The Return of Vybz Kartel: ... | Hapilos
In July, Jamaica’s most influential living artist walked out of a Kingston prison after 13 years, drove straight to his mother’s house for a tearful reunion over steamed fish and okra — and dove immediately into preparations for Freedom Street: his first performance since his release, and the biggest concert the country would see in nearly 50 years.
Locked up for the murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams, Vybz Kartel went away as a 35-year-old man at the height of his career with seven children, two of whom would make their own musical debuts in 2014. But even behind bars, he never stopped making music — managing to secretly record and release five projects that would reach the top 10 of Billboard’s Reggae Albums chart.
“Being in prison, you can’t feel sorry for yourself. I didn’t have time to do that. I had kids to feed. I had family to take care of. I had health issues, too,” Kartel tells Billboard in a private room at Downsound Records, the live-entertainment producer behind Freedom Street, in Kingston. “There was no time to be weak. You just fight the case and do the right thing.”
Now, just days before Freedom Street — his New Year’s Eve show that will draw over 35,000 people to Kingston’s National Stadium — Kartel tells me he’s been holding daily three-hour rehearsals to ensure a “Taylor Swift- or Madonna-style” show while he records a new album at several studios, including one his children built for him while he was away. As I follow the Teacha around Kingston over the course of a sunny December day, fans of all ages stop him to profess their love and grovel for selfies — and if they aren’t trying to get his attention, they keep their eyes glued to him and hum whatever song of his comes to their minds.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Vybz Kartel is the most influential Jamaican recording artist since Bob Marley. But understanding Kartel’s singular career means grasping that his pop stardom and underground dominance have always worked in tandem. For every song of his that became a global mainstay, one of his raw, evocative mixtapes simultaneously ruled the streets of Kingston. Born Adidja Azim Palmer in Portmore, Jamaica — a coastal municipality about 15 miles outside of Kingston — Kartel has racked up 1.58 billion official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate, making him one of dancehall’s commercial giants. But his countless controversies and towering sociopolitical influence have also made him a divisive cult figure.
His ’90s Alliance era cemented him as one of dancehall star Bounty Killer’s protégés and the genre’s fastest-rising star, wielding an impressive songwriting approach that blended his private and public personas through riveting gangster narratives and sexually explicit anthems. In the early to mid-2000s, Black Kartel reigned, with spunky, lewd hits like “It Bend Like Banana” launching his near-absolute rule over Jamaican society, which culminated in a seismic yearslong beef with fellow dancehall star Mavado (born David Brooks). By the dawn of the ’10s, White Kartel — by this point, the skin-bleaching he controversially sung of in 2011’s “Cake Soap” had visibly altered his skin tone (and spawned a new nickname) — had achieved several bona fide global crossover hits despite Jamaica’s banning of “daggering” songs (extremely sexually explicit tracks).
Fittingly, the Kartel I meet today is clearly a changed man. This newest iteration of Kartel is calmer and more collected; he seems firmly in his Unc era — cream Amiri beanie, custom tour T-shirt and a naughty joke always in his back pocket. His excitement for his upcoming show beams through the black sunglasses he never takes off, and the reverent air of gratitude around him is unmistakable. Kartel and his co-accused — Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St. John — have always maintained their innocence, and their second chance at freedom was hard-fought. According to a unanimous Court of Appeal ruling in summer 2024, the trial judge marred the original guilty verdict by allowing the jury to proceed despite knowing that one juror had attempted to bribe the others.
“Towards the end of my incarceration, I started connecting more with God. That’s why I tattooed ‘love God’ on my forehead,” Kartel reveals. “Nobody can tell me that God isn’t real. Ten years ago, I would have been saying something else, but God is real.”
Source link:https://www.billboard.com/music/features/vybz-kartel-cover-story-1235869769/
