Up to the Time!
Its been a while since a Dancehall DJ has emerged and proved himself worthy of the adulation of the streets. It takes a particular talent and realism only few possess. When the streets approve, the world follows. Enter Vybz Kartel. Born Adidja Palmer at the Jubilee Hospital in Kingston, the mind-boggling lyrics and flesh-creeping flow Vybz Kartel now utters were chiselled from a musical foundation built within his family home.
My whole family loved music, remembers the DJ, who was raised in the Portmore community of Waterford.
They all loved all types of music. I grew up listening to geniuses from all genres of music. One minute it would be Sam Cooke, the next it was some Country and Western, then Ninjaman. My Uncle would buy records every weekend and bring them into the house and play them on his old component set. Through that exposure at an early age, my mind developed on a broader level when it comes to dealing with our own Jamaican music.
By the time he reached the grand old age of 10, young Adidja was consumed by Dancehall vibes, determined that he was going to be a DJ. In the latter part of the 80s, his staple musical diet of the likes of Ninjaman, Papa San and Charlie Chaplin blended with American rappers as diverse as KRS-1 and Will Smith. Writing down the lyrics word-for-word, Adidja would study and rap the songs, and those of Ninjaman, to his friends. At 11 Adidja was penning his own lyrics.
Coney Amusement Park in Kingston, now-closed, used to host a weekly talent Gong show, at which Adidja and his friends, in their early teens, were ever-present. Anybody was welcome to step up and show their skills, or lack of in some cases, and you were dismissed from the stage with a resounding clash from the gong if you flopped.
A crazy gong me get, laughs Kartel. A we fi name Tuff Gong!
His eyes still firmly on the prize, Adidja realised he needed to dance a yard before him dance abroad. He decided to give the Gong show a break, until he had conquered his own neighbourhood of Waterford first.
Attending Calabar High School in the week gave way to attending dances on the weekend, where Adidja deejayed on Waterford sound systems Electric Force and Soul Signal.
Skills still being honed, Adidja got his first chance to record in 1993, on the One Heart label. Inspired by Buju, he recorded under the moniker Adi Banton, and went on to do several more recordings for local producers. In 1996 he formed a group with two of his friends - Escobar - a singer, and a DJ called Mr Lee. The trio chose the name Vibes Cartel and spent the next couple of years building their undergroud fan base. However, friction between his fellow Cartel members and other youths from the community caused Escobar and Mr Lee to flee, and Adidja found himself standing alone against the world once again.
Undeterred, Adidja knew he had the ability to soldier on, opting to retain the name of the group for himself, changing only the spelling. Why would one man have the name of a group? Because Im pushing the vibes of a whole group, explains the DJ. My energy is like a group.
By 1998 Vybz Kartel was more than ready for the road and a popular annual stage show, appropriately called Champions in Action, was being held on the sands of Fort Clarence in Portmore. With a swollen underground following in attendance, and armed to the teeth with hollow-point rhymes, Kartel credits Champions as being the first major show that he unequivocally ripped up.
Vybz Kartel describes as the biggest ting inna my career, the moment when his longtime manager, Rohan Butler, introduced him to Reggae icon Bounty Killer, not long after that show.
Crazy tings started to happen after I started linking up with Killer, says Kartel. Because his name alone makes people wonder who you are. I began to get crazy exposure from the media, underground, on shows, from all angles If you ask Vybz if he was always a fan of the Warlord, he will reply, in his own inimitable style, that he is bigger than a fan, call me air conditioning. The Warlord, known for his keen eye for talent, recognised the future in Kartel and recruited him into his camp. Several writing collaborations with the Killer were reinforced with numerous live appearances, followed by an underground smash they recorded together - Gal Clown - for Bounty Killers longtime musical director, Jazzwad. The exposure and interest mushroomed, and Kartels fan base spread like scatter shot.
The impact Vybz Kartel has when he walks on to a stage and delivers cannot be denied by anyone, and he began stealing shows from bigger names at Dancehall Meccas such as Fully Loaded and RAS. It was only a matter of time before that radio hit followed. It came in 2002 via a collaboration, New Millennium, with fellow rising star Wayne Marshall.
Inna mi Karl Kani, with a bottle of tall Canei, tough a lie? became the line on everyones lips, young and old, male and female. Spat on Don Corleones Mad Antz soundbed, this walking rhyming dictionary mesemerised Jamaica with the songs lyrical construction.
I want to stimulate peoples imagination when they hear me, he says. I want people to visualise the situations I am bringing across. My message is raw, mucky, dutty, greasy, grimy and I want people to see it and feel it.
Follow-ups such as Big Man a Big Man, Most High, Jamaicans a Number One, Why You Doing It? and the current soundtrack to the streets - Sweet to the Belly - have amplified Vybz Kartels fierce pace. Regular appearances throughout the Caribbean, North America and Canada, and tours of the UK (with Bounty Killer) and Japan in 2002, have further exposed the world to Vybz Kartel.
Vybz Kartel recently inked a deal with UK-based Reggae stalwarts Greensleeves Records, becoming their flagship artiste. Expect his debut album to wreak absolute havoc when it drops in the Summer.
