The debut album from singer/musician Cecil B The Artist is scheduled for release this summer. It will contain songs the New York-based artiste has recorded during the last year with producer Ricky Myrie.

Those songs include This Love, which was released in February, and a cover of Luciano’s Over The Hills, slated to be out this month.

Cecil B The Artist told the Jamaica Observer that the sessions with Myrie have been fruitful and meticulous.

“I’m very excited about it, very excited about the work we put in to get things sounding the way it came out. Ricky is very detailed in his work, very particular about keys and all of that, and things came out beautiful,” he said.

The lone cover on the album is Over The Hills, which Luciano did for producer Philip “Fatis” Burrell’s Xterminator Records in 1997.

“I truly believe in the song because it’s very uplifting and very encouraging. I didn’t really do anything different [from the original], I just put my twist on it,” said Cecil B The Artist.

Born in St Mary, he got interested in music in his late teens after his father bought him a used guitar that had five strings. With one string less effectively making it a bass, Cecil B The Artist learned to play the instrument by ear, and has played in bands in Jamaica and New York.

An airbrush artist by profession, he released his first song, Too Much Violence In The Streets, in 2012. This Love is his second single.

— Howard Campbell