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All Music Guide:
For Ini Kamoze, the road to success has been arduous and he has undergone many substantial changes musically and physically since he burst onto the music scene in 1983 with his highly successful eponymous debut album for Island. Known as "The Hotstepper," Kamoze advocates change through what he calls "intelligent and constructive militancy" rather than random acts of violence.
Kamoze made his recording debut in the early '80s with a 12" single "Trouble You a Trouble Me" on Taxi and found immediate success. He then began touring as part of the Taxi Connection International Tour with Yellowman and Half Pint. During this time, Kamoze was 6' tall, reed thin and appeared too frail to contain his powerful stage presence. He followed up his first album success with Pirate, but the recording received mixed reactions and wasn't as successful. Kamoze then retaliated with several hit singles recorded on his Slekta label. One of the biggest hits from this period was "Shocking Out" which was eventually picked up by the RAS label in 1988. In 1985, Kamoze had greater success with Settle with Me, which produced such hits as "C all the Police" and "Taxi with Me." By 1988, Kamoze's successes became intermittent and his career erratic. Kamoze suddenly disappeared from the music scene. He returned with a new, more aggressive image in 1994, signing to Sony and exploded back into the charts with "Here Comes the Hotstepper." The song made its debut on the compilation reggae album Stir It Up from Columbia, and then showed up on the soundtrack of Robert Altman's feature film Pret-A-Porter. Produced by Salaam Remi, it was released as a single in 1995 and spent two weeks at the top of Billboard's Hot Singles Chart, and nearly four months appearing on various other charts. Kamoze made a video for the song and with his beefy, well-muscled physique and long dreadlocks, no longer fit the description of the liner notes on his 1983 debut album that characterized him as a "pencil thin....disentangled....six-foot vegetarian." With the success of his new single, Kamoze was now a gangster and began a series of promotional tours in LA. Kamoze refused to categorize his music and remained open to singing a variety of songs from different sources, but he took a decade long break before surfacing again. When he did, it was with Debut, a 2006 album that featured rerecordings of his early hits.
Wikipedia:
Cecil Campbell (born 9 October 1957), better known by his stage name Ini Kamoze ( /ˈaɪ əˈoʊ/) is a Jamaican reggae singer. He is best known for his signature song, "Here Comes the Hotstepper", which was released in 1994, and subsequently topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also reached number one in Australia and New Zealand, and number four in the UK Singles Chart.
Career
He made his first single, "World Affairs," in 1981. Kamoze released a 12-inch single "Trouble You A Trouble Me / General", released under the name Inai Kamosa.
His self-titled debut album was released in 1984 as a six track mini-LP on Island Records. In the album notes he describes himself as a "pencil thin... disentangled... six-foot vegetarian". The album includes the song "World a Reggae (Out In The Streets They Call It Merther)" which was to be sampled by Damian Marley on his 2005 hit, "Welcome to Jamrock". The album was recorded with and produced by Sly and Robbie, with whom he also toured internationally along with Yellowman and Half Pint. By 1988, however, Kamoze had effectively disappeared from the music scene following lukewarm reactions to his intermittent releases.
Kamoze founded his own label, releasing a compilation album Selekta Showcase which featured a popular Kamoze single titled "Stress". Four years later he released his next album, 16 Vibes of Ini Kamoze, which sold well.
In 1994, Kamoze released the song which would become his signature, "Here Comes the Hotstepper". Adopting another nickname from the song title, Kamoze would become known as the "Hotstepper", from the patois for a man on the run from the law. The song was recorded with Philip "Fatis" Burrell and initially featured on a reggae music compilation Stir It Up, produced on the Epic label. "Here Comes the Hotstepper" was not an entirely new composition, having roots in the song "Land of 1000 Dances", which was a #1 R&B hit for Wilson Pickett in 1966 and was first recorded by Chris Kenner in 1962 and reprised in 1963 by Fats Domino. The song appeared on the soundtrack to the fashion-industry satire feature film Prêt-à-Porter. "Here Comes the Hotstepper" remains Kamoze's only US number one hit (see Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 1994).
Kamoze's career after this high-water mark featured the album Here Comes the Hotstepper which was released in 1995, and featured the production work of Salaam Remi.
Both the riddim (known as "World Jam") and the hook of Damian Marley's 2005 hit, "Welcome to Jamrock" were sampled from Kamoze's 1984 track "World-A-Music", giving Kamoze co-writing credits. The opening lyrics — "Out in the streets, they call it merther" — has been sampled in countless drum and bass and dubstep tracks. His dub version of "Here Comes the Hotstepper", otherwise known as "I'm Steppin' it Hotter This Year", released in 1993, remains a dancehall anthem.
In 2006, Kamoze recorded and released a double album, Debut, on which he re-recorded a number of his tracks. Debut was released on the 9 Sound Clik label, with which he was closely associated.
The artist's most recent album release is 2009's 51 50 Rule, an all-new studio release. The CD had tracks such as "Rapunzel" (feat. Maya Azucena) and "Hungry Daze." The album also had some guest features from Sizzla ("R.A.W"), and Busy Signal ("Ta Da Bang"). This was his second album released on the 9 Sound Clik label.
