Music

Managing a Brand He Made Himself

Published: June 16, 2011

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How you going to liberate the black people when you bleach out your skin? asked Vybz Kartels erstwhile mentor Bounty Killer, voicing a widely repeated question. Youre supposed to be proud to be a black man.

In February the New York radio D.J. Dubmaster Chris of 93.5 FM banned Vybz Kartels music on his show during Black History Month. If you dont stand for something, he said, youll fall for anything.

But Vybz Kartel parlayed the publicity into his first-ever live morning show interview on Hot 97 FM, one of the most influential hip-hop radio stations in America. This music stuff what people say about me good or bad I dont take it personally, Vybz Kartel explained later. Its business.

While working on Kingston Story the producer, Dre Skull, said he saw firsthand how Vybz Kartel took care of his business. Most of the album was recorded in Not Nices bedroom studio during a series of four one-night sessions. One of the most exciting things about this record is that we did it with no A&Rs, no outside songwriters and no other producers, said Dre Skull, who runs Mixpak from his apartment in Brooklyn.

Dre Skull was also impressed with how prolific a songwriter Vybz Kartel is. Your average U.S. artist might do 300 songs over the course of a really successful career, he said. Kartel must have written three or four thousand songs, if you add it all up. The man is a master of his craft.

Mr. Channer, who organizes the annual Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica, agrees. Kartel is one of the best writers in any form to come out of Jamaica in the last 15 years, he said. Its just that he likes to write about nothing but sex and guns.

Vybz Kartel recently announced that he would no longer record songs with violent lyrics in favor of more cultural fare but added that explicit sex, as with the new albums Go Go Wine remained fair game.

He got his break in the late 1990s writing hits for Bounty Killer, one of the most popular dancehall artists of the last decade. He rose to prominence as a performer in 2003 with the song New Millennium, which featured his trademark intricately constructed polysyllabic rhymes delivered in densely coded patois the diametric opposite of mainstream hits. His career has been marked by run-ins with the law. Last July he was detained by the police as a person of major interest shortly before the accused drug lord Christopher Coke was extradited to the United States where he is now on trial.

Why was I in jail? he asked. They said I was a gang leader. It was ludicrous. And I dont mean the rapper.

But there is no doubt that he exerts a powerful influence over his listeners. His 2010 hit Clarks, he said, offers proof of his clout in the global marketplace. The catchy song about the storied British shoe brand long a staple among dancehall fashionistas received worldwide airplay, sparking a rush on Clarks retailers in Jamaica and elsewhere. This month the company announced a 19 percent uptick in sales in the United States last year, pushing profits past £100 million (about $164 million) for the first time in its 186-year history.

Those Clarks people, they are like me, they know how to capitalize on whats happening, Vybz Kartel said. Thats why I decided to come with my own shoe line. Cause I got a knack for making things move off the shelf. Although his rum and condom lines have been discontinued, he said hes developing new beverage and clothing brands.

Meanwhile he said his line of cake soap a detergent usually used for laundry is selling briskly. When people were talking about whether I bleached my skin, I made a joke that I used cake soap, he explained. I made some songs about it, and cake soap started to sell like hot bread in Jamaica. Recognizing an opportunity he rushed his own brand of cake soap to market.

Mr. Channer, the novelist, likens Vybz Kartel to Anansi, the trickster character of Afro-Caribbean folklore. Many cultures have a trickster figure, he said. The trickster finds a way to get something when there seems to be nothing.

Throughout the controversies, Vybz Kartel seems to be enjoying a laugh as well as a tidy profit. Its fun for me to watch people hate me, and its flattering to watch people love me, he said. But 10 years from now the public is going to love somebody else. Vybz Kartel is going to become irrelevant, and I can accept that. Thats why a lot of artists are bitter, cause they cant accept that. Get over it. Stop trying to be Kartel. You cant. Its all about making that money while Im in the limelight.

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