Brooklyn based reggae artist Kabbalist, who migrated from Old Harbour, Jamaica as a teenager is looking to follow in the footsteps of acts like Shaggy, Ravon and Shinehead who launched their respective careers in New York before they made it big on the international stage.
The talented dj is making big waves at radio with his current singles Down In Jamaica and Rude Boy. Reggae radio stations from Boston to South Florida to Jamaica’s Hot 102 and Irie FM are embracing his new singles and he will be on his way to the island later this month to shoot a video clip for Down In Jamaica.
“Both songs are doing extremely well here in the USA and in Jamaica and because of this we wanted to shoot the video for ‘Down in Jamaica’ to add muscle to the promotional effort” he said.Kabba honed his skills and learned the ropes of the industry on the Black Champion Sound in St Catherine as a youngster long before migrating to the US.
“My passion and love for reggae has been embedded in my consciousness from as far back as I can remember, and my deep-rooted love for the music has pushed me to sometimes double as a promoter for reggae shows along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, having booked artists such as Third World, Steel Pulse, Gregory Issacs and Bounty Killa” he disclosed.
Kabbalist is not a newcomer to the limelight as an artiste as his first smash single, Catwalk purred its way onto a slew of urban stations, from New York’s Hot 97 to Power 106 in Los Angeles a few years ago. In addition to the nearly 200 BDS spins he garnered in his first week out with Catwalk, record pools labeled him as a breakout artist and charted him extensively with that single. “I feel renewed, revived, and I am ready to blaze the stage and the charts once again with my music”, he told the 151 Reggae Internet audience during an interview and live performance recently.
Perhaps due to his past success and his tireless energies, Kabbalist finds himself with a real fan base and a myspace page with almost three million views, an enviable feat that is rarely surpassed by other reggae artists. On the same site, the new single Down In Jamaica already has nearly 700,000 spins to date.
Once the Jamaica video shoot is over and done, Kabbalist plans to speed up work on his upcoming album that is expected to drop in 2010.
“Music is my life right now, and I want to take my talent to its full potential”, he disclosed.
With his track record, his hot songs and his solid fan base, there is little doubt that Kabbalist will be taking over the airwaves in a big way in the weeks and months to come.