Ce’Cile On How She Made Her Name As A Producer

Ce’Cile, the Jamaican singer behind several Dancehall hits for over two decades, has another side to her artistry. Lesser known, but equally impressive, is her work behind the scenes producing rhythms for herself and other artists.

Her production journey began when she leveraged her business skills to manage the Celestial Sounds recording studio in exchange for production knowledge from the owner, Steven Ventura. “I realized that the studio needed a manager as the studio wasn’t being run properly, so I offered myself to manage the studio for free with my knowledge of business and such ..I just said listen I will manage the studio and in exchange I will learn production from you,” Ce’Cile recalled during an interview with DancehallMag.

“He [Stephen] even taught production classes, we were the first studio to use Pro Tools in Kingston and were teaching students to use Pro Tools in the digital age. Steven kind of pioneered that, so I made a deal with them to manage and I would learn production,” she continued.

She soon co-produced her breakthrough song Changez on the Chiney Gal riddim, defying expectations by crediting featured artists and even giving them cheques from the profits—a rarity at the time.

“I took Skatta [Burrell] with me, went up to Princeville got the riddim from Leftside, sang Changez on it, wrote the song and thought it was a hit and I said Skatta we need to juggle this so we like called in some friends, people I know because remember I have been working at the studio for a while, we called different people like Bling Dawg, we link Sizzla, we link Ele, Ele was one of the first persons we linked to counteract my song and a lot of people thought we had beef with Ele but we actually sat with Ele and helped write the song,” she recalled.

“Skatta was the engineer, Leftside built the riddim and that was my first musical production the Chiney Gal riddim,” she said.  “It was put out under the production company CeCo production. Ce for Ce’Cile and Co for Cordel. We put it out under Kings of Kings production because Kings of Kings was known at the time and so it was strategic.”

The riddim featured 20 songs, including Any Gal Me Want by Bling Dawg, New Application by Elephant Man, and Give It To Dem by Sizzla.

“This is how I made my name in production,” Ce’Cile said.

“When I got money for the riddim, I actually gave them so I was calling in everybody fi dem cheque and they were like ‘what? Huh’ and one of my mentors or one of the persons I looked up to, I heard that’s what he did and that was Dave Kelly and I heard that he was one of the only producers who was giving artists a part of the master money,” she said.

Her second rhythm, Double Jeopardy, was another collaborative effort with Skatta Burrell and Leftside, released in 2001.

“We actually put this one out on our label now through Greensleeves,” she said.

Double Jeopardy featured tracks like Reasoning by Beenie Man, My Style by Hawkeye and a collaboration between herself and Mad Anju called Mad Bwoy.

“Over the years I have produced a lot of songs, been in the studio helping people to write songs, I have produced songs for other labels that I am affiliated with, I’m Waiting, I produced that song. I’ve produced a lot of songs but I kinda stopped doing rhythm productions when I had my daughter and it kind of put me a step back in terms of my own career so I’m pretty much just starting again,” she shared.

Ce Cile was also instrumental in Jah Cure’s hit single Sticky.

“I also had a hand in Jah Cure’s It Sticky Out Deh. It was a piece of song and I took it and I remember going in the studio with Peter and U had Peter sit down for hours rearranging that songs from scraps because Jah Cure actually recorded that song when he was in prison,” she shared.

“I also produce Mama with Christopher Martin,” she added.

She is now preparing for the release of her latest rhythm, still untitled but featuring one of her recent singles, Boss.

“I have about 8 songs on the riddim. You have Christopher Martin, you have Dyani, you have Gyptian, you have Popcaan, you have Lia Caribe who is a young artist I am working with, you have Sounbwoii who has the biggest song on Tiktok now called Pump Up and I have Keely who is also  a big producer on it,” she shared.