Sample King reintroduces himself to local fans

In his youthful days, entertainer Sample King idolised Bounty Killer so much that when he decided to become an artiste, he called himself Bunny Killer.

Knowing, however, that he had to chart his own course, he changed his moniker to Sample King, following a successful commercial he did for a friend.

That was over a decade ago. Since then, the Jamaican-born entertainer, who has opened for artistes such as Gyptian and Serani, and has toured with the likes of Mavado and Sizzla, has been looking to establish himself as a musical force locally.

When Gangnam Style hit back in 2012, the Canada-based artiste did a remix that received some attention in Jamaica. Then in 2018, he landed a collaboration with Ding Dong and Bravo Ravers. Today, having landed a collaboration with Bounty Killer and Wayne Marshall, Sample King is looking to make his mark locally again.

"Over the past five years I have just basically been working on my craft, trying to make the transition from being a Canadian artiste to being an 'artiste', meaning going to Jamaica and promoting and doing more music in Jamaica. The music industry has changed a lot since I decided I wanted to do music. Nowadays, you don't need a big producer to get you a hit song," he said. "Now, you can even produce yourself and get your music out. You have more platforms out there, thanks to the Internet, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. Everybody have a chance in music now, it's a fair game, an open field. That's a big difference and I plan to capitalise on it."

Cement his place

The artiste admitted that since the COVID-19 outbreak, his plans to cement his place in the local industry suffered a huge blow. Still, Sample King said he did not allow the pandemic to totally shut down his comeback plans.

"This might sound weird but for me the pandemic was a blessing in disguise. I took the negative and turned it into a plus because when I realised everyone was locked into the house and everybody was online, I started networking on the Internet and on social media and I got three popular songs out of it Kitty Kat, which (Tony) Matterhorn and Foota Hype and all the popular deejays are playing, and a song called 5G and Weh Yuh Wah We Fi Do with Bounty and Wayne," he said.

Sample King said the collaboration was like a dream come true because he has looked up to Wayne Marshall since he was with the Bounty Killer-led Alliance.

"A bad artiste, and so it was a privilege for me to work alongside him. And yuh see Bounty Killer? Me can't even explain wah dat did mean. Put it this way, imagine yuh get fi do a song wid yuh favourite artiste of all time. A so me feel when me get the opportunity to work wid Killer," he said.

Sample King plans to keep the momentum going with a special release this Valentine's Day called Locked In. He also said he has "over 30 songs ready fi di road".

"So expect videos, songs and just us pushing, pushing, pushing, so when the world open, we flying," he said.