KINGSTON, Jamaica — Few artistes in grassroots reggae have a track record comparable to Barrington Levy, who has been making hit songs for 35 years.

Being in the game that long has taught the 50 year-old singer not to take things for granted.

Love The Way She Love is Levy’s latest song. Self-produced, it is done with singjay Mr Vegas for Levy’s Black Roses Records.

A video for the song debuted on American cable channel VH1 last week. According to Levy, collaborating with younger artistes helps him stay fresh in an evolving music scene.

“It introduce yuh to a different audience an’ keep yuh current. The way things are in the business now, it don’t mek sense yuh put out a album every year.”

Collaborating with dancehall and hip hop artistes has introduced Levy to a new generation of fans. In 1998, he and Bounty Killer teamed up on the monster hit Living Dangerously.

Two years later, he had a sizable hit in Bad Boy alongside American rapper Shyne. In 2010 Grammy-winning group Black Eyed Peas sampled his song Here I Come.

Levy first made his mark as a teenaged singer in the late 1970s with producer Henry ‘Junjo’ Lawes’ Volcano Records.

Collie Weed, Prison Oval Rock and 21 Girl Salute were some of the hits he did with the flamboyant Lawes and the Roots Radics Band at the Channel One studio in Kingston.

The songs not only made Levy a star in Jamaica, but in the UK where Lawes had a distribution deal with Greensleeves Records, an independent company in west London.

Levy lived in the UK for 13 years, cutting a series of classic songs for producer Paul ‘Jah Life’ Love. Their collaboration yielded songs like Under Mi Sensi, My Time and Living Dangerously.

Levy, who is also working on an acoustic album, plans to promote Love The Way She Love for the rest of 2013.

Howard Campbell