Recording artiste Kaya Black has added his own twist to Darius Rucker’s 2016 country hit If I Told You.

“I am always developing my sound as an artiste. I asked producer J-Vibe how he would describe my sound [and] he said I was a mix of pop rock, reggae soul, and a hint of country. Country and reggae is something not done by many. There are a lot of similarities with reggae and country and there is an artiste out of Hawaii named Maoli who fuses reggae and country together. Toots Hibbert had done some songs with Willie Nelson that I thought sounded unique and cool,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

The cover was released on April 7.

If I Told You is the follow-up to Kaya’s cover of Rob Thomas’s Lonely No More and The Commodores’ Easy, which premièred at number 45 and 73 on the iTunes Reggae Charts, respectively. Kaya has also received recognition for his reggae cover of Last Christmas.

With several covers under his belt, Kaya explained that his mission is to add a reggae flavour to tracks that listeners would least expect.

“It really started with the cover of Last Christmas I released in 2021. I really have to give credit to my producers Tyler Cain and Jon “Smoke” Lucas for that. I just wanted to keep it reggae but let everything else come out organically,” he explained.

“I am a huge Rob Thomas fan. I give him so much credit for the inspiration. I asked Rob Thomas one day on Instagram which one of his songs would he like to be turned into reggae. He told me Lonely No More. People have said my voice reminded them of Darius Rucker. After listening to If I Told You I asked my producer Tyler Cain if it would work and out it came,” the singer added.

Jamaican artistes, including pioneers like The Skatalites and Alton Ellis, have a long history of covering foreign songs — from Afro-Cuban instrumentals to obscure American soul songs. Dennis Brown had a hit with a cover of Easy in 1983.

Kaya Black is the son of Johnnie Black, a respected Jamaican photographer known for capturing iconic images of reggae legends. That pushed him into pursuing music as a career.

In the meantime, Kaya is cooking up a compilation of covers of some of the world’s greatest classics.

“I am working on a couple more songs for a covers EP and working on some original music too. Hopefully, that will be out later this year or early next year,” he told the Observer.