Valiant and his team eye int’l stardom

'International' seems to be the buzzword for on-the-rise artiste Valiant and his team, and without missing a beat they declare that the Grammys are a huge part of their playbook.

"My team and I are looking towards Grammys and international accolades. We have a dream and a vision that we worked hard for, and this is not it yet, we know there's more to come. So we're fully focused and working even harder towards that as we would love for Valiant to be written in the Hall of Fame," the 'trappa gospel' artiste told THE WEEKEND STAR.

One of his managers, Fada Dipo, concurred and gave some insight into the plans for the North Carolina artiste.

"Currently, we have a few projects to put out. We are looking forward to releasing an EP next year, about March, and right now we are making the transition to curating his sound and releasing music that will be acceptable on the international stage. The music we are doing now is just to capture the audience in the Caribbean and the niches in America and Canada. Next year, moving forward, we have a few big songs to release that can be classified as international," Fada Dipo explained.

Valiant, whose 'Kotch E Hat A Lie' slang went viral on TikTok two months ago, and who has capitalised on that popularity with songs that have seen him trending, was specially chosen to represent for the now generation of dancehall artistes at the relaunch of Sting last Tuesday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston. He gave a speech that was focused and grabbed attention, as he asked not to be "judged by the songs he sings" .

"I express my emotions through music but something wasn't working or maybe it was not my time. In the peak of COVID time, I decided to gather my team and I started techniques on how to master my craft and my style. After going back to the drawing board, my team and I founded trappa gospel. What is trappa gospel? A lot of you are asking if these are negative songs or anything like that. Remember I am an entertainer and I try to use words and flows to entertain the young generation, not negatively, but just to create new sounds to draw the people to hear positive music. To all the people in the media entity, I am a talented artiste, so do not judge me by the songs that I sing. I have a lot more songs coming to impact the world," Valiant said.

Fada Dipo shared that it was two years ago that he and his colleagues started working with Valiant.

"We believe in what he had to bring to the table ... him drive, him dedication, just the way how him do him work, him neva seh him tiad yet," he said.