Ras-I gets love for jazz-laced ‘Crazy Over You’

There is an ethereal mystique about Ras-I’s Crazy Over You. The jazz-laced production, which incorporates blues chords, impregnated by brass instruments, also features poetic contributions from artistes Runkus and Royal Blu. Co-produced by his Ras-I Musique label and Abidon Campbell, the song has maintained its spell a year after its release, and hopes are that this will be strengthened through the Taqueth-directed visuals, which premièred last week.

“We’ve actually been trying to do the video for one year now but our schedules wouldn’t allow it and we never had the right person to shoot at the time,” Immanuel ‘Ras-I’ Kerr told The Gleaner. “Tamara (Taqueth) is a good friend of mine and she came to me and said she wanted to do the video for free because of how much she loves the song. It was literally love that surrounded this whole project and the response has been beautiful. Every hour, I’m receiving messages and calls from people saying how they love the song, it has really grown on people. The video gives it another gear so it’s reintroducing the song to people, a lot of Jamaicans still don’t know it.”

Shot in the misty magic of Holywell Recreational Park in St Andrew, the storyline depicts the conflicts of love faced by co-star Amanyea with each artiste at different timelines. Ras-I opens the track with honeyed vocals on the chorus, which he said was actually birthed after a game of football.

“I was literally just singing the melody after a ball game; it was a ballad at first and then Warren McCain (photographer) and I decided to give it a more neo-soul, jazzy feel,” he said.

McCain also recommended turning the track into a collaboration.

“I sent it to Royal Blue and Runkus and everybody came with a different story for their verse, and it turned out to be a beautiful song of a journey through love,” Ras-I stated. “In my verse it’s the story of the woman complaining that I need to open up about my feelings, while Runkus sings about giving her what she wants but she is not used to it so she doesn’t know how to act. In Blu’s verse, she brings him peace of mind as she has finally found what she is looking for.”

He added there was not much promotion done for the track, but revealed that things will change this year.

“People have been playing it on the radio but we mostly reposted it on social media because of everybody’s schedule,” he said. “This year, everybody come together and we’re all making a statement, so get accustomed to hearing us a lot more.”

The track is slated to appear on his début album, Tsojourna, scheduled for release sometime this year.