Dancehall Veteran Admiral Tibet Working On His First Album In 20 Years

Veteran Dancehall singer Admiral Tibet says he’s working on a new album, his first in over two decades. According to the Leave People Business Alone singer, while he has been recording singles over the years, he believes an album from him is long overdue.

“We doing some singles… but differently, what is more important is an album, which I don’t want to say much about it but we already start an album – me and a producer from Canada,” he explained during a discussion with Reggae Interviews.

“It’s like over two decades now an album hasn’t been released with Admiral Tibet.  I don’t release no album, no producer release album with Admiral Tibet over two decades now, like 20 or 22 years or something like dat.   So I think it needed right now.  An album is needed from Admiral Tibet right now,” he emphasized.

Described as the most consistently conscious singer of his age, Admiral Tibet, who is now 63 years old, has released seven nine studio albums, namely War in Babylon, Reality Time, Separate Class, Excitement, Things that You Do , Time Alone Will Tell and Determination.

Released in 2003, his last album, Determination consisted of 15 songs, including Be Thankful, Letter to Mama, Why So Greedy, Rich Don’t Care and Where is The Love.

Admiral Tibet recorded his first song for producer Sherman Clacher, titled Babylon War in 1985 and subsequently began recording for the late Winston Riley where he recorded the iconic Leave People Business Alone on the Techniques label.   Some of his other Dancehall classics include Don’t Try to Diss Me, Gone Crazy as well as Want Everything on the Lonely riddim and Deh Pon Mi Guard.

He was a staple act at King Jammys, where he recorded songs such as Chase Them Jah in 1986, the mega-hit Serious Times in 1987 and his debut album Come into the Light in 1987.

The remix of Serious Times, featuring Ninja Man and Shabba Ranks in the 1990s, shortly after their infamous clash at Sting 1990, when the Don Gorgon beat the Grammy Kid in front of a capacity crowd at the National Stadium, proved to be one of the singer’s biggest hits yet.

In March 2009, Admiral Tibet, whose given name is Kenneth Allen, told The Gleaner that Bobby Digital had come up with the idea for the remix with Shabba and Ninja immediately following the clash, which he knew was an instant hit.

The original song was recorded at King Jammy’s Waterhouse-based studio in 1986, and Bobby Digital, who was the recording engineer at the time, told him the song was an excellent one.  According to Tibet, he recorded the song on the same day that he heard the riddim which was a “natural fit” as all that was required of him was to “adjust the melody”.

He had also explained that he did not hear the remix until after it was completed and that the two deejays did not meet in the studio, and instead had recorded their verses separately.

During the interview, Admiral Tibet was asked about the ability of artists from his generation to do commanding performances at huge festivals, and whether this stems from their skills being honed in their early days performing as sound system deejays, as well as whether “the younger artistes of nowadays have that same sort of edge”.

To this question, the St. Mary artiste responded in the negative.

“No…  It’s true, because hear wha a happen now.  Wi a come from di days as weh mi she, before we guh into the studio, we were singing on sound systems.  So we were trained; fully trained, you know, before we go into the studio.  And this is why artistes in our era, we are active on the stage and we can do hours and hours and hours,” he said.