Snow First Saw His ‘Informer’ Video While He Was In Jail

Snow says he first saw his video for Informer—regarded as one of the best-selling Reggae and Dancehall singles of all time—while he was incarcerated.  During his recent sit-down with DJ Vlad on Vlad TV, Snow masterfully illustrated why it’s a mistake to judge a book by its cover. Turns out, the Caucasian fusion rapper had ‘Street Cred’ – ridiculous amounts of it.

For starters, Snow’s past, as revealed in the interview, was anything but pure and unimpeachable.  The Canadian belonged to a crime family, with his mother, father, uncles, brothers, and sisters being gangsters. In fact, in 1989, Snow went to jail after being charged for two attempted murders, though he ultimately “beat the charge”, he told Vlad. Snow was also locked up and spent a year-and-a-half awaiting trial after being charged for beating someone with a crowbar, a charge he plead guilty to and did a year for. He also shared with Vlad that while he was just 14, he was before the courts for armed robbery charges.

When asked by Vlad if he had done music before being incarcerated, he explained: “No. I’ve never been in a studio or nothin’. I would just go to dances, like Jamaican house parties, and take the mic and sing Cocoa Tea and all these guys’ songs. I didn’t wanna be a singer. I was just doing it for fun and loved Reggae music. It just captured me.” His disinterest was soon converted with a visit to New York, specifically Jamaica Avenue in Queens, where he met Shan, a producer.

Shan had made a trip to Jamaica Avenue to buy weed and saw Snow, who was rumored to be a good singer. “Shan said ‘Yo, I heard you could sing, let me hear you,’” Snow told Vlad. After being asked to give him a sample, Shan was impressed with what he heard and invited Snow back to his house. “So Shan actually taught me everything I know about the studio and that’s where I did the album – Lonely Monday Morning, Informer and all that. I also did the video for Informer,” Snow shared, “and by that point I had never been in front of a tv/camera before but there I was shooting a video. I then signed to Warner Brothers.”

Snow shared that he returned to Canada to face his crowbar charge and was detained. As a result, he wasn’t around when the album was being mixed, nor was he around for the editing of the Informer video. To make things worse, though he was credited for the one year spent on remand on the acquitted attempt murder charge, the judge indicated he would be adding another year to Snow’s overall sentence.

“I was like ‘Alright that’s cool’. I didn’t even think the music was gonna do anything anyway so I was like, ‘I had fun with Shan and them’. They were all in court with me so I told them ‘bye’ and went to jail for a year.”

While serving time, Snow got word that the music he had worked on was steadily being released in the US. Not long after, following a phone call one day, he was told that the video for Informer was being shown on Rap City, the day’s equivalent of BET 106 and Park. Snow insisted that his video was not out yet and feared he may have been mistaken for Vanilla Ice or some other white rapper. That weekend, however, after Movie Night in prison, Snow ultimately saw his video for Informer for the first time behind bars, and pretty much became a celebrity in prison because of it. “I got out of prison to a limousine and by then, the song was number one in the world and on the Billboard chart.”

The song spent 25 weeks on the Billboard chart, seven of which were spent at No. 1.  It was certified Platinum in the United States, back in 1993.  His first album 12 Inches of Snow’ peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, spending a total of 38 weeks on that chart.

In 2019, Informer was sampled in Daddy Yankee’s monster hit Con Calma, which featured freshly recorded verses from Snow himself.

“I wanted to pay tribute to the classic,” Daddy Yankee told Rolling Stone, “and the best way to do that was to bring the man who made it.”

Con Calma has over 2.5 billion views on YouTube.  It peaked at No. 22 on the Hot 100 and also spent 25 weeks on the chart.