Portmore producer finds reggaeton hit

When producer Paul 'JJ Wizzle' Stephenson and his team from Yardstyle Entertainment were working on new beats, little did they know that one of them would evolve into a song that earned him his first entry as a producer on the USA iTunes reggae chart.

Mamacita, a combination of dancehall, reggae and reggaeton, was produced by JJ Wizzle and Tywann 'Rico Tayla' Taylor for Yardstyle, and Gregory Gayle of 2 Cuz Production. It was recorded by Costa Rican reggaeton artiste Toledo and Colombian artiste Lion Bigmao. It debuted at No. 7 on the USA iTunes reggae chart. The Portmore- based JJ Wizzle, who has been involved in music production for the past decade, shared that he and Rico Tayla were making some new beats in the studio when the latter "found a sound".

"So I reached out to some of my industry contacts with links in South America to find who had the matching vibe, and they found it with Toledo and Lion Bigmao," said JJ Wizzle. He described working with the Latin American artistes as "professional".

"They were both very professional, these are established names in music in that part of the world and they have their credentials," JJ Wizzle added. He said he was surprised at the song's entry on the iTunes chart.

"We were always hopeful still, but this response is surprising in many ways. Big up everybody who is streaming, playing or working with the vibe right now. We're just enjoying the love, and we are encouraged to share more love and good music with people," he said. JJ Wizzle honed his craft on local sound systems before venturing into radio for a brief period.

"Music has been a lifelong journey. Music is a passion, so from sound system days of making remixes, mixtapes and touring in high school, it was an automatic transition to voicing dubplates and studio engineering - then creating my first production with artistes like I-Wayne, Deva Bratt, Gyptian and Terror Fabulous, among others," he stated.

There are plans for more collaborations with international acts, including artistes from France.