Vanessa Bling’s New Song Revisits Lost Years After Vybz Kartel’s Portmore Empire

Vanessa Bling’s new single True Story is a reflection on her perseverance through the scrutiny and legal trouble that reshaped her career after her time in Vybz Kartel’s Portmore Empire.

The Jamaican singer, whose real name is Vanessa Saddler, was once known as Gaza Slim, a young voice in Kartel’s camp during the early 2010s. Under that name, she recorded several songs with Kartel, including Anything A Anything, One Man, Clarks, and Like A Jockey, while also landing solo hits such as Everything Fi Hold Him and Independent Ladies.

That rise was interrupted by the murder case involving Clive “Lizard” Williams. Kartel was sentenced to life in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2024. Bling, meanwhile, was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice after allegedly filing a false police report, claiming she had been robbed and beaten by a man she identified as Williams. She spent some time in custody and several years on bail before the charge was dropped in 2014.

Released on May 20, True Story appears to draw directly on that period. The song opens with Bling calling it a “true story” before touching on lost years, isolation, and people who wanted to see her freedom taken away.

“Years of my life that mi can’t get back / No want me free dem want fi take me way,” she sings.

The chorus turns on the repeated line, “Freedom, freedom, I deserved my freedom,” framing the record as both a personal statement and a return to one of the themes that has followed Bling’s post-Gaza Slim career: survival after public judgment.

Elsewhere on the track, she sings about betrayal and the people who disappeared when her life changed. “So many people walked away from me / So many people turned away from me / Grateful for all the ones who prayed with me,” she says on the record.

After the case, the artist stepped back from the local spotlight and performed mostly overseas under the Vanessa Bling name. Her releases slowed, with occasional gospel-leaning tracks such as Have Mercy On Me Lord and Overcome.

Her Dancehall catalog received fresh attention in 2017 after Cardi B used her music in an Instagram video. The following year, Bling released her third EP, Still Standing, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart.

In a 2019 interview with Bashy Magazine, she said the years of pain and pressure had shaped her, not broken her.

“To be honest, I don’t regret anything that happened to me because it made me into the woman I am today,” she said at the time. “I think if I never went through all that pain, those struggles – I wouldn’t be that woman who, no matter what you do to me, I know how to stand strong.”

True Story is available on all major streaming platforms.

Bling is also scheduled to perform at Best of the Best Music Fest 2026 on Sunday, May 24, at Museum Park in downtown Miami.