5 Questions With Cashflow Xtreme

Born on September 28, 1988, Ernesto Mitchell is the youngest son of the Jamaican music producer Father P. Going by the moniker, Xtreme, Mitchell’s early interest in music was an expected progression in his house. With the support of his music-loving parents, Mitchell soon joined forces with his older brother, Cashflow Neil and close friend Cashflow Rinse to create Cashflow Recordz. Through this endeavour, Mitchell would have a hand in many of the dancehall hits that dominated the airwaves in the 2010s, like RDX’s Kotch, Denyque’s Summer Love, Vershon’s Inna Real Life and Vybz Kartel’s Life We Living. As their new collaboration with Busy Signal, Happy Birthday, solidifies itself as a classic, Mitchell caught up with The Gleaner for this week’s 5 Questions With….

1. You are from a musical family. If you weren’t in music, what would you be doing?

Well, I am a videographer. I’m also a director so apart from doing music, I direct videos. I have a company called Xtreme Arts so I shoot music videos, that’s my second love. I got into videos from doing music and wanting to shoot videos for our songs and with the help of my father buying a small camera at the age of 10 or 12 I got a love of videography.

2. You have been involved in some of the most iconic songs in Jamaican dancehall history, specifically in the 2010s. How do you remember that era?

That era was a lovely era. Music was just emerging. You had soft songs, sad songs and everything. We had Vybz Kartel’s Life We Living, Konshens’s Realest Song. We also worked with I-Octane, we did Puff It, No Love Innah Dem. We had the riddim called Bus Stop. So that time of music, dancehall was emerging from dancehall into trap. It was a time that I really loved.

3. What is your favourite song on your playlist right now?

I have a lot of favourite songs. My favourite song right now would be Busy Signal’s Happy Birthday because it’s a song that I produced of course. It’s one of the biggest birthday songs right now and Demarco White Sugar Look Like Salt on my playlist.

4. Outside of dancehall, what other genre would you like to explore?

I like afrobeats. It’s closely meshed with dancehall because it has a lot of elements with dancehall beats in it, so I would prefer to go into afrobeats.

5. What can we look out for from Cashflow Recordz right now?

You can look out for a lot of things. We’re working on some upcoming projects. We have the Zip It Up riddim out with Cham, Fire Now and Vershon’s Zip It. So you can look out for more upcoming songs and beats from the entire family.

shanel.lemmie@gleanerjm.com