’ at Nazareth Hall, on Clarendon Road in Brooklyn.
The day before he had played at a wedding in New Jersey.
Sherwin, like other relatives who are still trying to accept the death, said, “Delmar was more that a cousin to him. He was the one who taught me how to drive a stick-gear car, ride a motor-cycle, drive a big truck and play music, when I came to live in New York with my family. He was such a great father.”
An aunt, Ingrid Griffith, who is Shirwin’s  mom, her voice quavering as she spoke, said “I am in shock, I just  can’t figure this out… he was such a respectful man. He was my big nephew, I’ve know him since he was two years old and he is the same respectful person all the time, even though he became very famous in the music industry.  Once you tell him you have a party, as long as he is not booked, he’ll be there to play for you. He was very hard-working … he was weighed a mere two pounds at birth, yet he was never known to be sick…, oh, it hurts so bad.”
He was so popular among the Guyanese community; everyone knew and spoke highly of him. He was never too busy to give a `High 5’ or a `Pound’, a popular way of greeting people, she added.
New Jersey-based Guyanese, Barbara Adams Canterbury, in a Facebook posting on July 2, on hearing of `Big D’ death wrote,” he was always mannerly.. the kids him and his brother attended the same school ( in Guyana)..he is well known in the family…he played in Jersey Friday night…we all enjoy how he plays his music…May he R.I.P.”
A viewing and home-going service for `Big D’ will be held at Grace Funeral Home, 607 Conduit boulvard, Brooklyn, on Friday, and relatives have requested that sympathisers  wear `all white’, just as he had wanted to happen at the party he was planning for his upcoming  birthday.
He will be laid to rest alongside his father at a cemetery in Long Island.
Delmar `Big D’ leaves to mourn his wife Roslin Charles Griffith, also Guyanese, children Dillion 20; two sets of twins Demario and Decasie, 9 years old; and Demauli and Delmar (Jnr), three years old; his grandmother Shelia called `Mother’, who celebrated her 86th birthday yesterday, two brothers and numerous other relatives and friends.