Vybz Kartel Hails Early 2000s as Dancehall’s Greatest Era

Dancehall superstar Vybz Kartel has declared the early 2000s the genre’s greatest era, arguing that more than two decades later, songs from that period continue to dominate parties and command arenas.

Kartel reflected on the period during a late-evening interview on ZIP 103 FM ahead of his highly anticipated Building Club Return event at the National Arena in Jamaica on August 29.

“I mean, others will say, well, they can’t judge each era because the music is there, so yeah. But for me, I think it’s the number one era,” Kartel said.

His reasoning, he explained, comes down to longevity.

he said it this is the same era that rules the parties “and the arenas.”

The early 2000s represented a particularly vibrant chapter in Jamaican Dancehall. It was a period that saw Kartel himself emerged on the scene with a new take on dancehall and it produced records and riddims that have remained fixtures at parties, stage shows and Dancehall events.

Asked what that period of Dancehall was like for him personally, he recalled being a young artiste focused primarily on making music and enjoying the experience.

“I mean, we were just playing it by ear because, remember, we were young and we just doing music, having fun with it, you know what I mean?” Kartel said.

The period would eventually prove pivotal to his career. Kartel emerged as one of Dancehall’s defining voices and later became central to one of the genre’s most intensely followed rivalries — the Gaza-Gully feud involving his camp and that of Mavado.

“At the time, even the Gaza-Gully feud was a big thing as well, you know what I mean?” he recalled.

Beyond the artistes and rivalries, Kartel believes something about the Dancehall experience itself was fundamentally different.

He pointed to the relative absence of smartphones and social media as one reason audiences were able to immerse themselves more deeply in parties and performances.

“One thing, the element back in those days, the party was lit because there weren’t much cell phones and nobody never have no social media,” Kartel said.

Instead of experiencing a performance through a phone screen or immediately thinking about capturing content for social media, he suggested patrons were more focused on the artiste, the selector and the music unfolding in front of them.

“Nobody [was] in the party and a video the artiste on stage while he’s on the stage,” he said.

For Kartel, that created a more immediate relationship between performers and Dancehall audiences.

“So I think we felt the music more, you know what I mean, direct from the artiste to the people.”