A firm believer in empowerment, Errol Bean never misses an opportunity to reach out to the youth. His latest song, Born to Be A Champion: Hold on To Your Dreams, is aimed at them.

Released on August 21, the Wayne Armond-produced song is driven by a Nyahbinghi rhythm and positive message.

“One of the song’s most important messages is its encouragement to hold on to one’s dreams. For children and youth, dreams are not merely fanciful ideas about the future; they can become important sources of motivation, identity, direction, and purpose,” Bean reasoned. “The ability to sustain those aspirations, particularly when confronted by disappointment, failure, uncertainty, peer pressure, or adversity, requires a developing understanding of oneself and a conscious commitment to one’s goals.”

The veteran artiste wrote ‘Born to Be A Champion’ as a poem 33 years ago. It was meant as a motivational piece for his nephew, Omar Dufreny, then 12 years-old.

Armond, co-founder of the Chalice band, transformed it into music form in 2015. Production was completed early this year and finally released two weeks ago.

This is not the first time Bean has done songs expressing concern for children’s welfare. On Leave The Children, released in 2015, he hit out against the rise in sexual crimes against infants and teenagers in Jamaica.

He and Armond agreed the Nyahbinghi beat would be culturally-appropriate.

“It’s used to celebrate our heritage, drumming, black consciousness, tribute to Rastafari and link it to our reggae, our heartbeat. It is intended to inspire a meditative mood for attention grabbing, then inspire dancing, to change the mood,” Bean explained.

Raised in Frankfield, Clarendon, Bean has been recording music for nearly 40 years. Freedom, his first song, was released in the late 1980s.

A former minister of religion and educator, his album, Beyond The Rhythm, came out in 2004.

– Howard Campbell