As humans, we have a dark side and a light side. “He creates images like the best literary writers.
“He’s unmatched in terms of lyrical ability,” says Pat McKay, director of programming for reggae and gospel at Sirius XM Satellite Radio. His duets with female artists – 2011’s “You and Him Deh,” featuring Sheba, is a great example – unfold like three-minute soap operas, plumbing modern sexual dynamics for pithy soundbites. His expansive catalog is a confounding mixture of the profane and the poignant: Coarse strip-club anthems, heartfelt love songs, troubling revenge fantasies, scathing social critiques and earnest etiquette lessons for schoolkids, all bound together by a wily, quick wit. In the years before his arrest, Kartel, also widely known by the nicknames “Worl’ Boss” and “Di Teacha,” attained folk-hero status in Jamaica with provocative lyrics, and a mischievous public persona. “There is a recording studio at another correctional facility but none here … cellphones, laptops, or any Internet-capable instrument are prohibited items.” “I’ve always been a prolific songwriter, and I record at breakneck speed as well, so I have a lot of surplus material to choose from,” Kartel tells Rolling Stone. The new releases, he insists, are the fruits of a massive deposit of unreleased vocal material left behind before his arrest, updated for the moment by a cadre of trusted producers. In an interview conducted through his lawyer, Tom Tavares-Finson, Kartel denied that he is recording in jail. He launched a clothing line, the Official VK Line and created a literacy program which recently sponsored a robotics camp in his hometown of Portmore, Jamaica. He’s released a book, The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto, elaborating his views on topics ranging from parenting and abortion to third-world debt. Musicians usually become engimas by disappearing or holding back, but Vybz Kartel has become one by being impossibly present through his incarceration. Others have even suggested certain songs were voiced by an impersonator. Many dancehall fans presume he must be recording in prison, covertly cutting vocals through a cellphone app.
How, exactly, Kartel has maintained such productivity while behind bars remains something of a mystery. A tally of songs issued during his incarceration would total well into the hundreds. New music from Kartel turns up weekly more than 50 tracks this year alone have been released to iTunes, including the 14 on King of the Dancehall, his third LP in four years. He’s as popular and influential as ever, and even more prolific. What appeared almost certain to be a career-ending setback, it turns out, has only reaffirmed Kartel’s hold on dancehall. He’s been in a Kingston prison ever since, the last two-and-a-half years spent serving a life sentence following a 2014 conviction for the killing of associate Clive “Lizard” Williams. In September 2011, he was arrested by Jamaican authorities for marijuana possession, and subsequently charged in two separate murder cases.
For such a highly anticipated album, it’s sort of a bummer that he created work that can be found anywhere on the internet, or on one of his mixtapes.Yet this week, it has now been five years since Kartel – 40-year-old Adidja Palmer – was last free to enter a studio. If Tory Lanez wants to become the best person in the 6, then he definitely has to create his own style, separate from others.
At a certain point, you get kind of tired of the story and just want the music to continue. It also seems as if he took the skit/song idea from Kendrick and YG, but the album feels overloaded with skits. If he wanted to release an album that sounds like a bunch of covers, he should have just put it on SoundCloud. We don’t know if he is paying homage to these artists or just trying out different sounds – but those sounds are not quite different enough. The end of “4am Flex” feels like an add-on to Kendrick Lamar’s “Art of Peer Pressure”. And it seems he’s not even trying to hide it. On the “To D.R.E.A.M.” hook, he sounds exactly like Fetty Wap. You would be right, because many of the songs are eerily reminiscent of other artists’ work. (Photo by Gabriel Grams/Getty Images for Samsung) Getty Images / Gabriel Gramsīut on the second listen, you’ll catch yourself dwelling on songs like “Cold Hard Love” and “4am Flex” and wonder if you’ve heard these songs somewhere before. CHICAGO, IL - JULY 30: Rapper Tory Lanez is seen at the Samsung Creator's Lab at Lollapalooza 2016 - Day 3 at Grant Park on Jin Chicago, Illinois.