An eight-part series, titled World Boss: The Vybz Kartel Story, will premiere on December 16.
The initiative — a collaboration between SALT, Big Wave More Fire, and Gulfstream Studios — was created by Tahir Garcia and Sam Griesemer, with Nick Panama and Max Musina serving as executive producers.
The project’s management team also included local music and entertainment executives Cheraine Marshall and Abigail Rowe.
“The story itself is objectively interesting. You don’t have to know Kartel to be deeply invested in his story to appreciate it. Somebody who’s brand new [and] fresh can hear about him, can hear his stories, and it still be just as impactful,” Garcia told the Jamaica Observer.
With filming beginning in Jamaica in the summer of 2022, the production has taken the team across various landscapes and stories, building an in-depth portrait of Vybz Kartel that goes beyond the headlines.
The episodes will be strategically released, with each ranging from 40 to 50 minutes.
Meanwhile, Griesemer said that the project captures the essence of Vybz Kartel’s career.
“It’s really like [an] audio documentary. There’s a lot of different voices and different interviews that are interwoven into each episode. But there’s also music and original scoring and archival pieces pulled from various important moments in Kartel’s career. We’re particularly proud of it because it’s ambitious,” he told the Observer.
Griesemer, who hails from the US, noted that he was thrilled to undertake this initiative because Vybz Kartel is one of the most talented acts he has ever encountered.
“I come from a music producer background, so I had worked with artistes here in the United States like Kanye West and I had been doing a lot of work with Burna Boy, and I found out that Tahir and Serani were friends, which led to us taking a trip to Kingston and working with a lot more artistes. Coming from a producer’s background, and having worked with and been around some great artistes, the more I learnt about Kartel, the more blown away I was,” he said.
Garcia added that he hopes the podcast will create a trend for other creatives to help to highlight the untold aspects of Jamaica’s culture.
“I think one of the things that is important to me is for our culture to be presented at a very high level. I think a lot of times we end up doing things that could be elevated so much more, and part of the reason why is that people don’t know how much further it can go… What we’re really looking forward to is being able to showcase the different ways we can tell our stories in a new, fresh kind of way and, hopefully, inspire the people to want to do the same,” he said.
