5 Questions With Dane Ray

Waldane Hampton, better known as Dane Ray, is a 32-year-old music producer and recording artiste quickly rising through the ranks of dancehall and reggae. Though his musical journey began at an early age, influenced by his father and grandfather, Hampton’s breakout hit came in 2020 with Lockdown by Koffee. Since then, the Ocho Rios native has been steadily climbing, winning a Grammy for his contributions to Koffee’s 2022 album Gifted, receiving a National Youth Award for Excellence in the Arts and Culture category, and earning multiple entries on the Billboard 100 list. Now, with the release of his début album Hope Yuh Memba, we caught up him for 5 Questions With...

1. When the world hears your full album, which track do you want them to really stop and take notice of?

It’s a whole body of work enuh and mi have a lot of big artistes and me have a lot of small artistes on the list. The closest answer me can give you for your question is that me woulda really wah people fi spend the time and listen the young artiste dem pon dah album yah. It’s not just about Koffee, Popcaan, Stefflon Don and Tommy Lee. Me really try fi put some of the best crop of the young generation pon da body of work yah so me cyah give you a one song. But you can go listen the Koffee song still.

2. Though you’ve been highly awarded in the music fraternity, what is one thing you still want to achieve?

Something weh me still wah fi achieve is just fi help dancehall and the culture and the genre get pon the main stage. We’re like the fireworks of the world; Jamaica a like the fireworks, we have the fastest people. Wi culture and wi influence very strong but we nuh really get the recognition fi it. So now that we have more technology and we have more educated and a smarter set of producers coming through dancehall like myself, we affi just use those things and attributes and try push the genre and the culture to that next level so that we can compete with a Afro Beats and compete with a Pop or even Reggaeton.

3. You work in a lot of genres, what genre do you want to break into next?

World music. That’s the main genre because all of my thing them have a twist weh everybody a go appreciate it. Nuff music a come from Europe and America but me nuh want it have a one genre. Music a change now where you have a genre that is world music. You have a Nicki Minaj weh wah voice with Skeng or Skillibeng. That doesn’t make it dancehall and that doesn’t make it hip hop but it’s more of a world music. So that is where me a try focus back, all music comes together as one.

4. Your album features a wide array of artistes, from Nhance to Koffee. Does it ever feel challenging to work with such diverse artistes on one project?

No, because the Nhance song is a hit song,. The Koffee song is a hit song. They have similar topics. Koffee a say ‘I want you to be more than my friend’ and Nhance a say ‘yow she ungrateful and she do me wrong’. So it’s all about love and emotions. So while you just done bawl fi Nhance, Koffee ago build you up back with the same emotion and by the time you listen it we gone go party. So, yeah me understand say it kinda different but me get bored with albums when it just have 10 song and a 10 sad songs. Some of we fellow industry players released projects and is a lot of sad songs on it and it never really do as well as we did a expect. So the mixtape dem, the album dem affi have a nice likkle variety. Probably immediately people nah guh realise weh you a do but them ago love [it] overtime because a seven days inah a week and you nah guh sad the whole seven.

5. What’s one thing that people would be surprised to know about you?

The legacy weh me a try build, that a weh me wah people get fi know. We a try leff a legacy pon dancehall and the culture so kids dem can come hype and brag seh ‘yow me fada is this and that’ like how Junior Gong dem can do it same way. Me woulda want them fi know seh we a work hard towards making a great impact pon the culture forever. And not just fi trending or fi couple billboard [spots] or nothing like that.

shanel.lemmie@gleanerjm.com