Vybz Kartel recorded and released some of his biggest songs to date in prison, including the classic “Fever.”
The dancehall legend recently shared how the hit TV series Gossip Girl inspired one of his biggest hits, “Fever.” The TJ Records-produced track was released in May 2016 and has since surpassed 100 million combined views on YouTube. There aren’t a lot of dancehall songs with over 100 million views on YouTube to give you a sense of how big the song was.
Vybz Kartel shared that he was in prison at Horizon Remand Centre watching Gossip Girl on TV when he took a particular interest in how the show started. “A Horizon me deh inno and me a watch a show name ‘Gossip Girl’, a series,” he said on Brandon Music Review. “But every time the show start or it done the white gyal say ‘XOXO Gossip Girls.'”
Kartel noted that the show didn’t invent the phrase but that’s where he got the idea to start the song with that line. “Not to say that a them invented it because remember say from we a youth we a write XOXO in a tree wid we and we girlfriend a converse and them thing deh, same Tik Tok too,” he added. “So me a say dah style deh bad and it commercial. Remember a that’s why the people them, especially people around the world did kind of love Kartel and set me a part. The way we can articulate we lyrics them and give the dah foreign style deh.”
The “Fever” deejay continues, “Because think ’bout it me say ‘XOXO my love is very special if you want it you can have it, but don’t take me for granted.’ A bare English that inno. ‘So much I did not say am from Portmore that’s in Ja, we can do it on that beach there’ straight English you get again.”
Vybz Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, was released from prison on July 31, 2024, after being incarcerated for almost 13 years. The dancehall star won an appeal in the UK Privy Council earlier this year after his attorneys successfully argued that he was not given a fair trial that ended in a conviction in 2014. During his prison stint, Kartel says he has never given up hopes of securing his freedom because he has always maintained his innocence.
The Portmore deejay is getting himself in shape ahead of his first post-prison, Freedom Street, show on New Year’s Eve at the National Stadium in Kingston. The promoter of the event, Downsound Entertainment, says tickets are almost sold out, and no tickets will be available at the gates.
“Fever” has been certified Gold in the US and Silver in the UK.
