Kartel turns 44 today

Adidjah 'Vybz Kartel' Palmer celebrate his 44th birthday today. The last eight have been spent in a jail cell, not languishing, but rather, feverishly releasing chart-topping dancehall anthems and maintaining a presence on the outside, which defies the very definition of caged.

His newest album, To Tanesha, a tribute to his babymama Tanehsa 'Shorty' Johnson, is slated to be released on Friday.

Music consultant Clyde McKenzie, a man who Vybz has immortalised in song, says that the speed with which he has been able to churn tunes out is remarkable. "And the thing is that he wasn't patterning himself off anybody. You couldn't say that this was somebody else Part 2," McKenzie said. His only comment on the line from Kartel's Pree Dis single, which says, " Hypocrites come bout and so mi analyse it like Clyde McKenzie," was a chuckle.

Kartel, many will agree is a larger-than-life character, with a gift for self-promotion, and who has remained relevant. His willingness to flout authority and convention has been cited as one of the factors that garnered for him an almost obsessive following from a demographic which found that utterly fascinating.

"He is a significant player in the cultural arena, he was taking on issues that were controversial, and he thumbed his nose at authority and the status quo," McKenzie asserts. "The way he marshalled his fans and turned them into a community conferred on them that sense of being a part of a movement."

Producer Mikey Bennett says Kartel's impact is very obvious. "He's the most dominant figure we have had in dancehall music in many, many years. To be incarcerated for so long and still being the artiste of choice is a huge accomplishment. I was in the Caribbean the other day and the way his songs are played regularly, you would never know that Kartel is in prison," Bennett told THE STAR.

McKenzie notes that Kartel inserted himself in some of the major debates and he was "never out of our consciousness".

This pervasiveness is what Mikie Bennett alludes to when he compares Kartel to Donald Trump.

"He became the biggest story, sort of like a Donald Trump and CNN. He was in your face with his marketing gimmicks. Marketing people will tell you that one-third of the market is uncommitted and the Kartels and the Trumps of this world realise the value of that 30 per cent," Bennett states.

Grammy-Award winning-producer Wayne 'Native Wayne' Jobson hailed Vybz Kartel as "gifted", but for him there is a greater lesson to the Kartel story.

"When God gives you a talent, you're supposed to use it to uplift the people. Kartel is very gifted and should have put all of his focus into his music and not even thought about anything else. I am so sad that he got distracted. Let this be a lesson to all the youth to focus on your mission and use the talent that you are given to help mankind," he said.