Ini Kamoze
(EYE-nee ka-MO-zee)
b. Cecil Campbell
October 9, 1957
Port Maria, St. Mary, Jamaica
For Ini Kamoze, the road to success has been arduous and he has undergone many substantial changes musically and physically since he burst onto the music scene in 1983 with his highly successful eponymous debut album for Island. Known as "The Hotstepper," Kamoze advocates change through what he calls "intelligent and constructive militancy" rather than random acts of violence.
Kamoze made his recording debut in the early '80s with a 12" single "Trouble You a Trouble Me" on Taxi and found immediate success. He then began touring as part of the Taxi Connection International Tour with Yellowman and Half Pint. During this time, Kamoze was 6' tall, reed thin and appeared too frail to contain his powerful stage presence. He followed up his first album success with Pirate, but the recording received mixed reactions and wasn't as successful. Kamoze then retaliated with several hit singles recorded on his Slekta label. One of the biggest hits from this period was "Shocking Out" which was eventually picked up by the RAS label in 1988. In 1985, Kamoze had greater success with Settle with Me, which produced such hits as "C all the Police" and "Taxi with Me." By 1988, Kamoze's successes became intermittent and his career erratic. Kamoze suddenly disappeared from the music scene. He returned with a new, more aggressive image in 1994, signing to Sony and exploded back into the charts with "Here Comes the Hotstepper." The song made its debut on the compilation reggae album Stir It Up from Columbia, and then showed up on the soundtrack of Robert Altman's feature film Pret-A-Porter. Produced by Salaam Remi, it was released as a single in 1995 and spent two weeks at the top of Billboard's Hot Singles Chart, and nearly four months appearing on various other charts. Kamoze made a video for the song and with his beefy, well-muscled physique and long dreadlocks, no longer fit the description of the liner notes on his 1983 debut album that characterized him as a "pencil thin....disentangled....six-foot vegetarian." With the success of his new single, Kamoze was now a gangster and began a series of promotional tours in LA. Kamoze refused to categorize his music and remained open to singing a variety of songs from different sources, but he took a decade long break before surfacing again. When he did, it was with Debut, a 2006 album that featured rerecordings of his early hits.
-- Courtesy (Sandra Brennan, All-Music Guide) --
 INI KAMOZE was born in Port Maria St. Mary 9th October 1957...A disciplined Libran...Raised in almost fourteen parishes but mainly in St. Elizabeth where he attended St. Elizabeth Technical High...Says he started singing from the minute he was born (while other babies cry)...Visioned Rastafari in 1976...Says it is man who creates God in their image and likeness...Pencil slim, freed, singled, and disentageled, a six foot vegetartian, believing that all food shouldt be eaten live - (uncooked)...Writes and arranges all his own music...Considers himself an (He)artist, not an entertainer...Writes plays and poetry and acts...Records on Mogho Naba, Taxi and Island labels...Aims to shake up Earth with his music...Ini Kamoze cools out in the hill around Spanish Town...Well, what else do you want to know? Ini Kamoze began his career in 1983 with "Trouble Yuh a Trouble Mi". Since then he has always been moving at his own cool pace, setting lyrical fashions rather than following them. Late in 1992, Ini and his longtime friend Sipoh, linked up with Salaam Remi, a gifted young New York DJ who has blazed a trail of schorching reggae-hip hop remixes. "Here Comes the Hotstepper," the multi-warhead bomb Remi and Ini had dropped, blew up way bigger than anything either had ever done before, simultaneously ruling the pop and R&B charts and setting off a six label war for the lyrical gangster. The song's success proves once and for all that you can't have too many hooks: the "Heartbeat" rhythm track, the Na-nana-na-na" chorus of "Land of 1,000 Dances," the sing-along murderer chant used by reggae lyricists from Lady Ann up to Shabba. But then again, one voice still got to make them all work.
Ini feels that reggae music contain a whole heap of elements. So it is easy for reggae artists to cross over. He has always been good at breaking down barriers. His original "Hotstepper" has become a classic in the dancehall.
-- Courtesy (Sandra Brennan, All-Music Guide) -- |
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