Gospel Spotlight : D-Murphy explores Afrobeats in new album

Dwayne Murphy, better known as D-Murphy, has spent the majority of his adult life in pursuit of achieving gospel music success.

Even though D-Murphy pursues music full-time, he says the work feels more like play.

Describing it as the rousing excitement one would feel upon entering an amusement park, he said he gets that feeling every time he enters a studio to do a song.

"I started recording 15 years ago when I was fresh out of high school. The first time I went to a studio was in Portmore, back in, probably, 2001," he told THE WEEKEND STAR.

"I got the opportunity to sing on a track, and that was the most amazing experience ever. The track didn't sound that hot," he said laughingly, "but the process was the most amazing experience ever I had."

AMAZING FEELING

Despite the mediocrity of that first track laid in his youth, the amazing feeling remained. D-Murphy began taking a musical career seriously in 2006, when he signed with Radical Yard, owned by well-known gospel recording artiste Prodi, formerly known as Prodigal Son.

D-Murphy admits that the journey has been a steady climb.

"When I would go to a concert and sing, maybe, a one or two songs, when you get one or two grown folk coming up to you and saying 'Yes, you've blessed me', it made me think, maybe I can do this for another year," he said.

Three years after getting signed, D-Murphy released his debut album, Posture to Praise. "It's about putting yourself in the right mind frame and standing so that your praise can be accepted freely by God," he told THE WEEKEND STAR.

The success of the album and its stand-out singles, You Should Let Christ Love You and I Command You Satan, enabled D-Murphy extensive travel in and around Jamaica, other islands of the Caribbean, the Unites States, Canada and Belize.

After completing the promotional tours for Posture to Praise, the aspiring artiste extended his travels further, before resettling in Jamaica in 2013.

That grounding has led to the release of an energetic, Afrobeats single called Kele Kele Love. D-Murphy expressed an attraction to the Afrobeats style of music, and said it may be a style he employs again on his sophomore album.

"[Afrobeats] come from the heart, straight from their heart, and it reflects in their bodies," he said. "Whether it is secular music or gospel music, they move the same way. It moves you even when you're going through your worst. There have been disc jocks and deejays from Nigeria who have asked me to send my music," he said.

Kele Kele Love comes with the recent release of D-Murphy's EP called The Framework, which, he said, is an introduction to his sophomore album that he will be helping to produce.

"I'm becoming more and more comfortable with it. I'm learning to trust my ear, so I'm more involved in producing," he said, admitting that he is the executive producer of the album.

"It feels like an amusement park when I go to work. I am in total control of the direction. If I have an idea to make three different genres one track, 'Hey! that's art!'," he said.

"He is the God of creativity. We shouldn't be following what the world is doing. We should be the innovators. Gospel music is good news. Once you're doing gospel, whatever style of music it comes through, once it's the good news and it's speaking about positivity and God, then it's gospel music."