Swabii keeps up the image
Image is everything. Just ask dancehall-reggae artiste Swabii who released the song Image and its accompanying video.
“Dancehall is the voice of the culturally relevant. It’s the sound and expression of a movement, a personification of real issues and subjects, which have been translated into music. An artiste’s image is a big part of that translation. That is why I am using dancehall to push my brand, Karma City, and my image to the world,” he said.
Image was released on the deejay’s Karma City imprint 11 months ago. The visuals has racked up more than 240,000 views so far.
“The response has been incredible. In my music, I deejay about what I know, my past, my lifestyle, and I used the Image video to cross promote my Swabii and Karma City brands, kicks, my T-shirt line. Image is everything,” he said.
He said that Karma is an acronym that stands for Keeping Active and Relevant Meanwhile Achieving.
Born Swabian Brown, he grew up in Montego Bay, St James, where he soon cultivated a love for music. While at Chetwood Primary school, he was the lead singer on the choir. He created his first song at 10 for a singing competition.
As he grew older, he began to experiment with other genres of music, as he discovered that he could sing, deejay and rap with equal aplomb. He soon gained a decent following at his Cornwall College, and he was so influential that he performed a song for the DaCosta Cup squad, and even did a rap song at his graduation.
He recorded his first song, Rougher Dan Dem, in 2017 and fine-tuned his craft by writing several songs. In 2020, he raised the bar by releasing several songs officially on his VEVO channel people .
“People were shocked at how seasoned and professional I sounded but hours of hard work went into my craft,” he said.
He has continued to build his reputation one song at a time. He is known for singles such as Pimp Daddy, and Weed and Gun.