Bounty Killer, Vybz Kartel and Mavado Collab on a Song for First Time in History
While rivalry and competition is a huge part of Jamaican Dancehall music/culture from a historical point of view, unity and collaboration has always had its place in the culture as well.
The latter is proving to be true in real time as world renowned record producer, Dj Khaled is apparently preparing for an unprecedented moment in Dancehall music in the form of a track that is set to be released. The producer has been teasing fans for months with posts of several Dancehall legends and icons that are said to be featured on the track.
The names that are said to be on the much anticipated record include: Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Vybz Kartel and Mavado. This collaboration would not have been thought about in recent years, due to the history that some of the artistes share.
In an interview in Miami, Florida, Bounty Killer sat down and gave some inside scoop regarding the collaboration along with giving the fans a small history lesson surrounding the involvement of the artistes and DJ Khaled.
The War Lord started off by commenting on the reunion between Vybz Kartel and Mavado and what the moment means to him, along with the historical significance of the two heavyweights getting together after all these years.
In the interview published by FACEVU IMAGES on YouTube on Sunday June 22, He stated, “It’s a very historical moment for me personally. I haven’t seen both of them together in such harmony in almost twenty years.”
“Historically speaking this has never happened before because all three of us were never on the same track together, even during our ‘alliance’ days, it was always one or the other.”
It has been well documented that the two deejays were protégés of Bounty Killer who were in unison at first but later had a falling out which caused the two to split and later become rivals. It was dubbed the ‘Gully’ versus ‘Gaza’ era with the former belonging to Mavado and the latter affiliated with Vybz Kartel.
Bounty touched on this by saying “I’m glad they’ve united after all the controversy, competition and the fans that came between all of us.”
Many Dancehall supporters are unaware that Vybz Kartel and Buju Banton also has history which bounty killer was a part of as well.
Bounty had this to say about it “This encounter happened in 1999 at one of my shows, Vybz was a young artiste at the time so I brought him on with Buju and I for the exposure.”
“We we’re sharing a microphone and Buju didn’t think it was the time for a young artiste to be on our set, so he took the microphone from Kartel….It was a misunderstanding so we handled it right there.”
He later went on to talk about the recent encounter between Buju and Vybz Kartel after Kartel’s performance at his sold out show in the Barclays Centre in New York.
“Its a full circle moment seeing them embrace each other after everything, because Buju Banton is Kartel’s idol.”
Bounty then spoke about his introduction to the infamous Dj Khaled and how they became close in music.
He said, “I met Khaled in Florida in 1994. He was a well known DJ playing at the biggest events and clubs all across the county…He was very in love with Dancehall from back then, Khaled was jaded by the life of a disk jock and wanted to be a sound operator. The connection was made from there and then he came to Jamaica and starting operating at our local stage shows.”
He next proceeded to give Khaled his flowers as a producer saying, “He’s a genius, a magician for this collaboration because this has never been done before. He’s also a perfectionist because he stopped at nothing to get us all on the track.”
DJ Khaled made a post on his Instagram page with him alongside the four aforementioned artistes on what was apparently the set of a video shoot for an upcoming music video. The post captioned ‘Unity is Strength! AALAM of God!’
‘AALAM of God’ is the title of the producer’s upcoming album in which the track is said to be a part of. Bounty Killer also said in the interview that five greats are on the track, which many believe to be the four artistes and DJ Khaled.
Notably, while its known that Mavado and Vybz Kartel has at least one release collaboration, no known collaboration of Bounty Killer and Mavado is on the internet.
The new collab which also features Buju is said to be titled ‘You Remind Me’.
Watch the song below:
