Mr Eazi and Dre Skull have announced plans to release the dancehall-driven joint mixtape Yard & Yanga later this year. The project rollout launches today with the release of “Lambo”, a hypnotic bashment banger featuring the unmistakable vocals of dancehall icon Vybz Kartel.
With a title that references both a popular patois colloquialism for Jamaica and the Nigerian Pidgin term for showing off, Yard & Yanga is an Afro-diasporic celebration highlighting the longstanding connection between West African and Caribbean music, and how the two traditions intertwine.
Years in the making, the mixtape is the result of the longstanding friendship between Mr Eazi, who helped popularize Afrobeats globally through hits like “Leg Over” and “Skin Tight,” and Dre Skull, the producer behind some of modern dancehall’s most celebrated releases, including Vybz Kartel’s Kingston Story (2011) and Popcaan’s Where We Come From (2014) and Forever (2018). Mr Eazi and Dre Skull previously collaborated on “Sekkle and Bop” (also featuring Popcaan), as well as last year’s effervescent dancehall-pop single “Dance Pon Me.”
Dancehall has quietly long been an ingredient in Mr Eazi’s sound, dating back to his very first singles in the early 2010s. “In an alternate universe, I would have been an Afro-dancehall artist,” explains Mr Eazi. “This is not Afro-dancehall; this is dancehall, but my own interpretation.”
Vybz Kartel was a natural collaborator on “Lambo.” Not only is he dancehall’s most celebrated and popular contemporary artist, but he has also enjoyed a long-running and fruitful creative partnership with Dre Skull, dating back to the now-seminal 2009 single “Yuh Love” and continuing through the critically acclaimed Kingston Story (2011).
“Kartel is such a generational talent, and I had no doubt he would bring a special energy to this record and complement Eazi’s infectious hook,” says Dre Skull.
U.K.-based illustrator Kione Grandison designed the single’s cover art, a hand-drawn image inspired by both West African and Caribbean folk and street art, seamlessly tapping into the shared visual sensibilities of the two cultures.
