While working on his latest album World Best, Nigerian reggae/dancehall singer Patoranking decided he wanted the inclusion of two of the best acts out of Jamaica – Beenie Man and Popcaan.

World Best, released on September 6, features Beenie Man on the song Amazing Grace, while Popcaan teams up on Tonight.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer, Patoranking spoke about the work that went into the album as well as collaborating with both Jamaican artistes.

“Collaborating with Beenie Man was like a dream come true for me, because I grew up listening to him. For me, particularly, he’s my idol, so being on a song with him is an awesome moment for me and for my career. About Popcaan, he’s my friend. We have a good relationship so working together on the song Tonight was smooth. Another thing about me, I love making music with my friends,” said Patoranking.Asked whether having both dancehall acts on the album was a strategic move, Patoranking said, “To me, the connection is first and foremost my priority. I want to make music with people I so much connect with, who can also give me the best sonically. The album is called World Best, so it’s only right to put two of Jamaica’s best. And trust me, you can’t deny the fact that they’re both undisputed.”

This was not the first instance that Patoranking has worked with Jamaican acts. Aside from collaborating with Skip Marley on the remixed Bob Marley album Africa Unite, he has collaborated with Buju Banton, Busy Signal, Chi Ching Ching, Konshens, and Elephant Man.

Both Konshens and Elephant Man are featured on Patoranking’s hit single Daniella Whine, which topped MTV Africa Base Top Ten chart.

World Best also features collaborations with Ludacris, Victony, Gyake, Zion Foster and Diamond Platnumz.”A lot of thought process went into this album. From the production to who was going to be featured on it, you know; I typically work with artistes that I’m a fan of their work, whether established or rising. For production, we worked with different producers as well as my current in-house and yeah, we recorded in different countries. It wasn’t intentional but yeah, I guess this is also what makes the album World Best,” he said.

“We recorded in Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, UK, US, France and so on. For my albums I normally begin recording and the title comes to me after. The sound, the creative direction of World Best became clearer and clearer as we recorded in these different environments and yeah everything came out together to give us a perfect body of work,” said Patoranking.

Patoranking’s most popular song locally is My Woman, My Everything. The song peaked at number two on the MTV Base Top Ten chart and won the MTV Africa Song of the Year. His other known songs include Particular, which peaked at #11 on Billboard’s Reggae Digital Song Sales chart and #42 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart in 2017.

God Over Everything, his debut album, peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart in 2016. Three years later, Wilmer rose to number five.

His 2020 album Three, won Best Reggae Album at the Headies in 2022. The song Celebrate Me was named Best Recording of the Year.

Patoranking has performed twice in Jamaica. In 2017 at Reggae Sumfest and again in 2019 at Rebel Salute.