Vybz Kartel Recorded His Biggest Hit While Serving Life in Prison

The World Boss used a smartphone and a tablet to create some of the most impressive music in existence.

It is not a novel concept to create music while incarcerated. There have been a few individuals who have been able to drop bars while they were incarcerated, including Mac Dre, T.I., Hell Rell, and a few more. Vybz Kartel, a legendary figure in the world of dancehall music, was recently freed from jail after serving thirteen years of a sentence ranging from thirty-five to life. In a recent interview, he said that he maintained his profession by discovering several innovative ways to create music while he was behind.

During an episode of the Juan Ep Is Life podcast, Vybz Kartel participated in a video call with the hosts Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg. During the call, he discussed the first thing he did after being released from prison, which was to have sex with his fiancée. He also discussed how he has been spending his time, which includes eating healthily, working out, managing his Graves' disease, and making music. Additionally, he discussed what he has planned for the near future, which includes a series of performances around the world, including a massive one in Jamaica on December 31. On the other hand, the most startling aspect of the discussion occurred around twenty-five minutes into the broadcast, when they started discussing the enormous amount of music that Kartel released while he was inside.

"We're not trying to snitch on you, we're just so curious, we're fans," said Cipha Sounds after Rosenberg noted that a lot of his most successful releases happened during his time abroad. "We're fans," Cipha Sounds remarked. It was because of the large amount of music that Kartel had produced before he was sentenced to prison that he was able to continue his regular schedule of releases when he was initially incarcerated. According to Kartel, "During the first year, we had songs that were not released." “But then the songs ran out and we had to do what we had to do. That’s when I started filming behind bars.” He stated he used to record his voice on an Apple iPhone since the portable had “an amazing sound quality.”

To attempt and attain the highest sound quality possible when recording, Kartel stated he would utilize the mattress from his bed to replicate the padding present in a studio’s recording booth. “I would have the phone, like, 3 feet from my face and I would wrap the mattress around my head and record. It was crazy.” Afterward, he would construct a demo utilizing the voices from the iPhone and a rhythm playing on an iPad. He would then submit both to an engineer who would take all the components and put it into a whole song. You may also read this: Patti LaBelle & Common to Perform at DNC on Night 2

It’s all really stunning. But what’s most astonishing about that technique is Kartel claims it’s the same one utilized to produce what is regarded by many to be his biggest song: “Fever.” Released in 2016 as the single for Kartel’s King of Dancehall album, “Fever” became an instant smash and is currently his most-streamed song, notching more than 100 million listens on Spotify. Kartel stated he would record largely at night or wait until the guards were on their lunch break to record his voice, constantly keeping an eye out for those that were on patrol. “I’d still have to be watching,” he remembers. “So I’d [sing], ‘fever!’ and then I’d have to get up and look. It was wild. It was line by line!”