Kartel has claim to most influential DJ title, says lecturer

There is a valid case for calling King of Dancehall Vybz Kartel the most influential deejay ever, says Kam-au Amen, a lecturer in the Entertainment and Cultural Enterprise Management unit at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus.

“When you talk about Vybz Kartel being the greatest artiste, well, if you want to qualify it by saying within dancehall then you have a case,” said Amen.

He was responding to music producer Cordel ‘Skatta’ Burrell’s assertion on Entertainment Report that Kartel is right to make the most influential deejay claim.

“Kartel saying he is the most influential deejay ever is 100 per cent right because to influence two to three decades of people is not an easy task. To influence people while incarcerated behind bars, making hits, is never an easy task. There is no artiste that has forward and done what Kartel has done, in and out of prison,” said Burrell.

Acknowledging that Bob Marley is already an established global icon whose family continued building his legacy after his death, Burrell posited that Kartel’s story and achievements, particularly his influence despite incarceration and his independence, could eventually produce an even bigger story – one bigger than Marley’s, who died at the age of 36 on May 11, 1981, in a Miami hospital after a battle with cancer.

“Vybz Kartel story alone is gonna be bigger than Bob Marley. Remember, Vybz Kartel is an independent artiste that does not have a machinery behind him. Bob Marley died and became a legend. He achieved legendary status. He is an icon in Jamaica and across the world, and his family ensured that they built on his legacy and keep it going. Since Kartel has been out, the work that he has done, I mean, you can count few artistes who have achieved that in a year,” he said.

For Amen, any comparison between Marley and Kartel is tough because the two did not do the same type of music.

“Bob operated in a different genre and era of Jamaican music... they’re two artistes operating at two different periods, in two different genres of Jamaican music,” he said. “So, in terms of comparing Kartel to Bob, you’re comparing an elder and a young man.”

Amen does, however, believe, like Burrell, that Kartel’s legacy is still being built.

“It is true, Bob died, and it was left to his wife to build out the rest of his legacy, but he left them a lot to work with. Kartel is still alive, and maybe he can still take his legacy into these other realms and so may surpass Bob’s political, ideological, and economic achievements in the future. I can’t rule it out, because this is life; it could happen if he is able to change his politics and change the direction of his impact on the public,” said Amen.

He said Marley’s impact extended far beyond music, shaping how people think and influencing broader social and cultural ideas.

“The bigger story I think is the impact [Marley] had on people’s lives and livity, that is, in the realm of ideas that shape societies. You cannot discount or trivialise Bob’s contribution to the global Pan-African project and the liberation of all races of people globally. No other person coming out of Jamaica, except Marcus Garvey, before to Bob can claim that kind of impact,” added Amen.