Barrington Levy’s Here I Come sampled by the Black Eyed Peas
BARRINGTON Levy’s hit Here I Come has been sampled once again. This time around, multi- platinum selling pop group the Black Eyed Peas has sampled the track in their recording The Coming.
The track is featured on the deluxe edition of their latest album The Beginning, which was released late last month.
This isn’t the first time that Here I Come has been sampled. “The song has been sampled many times in the past, its unbelievable,” an excited Barrington Levy told Splash earlier this week.
According to Levy, Here I Come has been sampled at least forty times. “The Black Eyed Peas went to my publishing company to get permission to sample the song. They are happy and I am happy,” said Levy.
Asked what it meant for him, for an act such as the Black Eyed Peas to have embraced his work, Levy said, “It’s a good look and I do hope that my fellow Jamaican artistes will do music that 20 years later, other artistes can endorse it.”
Recorded in 1983, Here I Come was produced by Levy in collaboration with producer Paul ‘Jah Screw’ Love. It was released on the Time One Records label.
Said Levy, “I went into the recording studio and did the song and based on the reaction I got from the people, I used that to introduce the song to the dancehall market in England.”
The song was not only a number one hit in Jamaica, but it topped the British Echo Reggae charts, and crossed over to the UK pop Singles chart where it stalled at number 41 in 1985. The song would become a hit all over again in 1991 when it was sampled by British hip hop star Rebel MC in the song Tribal Base. That recording peaked at number 20 on the UK Pop singles chart in 1991.
Bad Boy recording artiste, rapper Shyne sampled the track in his 2000 hit Bad Boyz which hit the US Billboard charts. A year later, Here I Come got another lease on life when Talisman P jumped onto the track and took his version (which also featured Levy), to number 21 on the UK pop singles chart.
In 2006, international dancehall deejay Shaggy sampled the track in his chart hit Broadway.
Levy who is now working with the US-based Platinum Camp, recently recorded the song Gangster featuring dancehall’s current champ Vybz Kartel.
Said Levy “Gangster will be featured on the soundtrack of a movie that we are doing called Gangster. The movie is being shot mostly in the US, but the scenes with Vybz Kartel will be shot here in Jamaica”.
According to Levy, the film project which is a joint effort between his Black Roses production and Platinum Camp, will be ready for release within the next seven months. The single will be released in late January.
