Bounty Killer Ecstatic On The 25th Anniversary Of His Landmark Album ‘My Xperience’
Dancehall’s Warlord Bounty Killer remains sentimental about his 1996 opus My Xperience, like any living legend would. Today, September 17 marks the landmark album’s 25th anniversary and Bounty started reflecting early on his Instagram page.
“Master piece of art,” the veteran wrote in a series of reposts yesterday. “Quarter Century Ago Today Such An Experience It Was Is And Still. Did it 25yrs ago why should I can’t do it again today watch me.”
The seminal album seamlessly fused Reggae, Dancehall and Hip hop and features some of Bounty’s most recognizable and requested hits to date such as Fed Up, Hip Hopera, Benz & Bimma, and Living Dangerously.
Produced by Bounty Killer’s then manager, Johnny Wonder, (Crocodile Teeth) the 20 track project was released on Blunt recordings, a joint venture between VP Records and the independent label, TVT Records. Arriving one year after Buju Banton’s Til Shiloh and Shaggy’s Boombastic, the album deftly extended Dancehall’s crossover appeal with some of the urban scene’s biggest rappers and producers. Busta Rhymes, The Fugees, Erick Sermon, Mobb Deep, Raekwon and many more made slick additions to the varied yet solid compilation.
The album was a colossal success, spending six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Reggae Albums chart, and 4 weeks on the Billboard 200 where it peaked at No. 145. The single Hip Hopera, with The Fugees, peaked at No. 81 on the Hot 100 chart.
Naturally, the deejay would be nostalgic about the revolutionary notch in his belt and, years ago on the album’s 20th anniversary he told Boomshots it was his greatest yet. “That’s a masterpiece. That’s my greatest piece of work to date,” Bounty declared in the interview.
“Everything about that album—it was fire. Even on the day it released, the amount of autographs I had to sign. I think it’s the most autographs I ever signed on an album release. Yeah, we had to go to Brooklyn. We had to go to Moodie’s in the Bronx, we had to go to Manhattan,” he recalled fondly.
The Sufferah deejay’s successive suites have also performed well. He was lauded by critics for making “uncompromising music for his core audience after crossing over” on the follow-up to My Experience, The Prince Jammy-produced Ghetto Gramma. His last offering 19 years ago was another 20 track feat, the Grammy-nominated Ghetto Dictionary featuring the cuts Smoke the Herb, Book Book Book, and Fear No Evil.
Bounty Killer is all set to drop his 20th LP this Christmas titled King Of Kingston, executive produced by Damian Jr. Gong Marley. He’s now signed to a major publishing deal with Creative Titans, one that, according to him, eventually allows the singer to become the exclusive owner of his music rights. The upcoming album features an enviable list of musical greats to bolster his claim to the throne such as former collaborators Barrington Levy, Richie Stephens and Busta Rhymes, protégé Vybz Kartel, plus Sanchez, Chronixx, Wayne Marshall, and Snoop Dogg.
Bounty’s teaser single for King Of Kingston, Bang Bung featuring Busy Signal, debuted in June and has already racked up over 800K YouTube views.
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