Image is everything. Just ask dancehall-reggae artiste Swabii who is aware of the importance of image so much so that he has released a video and single called ‘Image’ to underline its importance.
“Dancehall is the voice of the culturally relevant. It’s the sound and expression of a movement, a personification of real issues and subjects, which have been translated into music. An artiste’s image is a big part of that translation. That is why I am using dancehall to push my brand, Karma City, and my image to the world,” he said.
The single was released on the deejay’s own Karma City label 11 months ago, and visuals for the project has racked up over 240,000 views so far.
“The response has been incredible. In my music, I deejay about what I know, my past, my lifestyle, and I used the ‘Image’ video to cross promote my Swabii and Karma City brands, kicks, my t-shirt line. Image is everything,” the brash confident youngster said.
He said that Karma is an acronym that stands for Keeping Active and Relevant Meanwhile Achieving.
Born Swabian Brown, he grew up in Montego Bay St James where he soon cultivated a love for music. While at Chetwood Primary school, he was the lead singer on the choir. He created his first song at the age of 10 years old for a singing competition for his age group.
As he grew older, he began to experiment with other genres of music, as he discovered that he could sing, deejay and rap with equal aplomb. He soon gained a decent following at his Cornwall College high school, and he was so influential that he performed a song for the DaCosta Cup squad, and even did a rap song at his graduation.
He recorded his first song ‘Rougher Dan Dem’ in 2017 and finetuned his craft by writing several songs . In 2020, he raised the bar by releasing several songs officially on his VEVO channel people .
“People were shocked at how seasoned and professional I sounded but hours of hard work went into my craft,” he said.
He has continued to build his reputation one song at a time. He is known for singles such as ‘Pimp Daddy’, ‘Weed and Gun’ and the above-mentioned ‘Image’.
