Gyptian: Ready to go
IT has been two years since Gyptian teamed with Trinidadian hip-hop sensation Nicki Minaj on the hit song, Hold You. With the recent release of an EP and a new album in the making, he believes 2013 will be a banner year.
Sex, Love & Reggae is the title of the album which he expects to be released in the first quarter of the new year. But he is currently banking on the six-song EP to get him back in the reckoning.
“Wi still have that fire burning, wi jus’ waan do different things now. Wi would like the artiste dem coming up to listen to Gyptian an’ sey, ‘me’d a like do music like dat’,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
Sex, Love & Reggae will contain three songs (One More Night, Overtime and All Over) from the EP which was recorded at guitar wizard Jimi Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland studio in New York City.
The EP also included covers of Gregory Isaacs’ My Number One and True Colors, originally done by Cyndi Lauper.
Hold You first hit the Billboard magazine pop charts in May 2010 and turned out to be a solid summer hit and opened new markets for Gyptian in Europe and Australia.
He is aware of the fickle nature of the music business and what harm a two-year absence from the scene can do to momentum.
“Wi known to the market now so dat don’t worry wi. The people want to hear fresh things from Gyptian,” he said.
While the song Hold You fared well commercially, the album was not as impressive. Released in July 2010, it peaked at number 186 on the Billboard Album Chart but reached a respectable 34 on the publication’s R&B table.
Hold You justified the promise Gyptian had shown with songs like Serious Times and Mama, Don’t Cry which were sizeable hits in Jamaica, the Caribbean and the United States reggae market.
Distinctly different in content and feel, Hold You went further than Serious Times and Mama, Don’t Cry. It not only entered several charts but earned Gyptian a Soul Train Award for Best Reggae Artiste in late 2010.
“The song did a whole lot. First time, I would go into a airport an’ a few people would know yuh but when it bus’ out is like even the immigration officer familiar wid yuh,” he said.
Sex, Love & Reggae, which will be distributed by VP Records, has songs produced by Shane Brown, Justus Harris.
