Articles Tagged: Gaza Slim
Snoop launches new web series entitled Noisy Jamaica: Dancehall.
Jamaican producer Codine Williams says that although the show was her idea, it was fueled by Snoops 2012 trip to Jamaica to record his latest album and film his Reincarnated documentary.
“It is about the culture behind dancehall. The music and everything surrounding it,”
With 10 episodes so far featuring artistes like Tommy Lee, Popcaan, Gaza Slim, Konshens, I-Octane, Spice and Tifa.
The webisodes touch on many topics including Vybz Kartel‘s murder trial, his influence on dancehall, women in music and fashion.
While the first episode is about Vybz Kartel, subsequent shows will include a shopping spree with Tifa, a drive with Konshens, and performances by Spice and Popcaan at Sumfest.
“At the moment, we are showcasing it world-wide. We have offices in 34 countries over the world and YouTube is worldwide,” she noted and said that plans are in the works to film additional episodes for the series.
While the first webisode has already garnered over 13,000 views on the Noisy channel on Youtube, many are skeptical about the new series which depicts yet again the gritty dangerous side of the genre.
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The cover for Vybz Kartel’s “The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto” was revealed this week portraying the deejay clean shaven, wearing glasses, with a serious stare harkening to the great black revolutionary Malcom X.
The book will be available for purchase starting tomorrow July 6, 2012.
A release to the press stated that in the book “Kartel signals that the fight for change starts now and he has vowed to create that from behind bars.” On the cover of the book Kartel states “I pray this book helps to change Jamaica forever.”
The press release went on to say that “it is hoped that this book will lead to discussions on classism, racism, and other issues existing in our modern day.”
Excerpts from the deejays first book were released back in May where Kartel gave fans a peek into what his first literary attempt had to offer.
Read the back cover below:
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Vybz Kartel, Vanessa Bling also known as Gaza Slim and Pim-Pim will return to court on August 29th.
The three are charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The trial which was scheduled for Wednesday May 8, 2012 was pushed back after it was cited that the defense team was preoccupied at the Supreme Court with other matters.
Allegations are that Pim Pim assisted Slim in falsifying a report to police that she had been robbed by Clive Lizard Williams after Kartel was arrested for his murder.
Gaza Slim and Pim Pim are out on bail while Vybz Kartel remains behind bars.
Kartel and four other men will return to the High Court June on 8th in relation to the murder of Williams’.
Portmore Empire leader Vybz Kartel was denied bail again.
He and Gaza Slim appeared before the Corporate Area Resident Magistrates Court Monday morning (January 9, 2012) to answer to charges of conspiracy and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
While Gaza Slim was granted bail, Kartel has been remanded until February 1, 2012.
Kartel was jointly charged alongside the female Portmore Empire singer for conspiring to make a false report to police.
According to authorities, in the latter part of October of 2011 Slim filed a police report claiming that she was robbed and assaulted by Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams, the same man that Kartel and two other men had been previously charged with murdering.
Police say, Williams was killed on August 16 last year in Havendale St. Andrew. His body has not been found.
Kartel and his co-accused will return to court on January 13, in relation to the murder of Williams.
He is also facing another charge of murder, as well as conspiracy to commit murder, firearm possession and possession of ganja.
Constant Spring Police have said that Kartel will be charged alongside Gaza Slim aka Vanessa Bling for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
This was disclosed when Gaza Slim appeared before the court this morning on the same charges.
Slim is accused of making a false police report and today investigators reported that they have the evidence linking Vybz Kartel to the alleged plot.
Gaza Slim was remanded until December 19th when she will appear in court jointly with Vybz Kartel.
A senior investigator told TVJ News that they are making arrangements to interview Kartel who will then be charged.
The police have reported that on October 29th Gaza Slim visited the Constant Spring police station and reported that she had just been robbed by Clive Williams, the man whose murder Vybz Kartel has been charged with.
Police say this was in an attempt to prove that Williams was not dead.
It is understood that police seized a cell phone with a text message to Slim instructing her to fabricate the story.
Gaza Slim turned herself into the police Monday afternoon after she was named as a person of interest by the Constant Spring Police on December 1st.
According to police sources, authorities have evidence including phone records showing that Bling and Kartel planned to ”stage a robbery that did not occur.”
Gaza Slim is now being investigated for conspiracy and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Slim was accompanied by her attorney when she turned herself in and was scheduled to be questioned yesterday (Tues 12/6/2011) afternoon.
The Robbery
About a month ago reports surfaced that Gaza Slim also known as Vanessa Bling made a report to the St. Andrew police alleging that she was assaulted and robbed from a person claiming to be Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams.
This is the same Clive Lizard Williams that her mentor Vybz Kartel is accused of murdering on August 16th of this year.
Her report made headlines just 5 days after Kartel was charged with William’s murder.
Palmer’s attorney Christian Tavares-Finson scoffed at the notion of a staged robbery to help the case of the defense.
“As far as we are concerned we have a long road ahead and will not allow Mr Palmer’s defence to be side-tracked by rumours,” he said.
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….
