Interview by : Benoit Georges
Pictures by : Karl Joseph
on Wednesday, January 14th 2004 - 11 783 views
In Paris for a concert at the Elysée Montmartre, Barrington Levy is celebrating this year his 40th birthday, including 25 years of recording career since his first successes. It was therefore urgent to open an artist profile on him...
He arrives at his hotel in Bermuda shorts, with a cap and gold jewellery, as if he had just landed from Los Angeles! Much in demand, he can only grant us five minutes of conversation, just enough time to ask him three questions
Reggaefrance / I read on your site that you were preparing a new album. Can you tell us about it? Who's the producer? Will it be new tracks or old ones?
Barrington Levy / I'm the producer. I'd say I produced all of the tracks but actually I'm the executive producer. We've made a lot of new songs and we're also redoing some old songs that many people don't know. But I don't want to say too much on the internet. I don't even know whether this album will be available on CD, because I want to keep the original side of reggae, the vinyl. Nowadays people buy a CD, put it on the internet and then it gets resold. So to get my new album, you'll have to buy a vinyl record, because vinyl can't go straight onto the internet, unless you copy it with a turntable.
In 1979, when your first album "Bounty Hunter" came out, there was a change in musical style in Jamaica thanks to that album. What was the atmosphere like in Jamaica at that time?
At that time it was warm and cool, more feeling, more good lyrics, more upliftment (elevation), more love and more dub. You went to a party, you asked a girl to dance, and you danced, simply... Now it's changed, on every level: the atmosphere, the people, the lyrics. (He asks his manager what the name of the singer who hit Ninjaman is.) Vibz Kartell! You only have to listen to feel that the vibe has changed. But it still doesn't beat good lyrics! They can go anywhere, they'll come back to good lyrics, to real words, to words of upliftment.
How did you meet Jah Screw?
Someone from New York introduced me to Jah Screw. It was Jah Life who introduced him to me, and from that day on, we've made a lot of hits.
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