The Midlands was one of the areas that showed love to West Indians when they arrived by numbers in England during the 1950s. Their culture continues to resonate with their descendants.
Among them is P.nology, a rapper from Coventry who also experiments with dancehall, reggae and most lately, ska. That sound helps to drive the remix for I Am, a song he did with American rapper Shifty P.
I Am (remix) is produced by Jamaican DJ Karim, the man behind the remix to Sean Paul’s 2003 monster hit, Get Busy.
P.nology’s parents are from Barbados, known more for its love of calypso and soca. But he has strong ties to ska.
“My uncle (Charley Anderson) being from The Selecter (ska band) means I’m from the ska generation, and have been the only artist in my city to have had the honors of blessing the stage with them and The Specials, a gig I won’t forget,” said P.nology.
The original version of I Am is R&B-flavored, pretty much like most of the songs on The Blacklist, his EP which is scheduled for release by March. When he decided to do a remix, DJ Karim was the logical choice.
He brought in Shifty P — who he first met over 10 years ago in Scotland — for the project. P.nology admits there was some apprehension at first.
“I didn’t know there was gonna be two versions of the track, the first EP was already mastered and mixed plus Shifty P wanted to be on the original. He didn’t even really feel the version he is on, but soon fell in love with it and understood what I was going with,” he disclosed.
To help push the remix for I Am, P.nology and Shifty P visited Jamaica last year. They did studio work with DJ Karim and filmed a video for the song in Negril.
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