Darrio drops mixtape, preps for Europe

Ex-member of the Subkonshus record label, Darrio, has made notable progress in establishing himself as a independent dancehall artiste.

After splitting from the label amid contentious claims, the striving artiste has continued on his journey, which may yet prove fruitful, with the upcoming release of his first official mixtape called Project 45, which was produced by well-established sound system, Platinum Kids. The mixtape sees the artiste recording on old-school rhythms.

According to Darrio, the dancehall beats coming out now are not ''really authentic'' and adjusting to the ''new-school sound'' sometimes works and sometimes does not.

"You find seh all the producers trying to fuse dem rhythms with some other genre, whether it's hip hop, pop, R&B, EDM or afro-beat. The concept behind the whole Project 45 is basically old-school dancehall vibes, like 45 as in vinyl," he told THE STAR. "All the beats on the mixtape is some old-school beats."

Darrio told THE STAR that there will be heavy promotion for the mixtape in Europe.

"Most of the confirmations are pending right now, at this stage," he said, confirming that for the first week of December, he is scheduled to be in Germany to kick off the tour, then he would be moving on to Switzerland, and has two shows scheduled in Israel, between December 22 and 25.

OLD-SCHOOL SOUND

Project 45, which will be available on October 20 on SoundCloud and YouTube, sees the artiste also sounding old-school.

"You know, people always tell me seh mi have dah sound deh," he told THE STAR. "From eva since, people always tell me seh 'yeh, you have the hardcore authentic sound', like the hardcore dancehall Terro Fabulous, Buju Banton, dem sound. You know, di real hardcore dancehallers - suh mi try fi incorporate it when mi a voice pon the new rhythms."

Darrio relayed that he believes that the '70s to the '90s should be referenced as the period providing the epitome of dancehall sound.

"Back then, you never had the likes of these ProTools and all these nice programmes, where even if you go inna di studio and cyaa deejay or cyaa sing, there's programmes now weh can enhance dat."