2 months ago
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It is not often that parents of entertainers are marked present at the launch of their albums, but last Wednesday night at Janga’s Soundbar on Belmont Road, Jay Edge The Jamaican Singer had both his mother and father waiting to embrace him as he reached the Finish Line, as the project is titled.
Although his mother, Novelette Williams, didn’t want her picture taken, the dedicated churchwoman smiled as she spoke highly of her son.
“I am here to support Jermaine,” Williams told The Gleaner, calling her son by the name she gave him.
“Although I am a born-again Christian, I chose to still come and support him. Normally I wouldn’t be at a place like this ... but as your children you have to support them. I am very proud of him. I asked him from time to time when is the album coming, even as I continue to pray for his salvation ... his re-commitment. But I am so happy and proud to know that this is the time. And the songs are really good, and that’s one of the reasons why I am here. If the songs were on the negative side ... or boogo yagga as we Jamaican call it, I would not be here. He knows how I raised. He chose reggae pop, or pop reggae as he calls it. I am proud,” shared Williams, who prefers the name Sis Novelette.
Jay Edge’s father, Clive Williams, was equally proud and beamed as he posed for pictures with his son.
An upbeat Jay Edge was launching his 12-track album Finish Line, and despite getting off to a late start - his band took the stage at 10:49 pm for an advertised 8:30 p.m. start time - the audience was more than willing to work with him as he delivered songs from the project. During his set, he brought on one of his collaborators, Devin di Dakta, who added to the excitement not only with the combination track, but also delivering a few lyrics on his own, as he commanded the “talkaphone”.
Jay Edge The Jamaican singer, is also a musician, producer, songwriter has been working on his career professionally for 14 years. Focused and sticking to the values his mother instilled in him, the Grammy-nominated audio engineer has delivered a body of work that is quite impressive. He shared on stage that during a recent interview with Jenny Jenny, the broadcaster asked in amazement why she was just hearing of him.
“ Finish Line is not my first album I did an album earlier but this is the album that we put in the most work in terms of promotion and marketing. We have Dre Day who did all the mastering ... and he’s a Grammy Award winning engineer who did Koffee’s album. And we have my record label, Jaw Records, who worked on Black Uhuru’s Grammy-nominated album, so that has helped me to really mould my sound that I have now, which I would like to consider reggae-pop. I would like to say that I am the pioneer of that genre here in Jamaica,” Jay Edge told The Gleaner.
Noting that there are songs on Finish Line which go back as far as a decade, he explained the significance of the name.
“ Finish Line speaks to being at the end of a particular journey ... but at the end you have to start something new, so it’s not the end of the career. If you even listen to the track, it is about overcoming obstacles,” he said.
In addition to Devin, there are also collabs with Monifa Goss and a talented artiste out of St Ann named Rizzen. Explaining that he “masterminded the whole production”, Jay Edge was quick to add that he was ably assisted by “the greats in terms of musicians”, among them, Damian Marley’s drummer, Bam; Beres Hammond’s saxophone player, Kenroy Bromfield; and Stingwray.
Quite proud of the finished product, Jay Edge reflected on the winding road to the Finish Line and the acceptance that accompanied it.
“On the journey, I started thinking ‘Yow, why yuh so bipolar? Yuh have some songs sounding like pop and others completely different’. It was even a task to decided how we were going to transcend ... move from one track to another ... because part of the album is pop and by the time yuh reach the end, it’s some roots rock reggae music. So to even make that transition was something that we had to meticulously organise. But I realised that you have to believe in yourself ... believe in what you are doing. If it is different, don’t be afraid of being different. Nothing is wrong with that,” Jay Edge said confidently.
English (US) ·