Leftside, Sean Paul, Copper Shaun, and Clean Bandit are working on new music.
Dancehall producer/artiste Leftside, former of the duo Leftside and Esco, has been enjoying a lot of fun at the top of the musical food chain in recent months. The “Phat Punani” singer kicked off his beautiful run of form with a collaboration featuring Sean Paul titled, “Dem Nuh Ready Yet.” The song which was taken from his “Xcitement” album would not be the first collab with SP since the Grammy-winning artiste previously worked with Leftside on Want Your Body, a spin-off of Leftside’s original track. However, one of the deejay’s most commercially successful run this year has come through his double collaboration with New York rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine.
The controversial rapper borrowed the sizzling hook from Leftside’s “Phat Punani” and repurposed it for his own track titled, “Punani.” The new track has since clocked well over 17,000,000 views on Youtube alone. Leftside also got the chance to be featured on Tekashi’s Tattle Tale album on a track titled, “NINI.” The track has also found some traction on Youtube, with over 6 Million views and has become a staple on TikTok.
While Leftside did not produce the tracks off 6ix9ine’s album, it seems he is now flexing his producing muscle with a few other heavyweights. Leftside recently shared an image of himself in the studio with members of the British electronic music group Clean Bandit, as well as Copper Shaun, Sean Paul’s official DJ, and “producer 4 Dutty Rock n Coppershot Music labels.” While not captured in the picture, Sean Paul was also tagged to the post, hinting that SP has another joint with the Clean Bandit crew. Their previous collaboration was the smash hit “Rockabye,” which has now been streamed over 2 Billion times on Youtube.
Leftside captioned the post he shared as follows: “Good vibe and energy. Good music. #Leftside @duttypaul @cleanbandit @coppershaun. #musician #producer.”
Craig “Leftside” Parks, is the son of the legendary bass player Lloyd Parks, who heads the “We The People” band. As explained in a previous interview, Leftside honed his craft from watching members of his father’s band, which he would later be a part of. He then went on to play drums for the likes of Bounty Killer and was even a sound system owner at one point. As for his first major start in making riddims, Leftside explained that he started when he got an old drum machine from his older brother. “It was a Roland, and that’s all I remember—it was very old,” he said. “I was always a fan of the oldschool dancehall like Dave Kelly era and Steely & Clevie and Sly & Robbie. So I used to build tracks like theirs. I was just messing around, and my brother told me that I had the talent to build riddims.”
Along with multiple hit riddim compilations such as Chiney Gal, Double Jeopardy, “Dem Time De,” and Martial Arts” riddim, he also helped to producer Elephant Man’s “Pon Di River Pon Di Bank” and “Signal Di Plane.” His work was also featured on Bounty Killer’s 2002 Ghetto Dictionary, Wayne Wonder’s 2003 No Holding Back album, and Sean Paul’s multi-platinum album The Trinity. This is just the tip of the iceberg of Leftside’s musical genius.
