Zhayna’s ‘Outside’ gets new life with video

Reggae fusion singer Zhayna is relishing the positive feedback to her project, 'Outside', a song celebrating the return to life.

"The song was written as a celebration of being outside again after the end of COVID-19, where everybody was free, without travel restrictions and sheltering in place and so on. I wrote the song before the restrictions were lifted, so it was like a manifestation of that, a celebration of sorts," she explained. The song was released in 2022, the day after COVID-19 restrictions ended in Jamaica. It did well on Spotify where it racked up more than 10,000 streams and generated a buzz for her. Fast-foward two years and she has decided to drop a video for the single, bankrolled by her new management team.

"My management team, Artekal Music, decided to do the video because, at the time, it was my most listened-to single in my catalogue. So it made sense to do the video," Zhayna said.

Zhayna, who inked a recording contract with US indie label Artekal Music in 2023, has been confirmed as an opening act of the upcoming Roots and Culture tour which will kick off in Berlin, Germany on March 1. The tour will then head to Dortmund, with stops in Groningen, Amsterdam and Deventer in The Netherlands. Other stops include the cities of Lille and Rennes in France, and then Bilbao in Spain on March 16. The tour snakes through regions of France before ending in Paris on March 27.