Vybz Kartel Defines What It Takes To Be King Of Dancehall
In the ‘part twice’ of an exclusive interview with FOX 5 NY’s Lisa Evers, Dancehall star Vybz Kartel outlined what it takes to be the King of the Dancehall.
“In dancehall, it is the influence that you have, the dominance that you have, the power that you have to put people on, to destroy people if it is necessary, musically. That’s what the king is,” Vybz Kartel intoned frankly.
His near-perfect English and polished tones during the interview had members of the Dancehall community raving about his intelligence and poise. However, the exclusive, which was aired in two parts on Wednesday and Thursday, has created a major brouhaha in Jamaica and triggered a major multi-agency probe because it appeared to have been conducted without the knowledge or consent of the Department of Correctional Services, on a cellphone, which is considered contraband in Jamaica’s prisons.
Kartel said he uses the fuel of ‘haters’ to power his insatiable desire to continue to write and record hits to prove his dominance of the Dancehall genre.
“I know they want to destroy me and if you know, Lisa, that somebody wants to destroy you, that’s where they’re going to get their pleasure from. Now you have to be on top of your game, you have to constantly be proving them wrong, so I think the haters are as much an influence to me in prison as the fans are,” Kartel said.
Kartel has taken that indomitable spirit and pushed the fight for his freedom to the highest courts of the land as the matter is now set to go before Jamaica’s highest court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the UK.
Kartel also spoke about being grateful for his successes. “When I was growing up, I didn’t know I was going to be rich. I grew up in the ’80s, and I thought rich people were rich, poor people were poor, that was it; it couldn’t change. So I have to count my blessings to see that it can really change. And a lot of people have that mindset thinking that they are nobody and nothing. So me beating that mindset, getting that opportunity. I have to be grateful,” he said.
Fox5’s Lisa Evers trotted out a statement regarding the sales of Vybz Kartel’s latest album, Born Fi Dis, saying it reached number one on Amazon’s Music charts even before it’s official release date.
However, in concrete terms, the album, Born Fi Dis debuted at number 9 on the Billboard Reggae charts with 605 pure album sales, and just 1,290 total units with streaming in the United States.
Watch the full interview below.