BY RICHARD JOHNSON—
Observer senior reporter—
Elephant Man—
IT could be Ding Dong and Elephant Man who go up against each other in the next Jamaican edition of Verzuz.
Co-creator of the musical duelling platform, American hip-hop artiste Swizz Beatz, hinted at the possible pairing on Monday as he spoke to Ding Dong during an Instagram Live session.
Swizz Beatz then asked viewers to respond by posting Jamaican flags if they were in agreement. The screens then lit up with the black, green and gold flags.
The American hip-hop artiste mentioned to Ding Dong that there were more than one billion impressions on Instagram during the near-three-hour broadcast of the Beenie Man and Bounty Killer battle, which registered traffic of over 3,000,000 viewers, with as many as 473,000 viewers at any one time.
“There is no way we could have done a Verzuz and not paid tribute to Jamaica, where it all started. I felt like this was my gift to Jamaica, thank you. I just hope that Jamaica does the right thing with it now. People are still talking about it… Mi still mash up, recovering… Another great thing was that Jamaica was trending for something positive. Generally, the only times a country like Jamaica is trending is when something really horrible happens and to see that Jamaica was being talked about for the love of the music was something special for me… This is gonna be hard to top,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the impact of the matchup between dancehall heavyweights Beenie Man and Bounty Killer on Saturday, left Swizz Beatz and Timbaland swooning over the show put on by the Jamaican duo.
“The reggae joint wore me out,” said Swizz Beats on Monday following another Verzuz battle between 90s boy bands Jagged Edge and 112.
The battle between the boy bands was fraught with technical glitches and failed to live up to the level of excitement created by the Jamaicans, 48 hours prior. This led Swizz Beatz to comment that it was going to be hard for anyone who was coming after the Jamaicans.
This sentiment was echoed by Timbaland.
“I feel like after you saw that you just know you’ve got to be on point… Jamaica!!… We got to have Digicel, let’s call them immediately,” said Timbaland.
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