Due to the recent death of a friend, up-and-coming dancehall artiste Gramma Zone is injecting some inspiration into the music industry with his newly released single ‘Gold Medal’.

The artiste, given name Miguel Reid, said he felt the need to write and release this song after a conversation he had with his friend Omar Francis, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) caretaker for the Point Hill division in St Catherine, who died in a motor vehicle accident in June.

“I know him from UWI; he was my block brother and we would play football every Sunday. One morning Omar and I were talking and he was saying ‘you know me want be a prime minister’ and I was saying ‘you know me want a Grammy’,” Gramma Zone recounted.

He continued: “At one point he said to me ‘Where you think is the richest place on earth?” and we were laughing because we knew the answer is the cemetery because there are so many talented people who didn’t have the courage to follow their dreams.”

Garmma Zone, during his recollection, disclosed that Francis said that he was not going to stop until he reached the highest point in his political career as he was planning to dedicate his whole life to the profession.

“About a week later I woke up in the morning and I saw on someone’s status that my friend, my bredren crashed and died. And I was just looking at the fact that this man had his talent and skill and now he just made the cemetery more wealthy. This shook me and I didn’t want that to be a part of my journey so I said I can’t go to the cemetery with the talent that God gave me so I decided to just go 100 per cent, because at the end of the day we have nothing to lose,” Gramma Zone explained.

The 32-year-old stated that ‘Gold Medal’ is encouraging people to go for their dreams and aspirations even when things seem difficult.

It is only the latest of Gramma Zone’s projects, however, as he told OBSERVER ONLINE that he is “not a newbie” to the industry.

He initially became interested in music from his father who was also a musician.

“My father is a musician as well, he didn’t make it big, but to me, he is my first star. I could see first-hand how my father made some wicked songs and me actually used to go school and sing his songs for my classmates and me used to get a bag a forward from them,” the artiste explained.

“When I was in grade seven at St Catherine High School, I remember one day somebody came to me and said ‘everyday you sing da song deh, you can’t make a new song with my name in it?’ and then everybody in the class start tell me say ‘put my name, put my name’ but my father never have no song with my classmate dem name so me under pressure now and everybody a seh them want it tomorrow,” he laughed.

He went on to explain that while writing he realised that he had a talent for the art as the song sounded “so amazing”. He went as far as to perform it the next day during devotion.

Gramma Zone said that this feedback from his classmates and teachers encouraged him to continue writing music and he has not stopped since.

The artiste said that over the years of his music career he has tried to remain relevant to the changing sounds in dancehall. He added that his type of music is big on inspiration as he has seen many people crumble under societal pressure.

Gramma Zone noted, however, that he also branches out to sing more “raunchy, sexy songs” for his female audience and can also go the route of more violent lyrics.

He revealed to OBSERVER ONLINE that the theme of motivating others will continue in his next single ‘Greatness’ which is a sequel to ‘Gold Medal’ and will be released in two weeks.

His catalogue can be found on YouTube and all music streaming platforms and social media.