Nigerian afropop royalty Mr Eazi and massively influential producer Dre Skull (Vybz Kartel, Popcaan) have announced plans to release the dancehall-driven joint mixtape Yard & Yanga later this year, via Dre Skull’s Mixpak Records and Eazi’s emPawa Africa. The project rollout launches today with the release of “Lambo,” a hypnotic bashment banger featuring the unmistakable vocals of dancehall icon Vybz Kartel.
With a title that references both a popular patois colloquialism for Jamaica as well as the Nigerian Pidgin term for showing off, Yard and Yanga is an afro-diasporic celebration highlighting the longstanding link between West African and Caribbean music, and the ways in which they interplay.
Years in the making, the mixtape is the result of the longstanding friendship between Mr Eazi, who helped popularize Afrobeats globally through hits like “Leg Over” and “Skin Tight,” and Dre Skull, the producer behind some of modern dancehall’s most celebrated releases including Vybz Kartel’s Kingston Story (2011) and Popcaan’s Where We Come From (2014) and Forever (2018) albums. Mr Eazi and Dre Skull previously collaborated on “Sekkle and Bop” (also featuring Popcaan), and last year’s effervescent dancehall pop single “Dance Pon Me.”
Dancehall has, quietly, long been an ingredient in Mr Eazi’s sound, dating back to his very first singles in the early 2010s. “In an alternate universe, I would have been an Afro dancehall artist,” explains Mr Eazi. “This is not Afro dancehall, this is dancehall but my own interpretation.”
Vybz Kartel made for a natural collaborator on “Lambo,” as not only is he dancehall’s most celebrated and popular contemporary artist but he also has enjoyed a long-running and fruitful creative partnership with Dre Skull, dating back to the now-seminal 2009 single “Yuh Love” and 2011’s critically acclaimed Kingston Story,