Usain Bolt Showers Vybz Kartel With Praise: “Anything He Does Is Just Gold”
It’s clear that Jamaican track star turned music producer Usain Bolt remains a big fan of Dancehall star Vybz Kartel.
Despite being behind bars for almost ten years, Vybz Kartel continues to enjoy an active and successful music career that includes the release of a new album today, titled Born Fi Dis — his third full-length project in two years.
In Bolt’s recent interview with the Earn Your Leisure Podcast, host Troy Millings noted that the greatest mystery of Dancehall was Kartel’s ability to release music while incarcerated. In response, Usain saluted Kartel’s impact on the culture, noting that “anything he [Kartel] does is just gold.”
Bolt continued, “He’s just very smart, if you listen to his music and how he performs… he will sing this and then next week you hear his music and its just totally different… he doesn’t keep one flow for too long… he flows the one way and then switches it up and that’s what makes him so great.”
The Earn Your Leisure Podcast gives behind-the-scenes financial views into the entertainment and sports industries while highlighting the backstories of entrepreneurs. In their episode with Bolt, they also spoke on his transition from the Olympic tracks to the musical track.
According to Bolt, the aim for his career in the music industry is to be like DJ Khaled, the ‘vibes master’, the producer. Bolt’s record label, A-Team Lifestyle, released a summer song on July 9th entitled, It’s A Party, with his manager Nugent “NJ” Walker.
Admittedly, It’s A Party and other efforts have flourished and were not welcomed by the industry, like Bolt’s team would have imagined. Nevertheless, for the next two years, Bolt said his focus would be on the music industry, making more beats and proving himself worthy. Without hesitation, he declared that Vybz Kartel was his favorite artist of all time, while acknowledging the achievement of working with artists that he has grown up listening to, like Cham on the Clockwork Riddim. (Lock Down).
When asked by co-host Rashad Bilal, whether Dancehall was being sucked into Afro beats, Usain Bolt denounced any such merger, and affirmed that Dancehall was very different from Afro beats and reminisced on Dancehall in its glory days.
According to Bolt, “the way dancehall was, it’s not the same thing, its more streamlined… back in the days you used to have clash… that was when Dancehall was in its peak. If you check the Verzuz when Beenie and Bounty went on, it was different. That’s what Dancehall is missing.”
Watch the full interview below.