Vegas VEGAS IS off to Europe, preparing the way for the release of his album in July. The tour, which began on April 19, is taking him into France, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, England, Italy and Denmark.
The album will be his second 'legal' album for Greensleeves Records based in England. He has had two albums released which he and his management team have not sanctioned. He's eagerly looking forward to this Greensleeves album, from which two of the songs were produced by Jamaica's most successful DJ, Shaggy.
Despite his heavy presence in the market, Vegas is still something of a freshman to the music scene. He has been around for four years and has managed to keep his fans satisfied while capturing the imagination of a wide cross-section of people.
"It has been a lot of hard work. It's not easy to keep finding hit songs, especially when you don't have the fortune of someone writing for you. That makes it a bit more difficult to balance your personal and professional life," he said.
Vegas has won a MOBO award in England and has scored hits on the British and Billboard charts with Heads High and Hot Gal. He has had to do some reckoning throughout his career and in recent times has found himself in imbroglios with fellow artistes.
Whereas the confrontations have been mainly lyrical, they have caught public attention and Vegas' persecutors have sought to keep the pressure on him. He knows he will be in for a hectic time when he returns home, as he's aware of the name-calling that has been taking place in his absence.
Vegas says he's disgusted with the state of dancehall music, largely because of the attitude of the artistes.
"The music business is being run like the drugs business. It's like a man will kill you for the slightest thing. Artistes are putting other artistes under pressure and that gives the industry in a similar situation to the North American East Coast West Coast confrontations which cost the lives of so many rappers.
Stop and think
"Artistes are verbally fighting in public; that reduces the level of respect that artistes get. When there are artistes calling radio stations to say that some people are getting too much airplay, artistes performing and other artistes are in the crowd booing, it makes you stop and think. That's why sometimes I don't even leave my home. We are here fighting to sell 10,000 records while Shaggy is selling over five million," he said with a sigh of frustration.
Vegas feels that his record company has done a good job of getting him out to the public. "I have decided that I can't wait for major labels to find me. I am putting everything into this upcoming album and I'll take it from there," he said.
What does he see for himself five years down the road. "Five years from now I might be a Christian. There's no telling how long I'd be prepared to stay in a music business which is operated like this," he said.
A.C.
