Reggae Stars Alborosie and Collie Buddz Team Up For New Single “Ginal”.
May 27, 2021 | Natasha Voncastle |
“Ginal (featuring Collie Buddz)” is the kick-off single to the new Alborosie album, For The Culture, dropping on back-to-back Fridays. “Ginal,” is a Jamaican slang term to describe a trickster. The song is illustrated with cutting and humorous lyrics about people who talk too much (‘mouth ah massi’), that they will “smile inna yuh face an’ wah take yuh place.” To this reality, Alborosie sings “chattings run road like a Taxi / glued to my word like epoxy / no carry news / laba laba / me ah no foxy….” The digital single for “Ginal” is released May 28th.
The collaboration was born out of a mutual respect between the artiste/ producers. During a recent media listening session via Zoom, Alborosie shared that he had recently voiced a track that Collie Buddz produced on the CaliRoots Riddm. Collie Buddz, responded that his first time listening to “Ginal” he “could feel it,” The Bermudian reggae artiste first appeared on the music scene in 2007, and since has had several chart-topping hits including “Come Around,” “She Gimme Love,” and “Blind To You.”
Friday June 4 is the release date for the full Alborosie album titled For The Culture, with 14 new songs written, produced, and performed by Alborosie. Guest performers on the project are Collie Buddz, Jo Mersa Marley (“Ready”), Quino of Big Mountain (“Where Do You Go”) and Wailing Souls (“Life To Live”). The release is accompanied by multiple music videos for the focus tracks and singles with a series of visualizers dubbed ‘Visual-i-Jahs,’ concieved and directed by Alborosie and long-time creative partner Tony Fisher, to support the release of the album.
In February 2021, the Alborosie Dub Station studio effects plug-in was released in collaboration with gear maker Audiothing. Since then, Alborosie has recorded several live dub sessions demonstrating or utilizing the device, under the moniker ‘Dub Mechanic’ and uploaded to his Pupaalbo YouTube channel.
Alborosie has teamed with the Government of Jamaica to raise awareness for the issue of Human Trafficking. In 2020 he wrote and produced “Shadows After Dark,” featuring a who’s who of Jamaican vocalists to get the message out. The track has been played on mainstream radio in the U.K., The U.S., Italy, Canada, Germany, and others.