International recording artiste Wayne Wonder leads out a new ‘juggling’ project dubbed the Penultimate rhythm, released on the Digital1 Production label in January 2021.

“It was a great vibe working with Digital1 on this project, he is a humble youth so we just connect. Is not many young producers reach out to veterans to do some work. Originally, I demoed ah different song, and Digital never liked it, he told me to go back to the drawing board, and I went back and Feel So Special, sometimes you have to take constructive criticism and see it, we find a nice song, sometimes you have to put egos aside,” Wayne Wonder said.

Record producer Richard Roache, head of Digital1 Production, is pleased about the project’s early buzz.

“I am getting the most response from Wayne Wonder’s Feel So Special so far, especially in international markets. I will be pushing forward to shoot visuals for the project,” Roache said.

“I am really proud of this project, it is a juggling riddim that features Wayne Wonder, Mojo Morgan feat SoHoGus, Gage, Patexx, Badda General, Footsteps from UK, Tearah, Naveesh featuring Shari Don, and Jahllano from Trinidad. The COVID break allowed me to spend more time to get the songs out because these juggling projects are time consuming and challenging to do,” he said.

The rhythm was created and the project was mixed by Trinidadian Joshua “Kelly Beatz” Kelly.

“To produce a juggling riddim is a stress, and it’s complicated. I went into this Penultimate riddim with the mindset that this will be my second to last project hence the name. But I must big up Jordan because juggling is what differentiates dancehall from everything else, but it is time-consuming and hard to do, because it is hard to get people who you want on the project for several reasons. Sometimes there is politics involved in but in a juggling riddim, you want six or seven artistes, and if the project is not coming together, and there are some artistes might feel you’re keeping the project back to stifle their careers. Who knows? I might do more than one more, but it is hard,” Roache said.

Wayne Wonder’s career took off when he began working with Dave Kelly in 1990s, a friend from primary school, who had become resident sound engineer at Penthouse Studios. The partnership enjoyed a string of hits, starting with Saddest Day, Bonafide Love (Movie Star) with Buju Banton, and wrote several early hits for him, including the controversial Boom Bye Bye.

His career really took off internationally when he signed to Atlantic Records, achieving worldwide success with the song No Letting Go in 2003. The song was recorded on the Diwali rhythm, which was also used by several other artistes that year, such as Sean Paul, Lumidee and Missy Elliott. The single reached No 11 in the US and No 3 in the UK.