VYBZ KARTEL IN FADER

July 1st, 2011 | By

Fader Magazine‘s cover of Vybz Kartel was released online this week and coming from a western perspective writers touched even more on Vybz Kartel and his “vampireish-ways”.

Fader also seemed to propel the persona of the entertainer to a higher place than one would expect given all the events that occurred in the last month.

Kartel is no longer associated with the Building nightclub (according to Corey Todd) both Street Vybz Thurdays and Rum bottles are empty, although Fader quotes him as part-owner at best.  Therefore we must assume this article was written before the whole Corey Todd meltdown.

One things for sure for the Gaza Don‘s music don’t stop as he continues to release tune after tune in-spite of the controversy surrounding his side business ventures.

Neither do his ratings as an artist falter although his greater Caribbean fan base maybe pulling back a bit just as a majority of the Empire seems to be.

Fader Magazine begins the article aptly entitled BEYOND THE PALE with their more than apparent fascination:

Bleaching, in Jamaica, can mean one of two things. 1. Applying prescription-only steroid cream for extremely off-label use, leaching the pigment out of your skin cells to create a whiter complexion, or 2. Staying awake until daylight. In the 48 hours I spend chasing VYBZ KARTEL—who for the last few years has reigned as the undisputed emperor of dancehall—around Kingston, it’s clear he’s doing a lot of both. Indeed, his vampire-like schedule is a deterrent to getting close to Vybz Kartel. About the time I step off a 10AM flight at Norman Manley Airport, he is on the phone to say that yes, he is in fact still up from his Thursday Street Vybz party the night before but is ready to link up anyway. And that’s the last I’ll hear from him while the sun is still up[...]

FADER goes on to play on the vampire implications throughout the article.

Finally emerging from his proverbial coffin around eight that evening, Kartel is every inch a rock star, all teeth and tattoos as he works the room while taping a promotional spot for his Portmore protégé Gaza Slim at Hype TV Kingston’s studio. Mirrored shades, the partly metallic smile created by his braces and a physique that is fit but skeletal all contribute to a look that is distinctly cyborg. In recent photos, Kartel looks like a film negative of his 2002 self, but up close the bleaching effect doesn’t make him look white so much as it gives his complexion and facial hair a reddish Malcolm X/Satan cast, making his tattoos stand out luridly. Gaza Slim meanwhile, with her short blue hair relaxed into an elfin side part, looks tiny and lost beside Kartel. Her unnamed male companion in skinny jeans, filthy Clarks and a satchel-like man-purse that is the current rage in Jamaica, is equally out of it. Kartel dominates the proceedings.

The piece notes his artistic creativity and musical domination going into the studio to record with Russian and speaking to Dre Skull from BK’s Mixpak records and producer of Kartel’s latest album KINGSTON STORY.

“I showed up with maybe four riddims,” he (Dre Skull) recalls. “I got to the studio before him, so we loaded the tracks onto the computer and he just went straight in to listen. After some brief conversation he sat down in the chair he likes to record in, asked for the lights to be turned off and just started recording straightaway, having never heard the tracks before. What struck me from the first time was his uncanny ability to listen and immediately sense how the track ‘worked’ structurally and emotionally.” That artistic respect appears to be mutual. Kartel says later that voicing with Dre, “is like working with one of the best, in terms of creativity and his approach” and then: “I think this album has the potential to be the best album from Vybz Kartel.”

But back to the facination, the bleach:

And then there’s the bleaching. Skin bleaching is the personal freakshow that threatens to totally overshadow the main event of Kartel’s artistic genius—even as it drives the cult of fascination. He has, at times, boasted about bleaching and then just as glibly denied it—attributing his steadily lighter complexion to liberal application of cake soap (an over-the-counter medicated soap patently incapable of altering skin color) and air-conditioning. In reality he displays all the traits—darkening of the skin at the joints and around the eyes, increasing the vampire effect—of abusing hydroquinone, the same medication Michael Jackson used to treat Vitiligo, which is banned in some countries as a carcinogen. The steroid component of most bootleg skin creams is actually meant to offset the corrosive effect of hydroquinone, which physically thins the skin, potentially stretching it to the breaking point.

Fader touches on his underlying control issues which we’ve heard many people refer to throughout the Empire’s reign; including Notnice, Jah Vinci and even Ryno sang about it in his rebellious tune “Mi Lef” when he made his exit.

The urge to own and control seems like more than just sound financial planning, it’s a primary impulse that runs through every aspect of Vybz Kartel. Of the artists in Gaza Empire, he says, “I sign all my artists. I sign all them recording, them publishing, them booking, them everything. If them eat, I gots to know about it. If they take a shower I gots to know about it.” He even intends to own his own controversies—almost literally, since plans to capitalize on his famous complexion by selling his own cakesoap seem to be in the works. “I love controversy. If Vybz Kartel bleach him skin,” he explains, “people say, ‘Vybz Kartel bleaching!’ and I be like, The gal dem love off me bleach out skin, and the song becomes a hit. On toppa that, I start to manufacture face-soap, yuh nah mean?” With control as the key word, the bleach and the tattoos begin to take on a different significance. If his rhetoric is post-racial, Kartel’s person, from the teardrops under his right eye to the Gaza on his knuckles, is a canvas of self-invention bordering on the post-human.

The article concludes highlighting his producing capabilities and album marketing strategies given he cannot leave the island while touching on his “ability to break taboo and still come out on top“, because as the artist states in truth “the music is what saves me”.

Kartel’s lyrics and music have been in the number 1 spot for many years now as dancehall fans can vouch.  However it seems that the mere idea of this controversial artist (who has always been controversial mind you) “lightening his skin” that suddenly the the west is interested.

Vybz will likely indicate that is the whole point thinking ahead and knowing the fetish, fears and fascination of western media and then turn a profit at the same time.  In which case such aim has successfully been achieved being featured in Billboard, Rolling Stones and NY Times while Kingston Story sits in the Number 7 slot on Billboard charts.  He may well be a marketing machine…

Interestingly enough its the same media who generally fear the dancehall message crucifying, imprisoning and negatively publicizing those who came before, who are now running to promote their idea of what they think it is BEYOND THE PALE….