Vybz Kartel – God and Time

TJ Records/Vybz Kartel Muzik

Text: Davide Bor­tot

So, did we just wit­ness the most elab­o­rate album roll­out in music his­to­ry – or was it actu­al­ly pret­ty short, almost lazy, espe­cial­ly giv­en the weight of the project? Ever since com­ing home from 13 years in jail, Vybz Kar­tel has been talk­ing about fill­ing his role as the King of Dance­hall with appro­pri­ate­ly majes­tic releas­es. Big­ger some­how, more inter­na­tion­al, more pro­fes­sion­al­ly pre­sent­ed. In real­i­ty, though, he kept doing what he’d always done: tune after tune after tune after tune. Some of them indeed bril­liant, but the whole modus operan­di was more dance­hall hus­tle with a con­tent-cre­ator pow­er boost than the kind of stag­ing you’d expect from the glob­al icon he’s become. Then, at the end of May, Kar­tel rather sud­den­ly announced the ”most per­son­al and son­i­cal­ly expan­sive album” of his cur­rent era. A clas­sic press release, plus a trail­er reel with the fea­tured guests styled as super­heroes and a music video for the title track ”God and Time.” Album drops in two weeks, okay, byyy­eee.

That moment has now come. The album has been out since Fri­day, and – of course – we went in. Read on for a field report from the first week­end with ”God and Time,” as sub­jec­tive as it gets.

Friday

Around 750,000 songs are uploaded to Spo­ti­fy every week. Twelve of them fea­ture on ”God and Time.” (Two of the album’s four­teen songs were out before release – ”Pan­ic” with Shenseea and the afore­men­tioned title track.) So where to start with such an impal­pa­ble quan­ti­ty of music? Obvi­ous­ly with the star fea­tures, as has become the col­lec­tive impulse of the stream­ing age.

The thumb, inevitably, lands first on ”Hype Life” with Mava­do. The news val­ue of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two top dogs of the late 00s and ear­ly 10s – once bit­ter­ly at odds, now peace­ful­ly side by side – was tech­ni­cal­ly spoiled last year by DJ Khaled. Then again, his ”You Remind Me” also had Buju and Boun­ty on it. On ”God and Time,” we final­ly get the pure-strain sum­mit, and when the God’s ”Gul­ly” comes in ten sec­onds in, It makes the hair on your arms stand on end. Gaza meets Gul­ly, at last! What fol­lows is a drilled-up bad­man tune in which the two cel­e­brate the eter­nal hus­tle and the spoils of it. Mava­do deliv­ers the hook in near­ly accent-free Amer­i­can Eng­lish: ”There will nev­er be anoth­er me nor anoth­er you, mil­lion­aires from the ghet­to!” Okay, goes down fine, but also feels a bit stiff, the way it often does when two über-alphas play at being friends while qui­et­ly still run­ning their own lit­tle bat­tle.

So on to the Spice com­bi­na­tion ”Con­fes­sions.” Spice and Kar­tel have known and loved each oth­er for ages – this should be a total home game. And indeed, the tune con­tin­ues the proven for­mu­la of ever­greens like ”Ramp­ing Shop” or ”Con­ju­gal Vis­it,” some­where between mat­tress acro­bat­ics, sub­tle cheek­i­ness, Tik­Tok-ready dance inspo, and gen­er­al­ly uncon­di­tion­al good vibes. ”Stay For The Night” with Nige­ri­a’s Wiz­kid and ”Casi Casi” with Puer­to Rico’s Far­ruko also do exact­ly what they’re sup­posed to – but not an inch more. We’ve heard this before. With ”Casi Casi” it’s at least inter­est­ing how the beat briefly flips into reg­gae towards the end of Kartel’s verse, illus­trat­ing the Jamaican roots of reg­gae­ton’s world­wide takeover. Oth­er­wise I’d already for­got­ten the song by the time I skipped to the one with Skil­libeng. ”Addi and Skil­li, lyri­cal kil­la,” Kar­tel announces at the start of ”Try Again,” and that pret­ty much sums it up: two min­utes of syl­la­ble slaugh­ter that serve exact­ly that one pur­pose. Impres­sive, but also kind of… point­less?

Okay, maybe bet­ter to skim through the oth­er 749,988 songs first. Oh, a new Bay­ka with DJ MAC! Nice, more Bouy­on mad­ness from Miimii KDS and DJ Skycee!! And Major Laz­er, Nel­ly Fur­ta­do and Davi­do cooked up some­thing to clap along to for all the nump­ties invit­ed to one of those FIFA VIP lounges to make Gian­ni and Don­ald look like they had actu­al friends – yeah, I should prob­a­bly check that out, too.

That Bay­ka by the way is a whole vibe. Some­how more of a vibe than all those Kar­tel tunes I just heard. Just putting this out there.

Saturday

Okay, today there’s time. Time to real­ly sit down and lis­ten front to back – that much we owe Kar­tel after all these years. And in fact, the songs unfold dif­fer­ent­ly in the con­text of the album. What sound­ed a wee bit unin­spired and bor­der­line lame before, now makes sense as part of the puz­zle. ”God and Time” is clear­ly designed as the cul­mi­na­tion of unprece­dent­ed years: the ulti­mate album for the ulti­mate run. Kar­tel made this record for him­self, yes. But above all he made it for the cul­ture, out of a touch­ing­ly sin­cere desire that it might stand as tall as pos­si­ble all over the world.

Accord­ing­ly, TJ’s pro­duc­tion – real­ized with long­time allies like Trou­ble Mek­ka and Red­boom Supamix, as well as Raph Vivet and Zack Fos­taty of Mon­tre­al’s Gold Up Records, who worked on six tracks in total – is a show­case of mod­ern Afro-Caribbean music cul­ture. From auto­tune gospel and slick bed­room pop to traces of shat­ta, afrobeats and reg­gae­ton all the way to good old dance­hall, Kar­tel puts his ver­sa­til­i­ty on dis­play. There are no skips, but also no out­liers up, much less left or right. That is part of the con­cept. Kar­tel and TJ clear­ly want­ed to make music for every­one: music full of care, includ­ing the care not to put any­one off. Usu­al­ly that approach pro­duces art that does­n’t reach any­one either. But Kar­tel is Kar­tel – ful­ly indif­fer­ent is some­thing he’ll nev­er let you be.

For instance, ”God and Time,” is framed by the album’s two big per­son­al songs. Both deal – from dif­fer­ent angles – with the jour­ney Kar­tel has been on these last two years: from Saul to Paul: from the sick man with a life sen­tence, fight­ing for his place in a ruth­less­ly fast-mov­ing busi­ness against all odds, to glob­al sym­bol of sym­pa­thy and hope, with mil­lion-dol­lar pay­checks and gen­er­al­ly the best life he’s ever lived. ”God and Time” pack­ages this jour­ney as a tri­umph of per­se­ver­ance and resilience: ”They nev­er wan’ mi great long time / but mi say ’God and time’ long time.” The clos­ing ”Watch Over Me,” in turn, tells the sto­ry as a moti­va­tion­al piece for all of us, a reminder that a bet­ter world is pos­si­ble – from some­one who would know. In between, it’s most­ly about the earth­ly plea­sures that make God’s work tan­gi­ble in every­day life. Mar­ti­nis and bath­tubs full of bub­bles. Bed­rooms where no one’s sleep­ing. G‑Wagons pulling up and G‑spots get­ting the spe­cial treat­ment, the way Sidem gets the full princess pack­age, as if Kar­tel were a genie in a bot­tle. The album is also about why Kar­tel deserves all of it: because he’s the King, undis­put­ed. ”Mi stand alone like I’m Stone Love” – tru­ly noth­ing to dis­cuss. ”God and Time” is, in a sense, the stat­ue to the sta­tus. A new album from an artist still in full motion. But also a lega­cy for every­one who’ll one day hear their par­ents talk about 2026 as the good old days. What is not to like about that?

Sunday

Sun­day morn­ing, sun cut­ting through the win­dow, first thoughts of the day stir­ring. Wait, there was some­thing. What was it again? As ele­gant­ly as ”God and Time” slid by yes­ter­day, that’s how lit­tle of it stuck. What stayed with me most is a tune that, between all the star col­labs, the des­ig­nat­ed ”for the ladies” hits and the pro­gram­mat­ic bangers like ”Dance­hall Ting,” seems rather unspec­tac­u­lar. ”Round and Round” looks like hard­core stock at first glance. But the com­bi­na­tion of TJ Records engi­neer Mark Collinder’s neo-dunk dunk and Kartel’s catchy mis­chief sim­ply works per­fect­ly. The tunes with Wiz­kid and Skil­li also grow with every lis­ten. In them one can hear the expe­ri­ence of more than three decades and well over a thou­sand songs. Many of those songs have sound­tracked half of my life – and will stay for­ev­er. That I’m cur­rent­ly more excit­ed by oth­er music than what’s on ”God and Time” doesn’t, in part for that very rea­son, mat­ter much. The mes­sage is a dif­fer­ent one. More than any­thing, Kartel’s sto­ry is a reminder of the pow­er of dance­hall. For that alone, ”God and Time” is a big, an impor­tant album.

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