The cover story from this month’s Village Voice takes an in depth look at the rivalry between Vybz Kartel and Mavado and explores why they “might be the Biggie and Tupac of Dancehall.” Good read.
The cover story from this month’s Village Voice takes an in depth look at the rivalry between Vybz Kartel and Mavado and explores why they “might be the Biggie and Tupac of Dancehall.” Good read.
The “Smoke Machine Riddim” is still a growing phenomena (just check out the daily twitter mentions of “Yuh Love”), but it wasn’t until we saw it being bootlegged as a riddim CD in Japan that we realized just how global it had gone. Big up the dancehall massive!
J-Wow from Buraka Som Sistema picked Vybz Kartel’s “Yuh Love” for the number six spot in his top ten for the current issue of DJ Mag. Respect!
For the second year straight, Vybz Kartel has won DJ of the Year at the annual EME (Excellence in Music and Entertainment) awards in Jamaica. He also picked up Recording Artist of the Year and Songwriter/Lyricist of the Year. This caps off his run in 2009 which saw him land eight number one singles in Jamaica, as well in landing in the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. We’re honored to have worked with him and send our congratulations!

2009 is done. Mavado and Vybz Kartel are pals, Buju Banton is in jail, and Sting—billed as the greatest stageshow on earth—was underwhelming as all get out. How did we get here? Last year ended with fretting about the fact that reggae music was less and less Jamaican—Matisyahu being on top of the charts and such. This year ended in pretty much the same way. However, despite worries about the state of music—the Jamaica Gleaner spent pages of its December 27 issue questioning dancehall’s parties, professors and punny printers, wondering in print about what the future holds for reggae—and the widely circulated report of an eight-copy sale figure for Vybz Kartel’s Pon Di Gaza in its first week, it was also a banner year for dancehall on the world stage.
If you want a nice comprehensive look back at 2009 in the world of reggae and dancehall, look no further than Soundclash’s two part, year in review.
The Heatwave comes in big with this 2009 bashment year in review featuring nearly 100 of the biggest dancehall tunes from the past twelve months. Fire!!
After three weeks on the charts, Vybz Kartel’s “Yuh Love” video has hit number one on RETV’s MVP Top Ten Chart in Jamaica. This is big!
Watch the Vybz Kartel “Yuh Love” video.
This week, the “Yuh Love” video climbed to #2 on RETV’s MVP Top Ten Chart, up from #5 last week. It also jumped from #5 to #4 on CVM TV’s Hitlist Chart. Let’s see if we can grab a #1 next week…
Watch the video on YouTube, where we’re approaching 200,000 views in under two months.