When R&B icon Prince died on April 21, little did he know that within weeks there would be a reggae cover of his popular 1984 hit Purple Rain.
It has been three months since Prince’s passing, and Jamaican singer Bunny Brown is releasing his tribute to “His Royal Purpleness” with a version of the popular track with the help of ‘Rhythm Twins’ Sly and Robbie. “We were asked to do this tribute by WBAI — a radio station in New York. They called us and asked us to do this as they have a recorded interview with Prince and the music to go with it, particularly a reggae version. So we went into the studio and recorded this and it came out very well. We have Sly and Robbie on drums and bass, Lenky Marsden on keyboards, Rupert Bent on guitar; it was mixed by Rory Baker, and Cherine Anderson and myself are on background vocals,” Brown told Splash.
Prince
Brown disclosed that this is a precursor to an upcoming project that he is working on with Sly and Robbie as well as the team, and One Pop Studio.
“We are working on a project — Sly and Robbie Presents Bunny Brown. The first thing we are doing is releasing an EP. This will be ready by September/October of this year. It is going to be original songs set to a catchy reggae beat. We will be stepping up the format in which music is being presented these days. When you look at the international artistes sampling our music and making a killing, we have to tap into that. So this project, with Sly’s influence, will present music with a different coloring, dance tempo, and the tracks will have strong lyrical content,” said Brown.
Sly & Robbie
He added that the EP will comprise eight tracks and will include a reworking of Queen Majesty, which he recorded as Chalice in the Palace with renowned toaster U-Roy.
Meanwhile, Brown is bemoaning the lack of good songwriters in Jamaica, but was hopeful that the ‘Mowtown Model’ being introduced by Sly will bear fruit.
“Sly’s dream is to create a situation like Berry Gordy did at Motown, where you have a set of writers designated to compose songs for various artists. There are persons out there who are great singers and should just concentrate on that and not seek to write tracks of their own. We are falling internationally simply because our lyrical content is weak; we must do something to bring this up to speed,” Brown added.
— By Richard Johnson
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